CRE_Investor wrote:I have no inside information other than a brief discussion with a former high ranking person from Amazon's real estate department, but based on his insight I'm calling my shot right now that Atlanta ends up winning HQ2. The next tier cities would be Philly, Boston, or DC. I think they want to be in the eastern time zone with better access to Europe (major growth initiative) and have a headquarters presence on both sides of the US.
Atlanta is the only real threat to Dallas's bid, but their traffic situation and hideousness weather hurts a lot. Also I dont think it has any advantage to Dallas for labor pool, in my opinion Dallas has an advantage there, and SEC schools are largely jokes academically outside of a few, Texas A&M being one of the exceptions...which is a point in favor of Dallas. Really Atlanta's only major advantage is being on the East coast should that be what Amazon wants, at which case no city outside of the East coast ever had a shot and this whole thing is just a farce. And politics in Georgia have many of the same issues of Texas, and likely worse if that is a factor. Then there is the sticking issue of racism still being alive and well there doesnt help either, though I dont see it as big of an issue in deciding where to locate an HQ.
But if they dont want to only be on the East coast and this is a true open contest....Philly doesnt have a shot. Sure it has done a lot to improve itself but the city of brotherly shove is too expensive to live in, shortage of available land, traffic, and issues of being able to house 50k employees easily on top of how much more it costs to operate and develop land there vs Texas.