technology Amazon HQ2's Location?

[Troblems 5,620]

For those who have been following Amazon's movements, they recently bought Whole Foods, and dropped prices as much as 43% in some places. They own the largest cloud hosting application platform as a service (aPaaS), Amazon Web Services. They also have their initial launch site, Amazon.com, a juggernaut in and of itself. There's talk to breaking up the company, buuuut that's not what I'm interested in. Amazon is looking to make for itself a second home outside of Seattle, here in the United States, and possibly Canada. According to Forbes Amazon is looking for:

• A metro area with one million or more residents
• A stable and business-friendly environment
• An urban or suburban location with the potential to attract and retain strong technical talent
• Communities that "think big" when considering locations and real estate options
• Close proximity to a major international airport
• Access to mass transit

Now, my want would be for Amazon to put its new location here in Austin. Currently they have a shipping location here, as well as Austin being a huge tech location. Unfortunately, the Dallas Fort Worth area is the closest Edge Network Location for AWS. We don't have a huge amount of mass transit, or a way to fix that easily. Honestly, I don't think we'll be picked.

However, if Amazon were smart, they would choose Detroit. Amazon could get their reputation back by saving Detroit. Detroit was abandoned by the last generation. Amazon and this generation could save it. Land is cheap. It's close to Canada. Close to an international airport. I guarantee that they would get huge write-offs from the government for SAVING A CITY. Currently the population is sitting at around 670,000, but I guarantee that as soon as Amazon announced that they were building there, people would move there in droves. Again, they don't even have Egde Network Locations, but they're a hop, skip, and a jump away in Toronto, Canada. 

Unfortunately, Detroit's mass transit is about as bad as Austin's, or so I've read. Their city school systems...suck. That last could be easily fixed by bringing a major company like Amazon to the city though. Because besides Amazon, it would bring other businesses. Perhaps I'm beating a dead horse, and I'm just a small voice on the internet, and I'm aware there are better picks, like Atlanta, Denver, and Dallas, I'm rooting for the little city that could. The one that could use all the help it could get. Go Detroit!

[Jeric 46,867]

Since you mentioned Detroit I'm tagging @Batbrony. I personally see some upside to that particular selection for the much devasted tax base and infrastructure. As par for the course here are some curious angles I worded for Ford and loved it. I have an affinity for Detroit, Dearborn, and Livonia. 

With the rise in 30+ adults getting boot camp certifications and entering the development field, there is a built in desire to reimagine oneself. Since this is Detroit it likely will be a soft ramp up which would mitigate any disruptive influence that comes from siphoning talent from existing companies. One developer jumping ship can have a huge negative production impact. 

The immediate benefit will be in it's real estate market which is insanely depressed. Move enough people into the city and you could start to see some stabilization. Cater to the older types (not quite my age though) and you have a greater impact to surrounding businesses who are already struggling. Also cheap homes ... higher income ... it would be a boon for some. 

The political ramifications are huge, but I'll save those in my back pocket for now.  One would be an Amazon partnership with Chevy and/or Ford.

This move could be the first bright news to hit the historic city. 

[Batbrony 16,056]

1 hour ago, Jeric said:

Since you mentioned Detroit I'm tagging @Batbrony. I personally see some upside to that particular selection for the much devasted tax base and infrastructure. As par for the course here are some curious angles I worded for Ford and loved it. I have an affinity for Detroit, Dearborn, and Livonia. 

With the rise in 30+ adults getting boot camp certifications and entering the development field, there is a built in desire to reimagine oneself. Since this is Detroit it likely will be a soft ramp up which would mitigate any disruptive influence that comes from siphoning talent from existing companies. One developer jumping ship can have a huge negative production impact. 

The immediate benefit will be in it's real estate market which is insanely depressed. Move enough people into the city and you could start to see some stabilization. Cater to the older types (not quite my age though) and you have a greater impact to surrounding businesses who are already struggling. Also cheap homes ... higher income ... it would be a boon for some. 

The political ramifications are huge, but I'll save those in my back pocket for now.  One would be an Amazon partnership with Chevy and/or Ford.

This move could be the first bright news to hit the historic city. 

*gets warm, fuzzy feeling from Jeric having so many nice feels for Detroit and *cough cough BEST STATE cough cough* Michigan*   

Is true, Detroit can always use any extra boost it can get and we would readily take it.  The state of Michigan as a whole is doing just fine, but right now most of the real money is on the western side of the state or in the north.  Recreation, microbreweries, cities like Grand Rapids with old money from families like the DeVoses but also a lot of exciting economic opportunities, these are Michigan staples.  But I think the rest of us Michiganders would certainly like to see the once Paris of the Midwest return to its former glory to some extent, and Amazon creating an HQ there would probably do the trick for sure.

[Kaneki 1,073]

Indianapolis (my city) may meet those requirements. Our metro is about 2 million people, plus the state has been getting real business-friendly, attracting companies to come here by giving tax incentives and other things as well. Plus, we already have one of the largest Amazon warehouses in the world here (Amazon IND1, located in Whitestown, Indiana), so that could be a plus.

Amazon IND1 is over a million square feet, and much of Amazon's stuff already ships from there, so why not Indy?

A link to that warehouse on Google: https://goo.gl/maps/vZooqG2xZ3T2