I'm extremely curious what the cities who were working closely with Amazon think of this development, as now it seems that they'll be getting half the jobs for their concessions. Additionally, the reason cited for splitting their new HQ is the lack of enough tech talent, which means that their concessions may have been for naught if they didn't have enough talent for Amazon in the first place.
Some of the cities had incentives that were at least partially linked to headcount; like there are rumors that Chicago/Illinois proposals would route Amazon HQ2 employees state income tax into the incentive fund.
A lot of the economic development policies passed in the name of HQ2 offered incentives in the form of stating, if you bring x number of jobs to y location, you get z tax break (where it wouldn't just apply to amazon).
I was hoping for a significant cooling of the Seattle housing market with a full fledged hq2, but it appears it will be seattle first for quite a while I’d guess.
The Seattle housing market is already cooling faster than anywhere in the country, and has been for a while (newspapers tend to be a few months behind in this type of news):
Its got a very high perch to cool down from. There's definitely a seasonal element to the current slowdown - price drops are happening, but prices are still up 5% YOY. I'm hoping for a correction or at least 0% for a little bit.
Looks like the github wsjUnblock repo got nuked at some point and the most recent version doesn't work on wsj anymore. Does anyone know if it's still alive (under active development) anywhere? If not I'll probably start poking around and see if I can get it working again.
> It makes me wonder if this is another negotiation tatic by Amazon to get the final city to shell out more incentives.
Alternately, Amazon has liked pitting cities against each other so much, that they decided to keep doing it forever. "City A, we're looking to start a major new project up. City B is willing to offer X, Y, and Z if we launch it in the City B office, are you willing to beat that for us to open it in your office?"
Agreed. It certainly seems like this is the case and the end result would be both cities lurching towards becoming massively under Amazon's powerful thumb and dependent on it in the long run (think the Walmart method of dealing with businesses but... slightly bigger).
I suspect you are correct; this is a way to make the two cities compete to please / to accommodate / to benefit Amazon and get the headlines that they are Amazon's choice for X, Y, Z reason. Amazon's gravity is quite strong, and its tactics very honed.
White flight refers to white residents (and usually with it, investment) leaving racially-mixed American cities for the racially homogeneous suburbs en-masse during the civil rights movement and the race-riots that occurred in major cities toward the end of that era.
Wow, you and I couldn't see things more differently. Sports teams are doing this to cities constantly. Build us a new sports stadium at your expense that will be used 8-10 times a year. We'll take the concession revenue, the parking revenue, etc. Maybe we'll let you have a tax on food.
Maybe we'll move away before the city is done paying for the stadium. See St. Louis and the Rams. It's rare that a city like San Diego refuses to buckle under.
In Portland, the City of Portland makes up the difference between the minimum wage and $15/hour for the employees who work the MLS Timbers games.
Nearby in Beaverton, Nike's property was guaranteed by the state not to be annexed by the city so they wouldn't be required to pay property taxes. There was muttering that maybe Nike would pack up and move if this didn't happen.
What I would love to see is that cities and states are not allowed to offer subsidies to companies. If you want to move here, great. How many stupid things like what Scott Walker is doing with Foxconn have to happen before something like that is prohibited?
In a show-down between corporate pros and local politicians, I know who's going to come out ahead.
These items go to a vote. I, like the commenter you're responding to, appreciate this mobility and community choice. That a smaller set of citizens can choose abatements at their own expense is much better than it being done in a capital far away. Many times it's great that self-determinism, be it propositions, bonds, sports teams, taxes, etc, is welcomed at the community level and is always scary when curbed by larger entities. There are levels and limitations of course, but to say the community's financial choices here should be outlawed is unfair.
Isn’t that what this is, in the end? The supposed reason for courting these deals is always the jobs it brings, and the reason for jobs is to attract new residents, or retain existing ones.
>It makes me wonder if this is another negotiation tatic by Amazon to get the final city to shell out more incentives.
Especially given that they are ramping up offices in Vancouver, BC, Northern Virginia, they have a presence in Austin thanks to Whole Foods, and probably other locations I'm forgetting off the top of my head, it has seemed to me like this "HQ2" business is somewhat of a red herring. Even if they do anoint some city as "HQ2" they've already put their eggs into more than one basket.
I’d bet money on the two being Crystal City, VA and Denver.
The DC suburb makes sense for an East Coast hub, and it’s smart to be near the capital for DoD contracts. And Denver is a nice, growing tech city with an attractive lifestyle.
Crystal City is a nightmare from a commuting perspective and an awful place to live.
Its more or less a ghost town since BRAC moved out a bunch of agencies and contractors a few years ago. This had the effect of hollowing out what little independent retail / dining there was there as most of it catered to the office lunch crowd.
From a commuting perspective, its right across the river from DC which makes it very difficult to get to from a driving / bus perspective. Taking the metro is somewhat better but would require a transfer for many people.
On the other hand, having lots of available empty office space just ready to go sounds like a bonus. Retail will move back in once there are customers to serve.
> Its more or less a ghost town since BRAC moved out a bunch of agencies and contractors a few years ago. This had the effect of hollowing out what little independent retail / dining there was there as most of it catered to the office lunch crowd.
That seems to match south lake union in Seattle, which used to be warehouses and car dealerships.
Crystal City is a nightmare from a commuting perspective only if you're dead set on driving, and even then it depends very much on where you're coming from. I've lived on the Yellow/Blue lines south of DCA, now I'm in west Arlington, and I've done plenty of commuting along that corridor by bus/train/bike/car (Mt. Vernon/4 mile run/ W &OD trails for biking/running as a commute is very effective).
Also there's a relatively high concentration of metro stops as is for a section that's not urban/DC core, and Potomac Yard is finally coming in in a couple years as well. Plus a pretty high commercial vacancy and a bit of marginal land that can still be developed. I mean, the dream would be they come in there and somehow spur additional transit down Columbia Pike, but that's probably a bit too much to hope for.
It's also already not easy at all to buy a home there (speaking as someone who bought a place in Arlington a few months ago), so it must not be too awful to live there.
I'd place that bet on Northern Virginia as guaranteed and Chicago, Atlanta or Dallas as the other most plausible, with Toronto being a slight possibility since they're going with two.
Colorado is nice, but it's nothing compared to the Texas population and economic boom. 28m people in Texas, versus 5m in Colorado. Texas is also building high-speed rail, which will end up linking all of their major cities, an immense bonus. Denver / Colorado also sit in the middle of a dead zone in terms of major populations, along with being slightly too far west from any major ports (Dallas or Austin get you close to the Gulf).
Chicago is far larger than Denver to draw talent from (including more surrounding populations) and far larger to draw general labor for. All have relatively good real-estate prices (comparable to Denver), plenty of tech talent, and are large shipping hubs. All three also have slightly lower tech industry wages than Denver. Toronto's tech and non-tech wages are far lower than all of these. Toronto gets them out of the US, but still very nearby, as a talent immigration hedge (political insanity hedge).
Dallas / Texas gets an interesting nod, because Bezos has deep ties to Texas. He's putting one of them in Northern Virginia because of WaPo, his second home there, and the DC politics. It might make sense that he'd favor Texas for similar self-beneficial reasons.
Atlanta, Dallas and Chicago are more diverse versus Denver, which is likely an important consideration for a mega corporation like Amazon. Chicago and Dallas are dramatically more diverse.
Toronto's extreme real-estate prices, double that of Atlanta and Chicago, is likely a big negative.
I give Denver a zero shot at landing one of the HQ2 sites.
It won't be Atlanta. They didn't even hook up public transit to the new Braves stadium because it would, to quote the county commissioner, "attract a certain type of person". The MARTA there is known as Moving Africans Rapidly Through Atlanta by that crowd.
Which is such a part of the metro that the Atlanta Braves' stadium is there.
Like it's only not annexed by Atlanta because they made a ten foot wide city called Chattahoochee Plantation on the border of the county.
EDIT: It's like saying that Arlington isn't part of DC, which while technically true, misses the whole point. Atlanta proper is only about 1/10 the population of the metro.
It's funny to see how so many people in Atlanta insist that Amazon will reject the city due to (insert pet political issue here). Of all the reasons for not selecting Atlanta, if that turns out to be the case, Cobb acting like they've acted for at least half a century isn't going to matter much. Cobb was Cobb when UPS relocated to Atlanta. Cobb was Cobb when the Summer Olympics came to Atlanta. Cobb was Cobb when NCR moved to metro Atlanta. Cobb was Cobb during all of Home Depot's growth (and Cobb is where Home Depot chose to hq in the metro).
CEOs love to play games for the publicity but in the end Bezos given the choice between (pet political cause regardless of what it might be) and a billion dollars will go with the cash. He doesn't care if employees can't duck out of work to take the train to see baseball.
It's less that it's a pet political issue, and more that it's an example of how a core requirement of Amazon (strong public transit) simply isn't present in Atlanta. Amazon really depends on city services to fill in the gaps of their amenities, and quite frankly, real estate paid for parking spaces is real estate wasted by not being desks. You can see this in the design of their Seattle infrastructure, abd they've been explicit about these requirements in their requests for bids.
That the reason for the lack of usable public infrastructure for white collar workers in Atlanta is due to overt racism on the part of government officials is just the cherry on top.
> Texas is also building high-speed rail, which will end up linking all of their major cities, an immense bonus.
Denver already has light rail connecting the airport, Boulder, and Golden as well as other metro areas, as well as amtrak, shuttles, and other public transport to the mountain regions for skiing and other recreation. It's also among the most bike-friendly cities I've seen in the US, with routes extending extremely far and having a vibrant cycling culture. Workers commute with all of these options every day.
For being a smaller metro, Denver-Boulder's tech scene is much more vibrant than DFW's. Amazon _already_ has tech offices in both Boulder and Denver.
Among Texas cities, Dallas also doesn't have the tech talent pool and established network of transplanted tech companies that Austin already has, let alone the politics that many west coast tech workers (and Bezos) find attractive (although that point is kind of moot, because either way it's still Texas).
I don't really think it's going to be Denver, either. I'd be really disappointed if it's Dallas. I expect Chicago, Boston, DC, or Atlanta.
There is NO light rail link from Denver to Boulder, only buses. The money raised from Boulder residents via sales tax increases was spent on other lines.
There won't be for decades either. When they sold off 36, there's a clause that they can't build anything that would cause a loss of revenue for that toll road without reimbursing Plenary.
On the plus side, the buses do leave every ten minutes, with plans to increase that to every five minutes within the next few years.
>Among Texas cities, Dallas also doesn't have the tech talent pool and established network of transplanted tech companies that Austin already has, let alone the politics that many west coast tech workers (and Bezos) find attractive (although that point is kind of moot, because either way it's still Texas).
Austin's tech worker population is peanuts compared to the East or West coast so I don't think it gives them much of an advantage over Dallas.
> Denver-Boulder's tech scene is much more vibrant than DFW's
I'm not sure what this is based on. Do you mean like startups? Or general tech companies? Or large companies with significant tech presence? So much of this thread has devolved into these kinds of suppositions and city comparisons. Why do these discussions always come to this, with everyone rushing to defend one metro and demonize another?
> Dallas also doesn't have the tech talent pool and established network of transplanted tech companies that Austin already has
I think this may be making the same mistake of assuming a few satellite offices of a few large companies makes a difference. Or that you hear more about startups on this site and others gives a certain impression.
I've copy and pasted this comment from an earlier comment I made, but I really do think you have the wrong preconception of Dallas.
The writing is on the wall — Texas will turn blue sooner than later.
Dallas is a liberal stronghold in Texas, and in absolute numbers turns out more for Democrats than any other city in the state, including Austin (percentage-wise Austin wins by +5%, I believe). Unlike Austin, which is gerrymandered in the state legislature, every single state/county/city official in Dallas is a Democrat.
Dallas is also a gay rights stronghold, representing the only county and city in Texas, again including Austin, with non-discrimination clauses in employment and housing for LGBTQ+ individuals.
Furthermore— Texas is considering bi-partisan legislation to legalize weed. Dallas has already decriminalized it, and the State, while backwards in other regards, hasn’t indicated it will force Dallas to back down on that measure. Dallas also has stricter gun laws than the state of Texas. Dallas, unlike Austin, actually has the political capital to push back on state laws, because Dallas isn't gerrymandered nor represented by 4 Republicans like Austin is.
Texas has a long way to go, but I think if you would step in Dallas you would learn to leave your preconceived notions of it at the door.
I believe an HQ2 would speed up Texas’ change.
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As far as public transit goes, I'm sorry, but DART rail blows Denver out of the water. I'm personally familiar with both systems, and Dallas also has the funds and political capital to keep expanding. In addition to an already extensive LRT network, we have a streetcar network with 2 lines (soon to be 3), we're building a second subway Downtown to double system throughput, we've started construction on another 26 mile line to the airport (we already have 2), and construction on the high speed rail from downtown Houston to downtown Dallas starts in February.
Having multiple "HQs" spread across three timezones would be interesting from an operations point of view, since Amazon uses the "follow the sun" model for on call on some teams.
I’m biased, but I’ve had a feeling in the beginning it was always going to be Dallas in some capacity:
1. DC area may have three potential cities, but Texas is the only other region that has two cities being considered
2. DFW airport is one of the US’s busiest airports, and American Airlines is headquartered there, so you can get a direct flight to anywhere in the country in 3 hours tops. Amazon already has multiple warehouses here and also ships freight through DFW and other airports in the area.
3. Public transit (Dallas has the largest light rail network south of DC), continued investment, world class museums, and honestly a pretty hip city with a lot of activity in the center, not unlike Seattle. Also lots of millennials moving there for its low cost of living and ample jobs.
4. You can’t beat Texas’ business environment — Bezos even praised it when he spoke at a business conference at SMU earlier this summer.
5. Establishing two offices will give Amazon influence in two places, and covering Seattle (West Coast), DC/NoVa (East Coast), Texas (South) gives them nationwide influence.
Can you elaborate on the Texan business environment? This is often lauded by Texas politicians. What makes it different and possible, since it obviously isn't being duplicated in other cities.
They have low taxes in comparison to other states, partially because they can rely on taxes and licensing fees on mineral extraction (oil) to fund things that other states would have to fund thru other taxes.
Texas is one of the highest tax states in the union. Simply because there is no income tax does not imply low taxation.
For instance, property taxes in Williamson County (Austin suburb, extremely conservative, are at 3.08% for new construction homes. Compare that to any other state.
... that's compared to +1.5% in SF/Alameda on houses 2-3x the cost and worse size/quality (and up to a 1.5% transfer tax in some cities).
California has the highest state income tax, near top sales tax rates and if you are a recent home buyer some of the highest absolute property taxes (thanks to the price dynamic described above). Plus you get screwed on federal SALT caps, mortgage interest deduction and maybe AMT.
I'll gladly take your 3% if there were more options for interesting places to work and it was not 110 degrees in the summer.
That's comparable to the 2-3% in suburban Illinois (where I live now) and Ohio (where my family is from) and both of those states also have state income tax on top of that.
some familiarity with running a small business in Ca. : Every little thing your business does potentially has some permitting, licensing fees, taxes, and/or approvals necessary at the local, county, or state levels, with lots of complicated form filling needed and a DMV level of service & timeliness in response. If you have a physical presence you're doubly screwed, because that potentially ropes in local land-use, health and labor departments, which can take months to turn around an approval. Its basically impossible to keep in compliance unless you have dedicated lawyers and accountants looking at each project.
My understanding is that Texas doesn't have a lot of that or at least its minimized.
The reason "business environment" can't be duplicated or reversed because it's like a legal equivalent of tech debt code rot where also a large group of ops employees (politically influential bureaucrats) earn their life's income on the busy work the system creates.
> Public transit, continued investment, world class museums, and honestly a pretty hip city with a lot of activity in the center, not unlike Seattle. Also lots of millennials moving there for its low cost of living and ample jobs.
Minus museums, this could be said of plenty of other cities that are in places with less wacky politics. Museums don't mean a thing. Low cost of living as a requirement means a relative low cost of living compared to the West Coast.
I'd prefer to see Denver as the location over Dallas. The State of Texas needs a swift kick in the ass regarding their state politics, specifically the war on women, and their continued absurd policies regarding weed. The last thing they need more of is to be rewarded for unsustainable tax policies.
Except the net migration flow in recent decades has been from "blue" to "red" states, not the other way around... do you have any source for the claim that those moving are disproportionately not "educated" people? https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2017/04/24/the_po...
California migration is disproportionate this way. In-migration to CA is high income and high educated vs out-migration is middle to low income and less educated.
I believe I've seen these trend analyzed in other states as well (low and middle income earners have the most to gain by moving to lower cost of living states, so it's a common pattern).
> In-migration to CA is high income and high educated vs out-migration is middle to low income and less educated.
Perhaps you should clarify that this is true of legal in-migration. Wanna take any guesses as to how wealthy and educated the folks crossing over the border on a continual basis are?
Everyone's heard of Texas Instruments, but the products that make them famous aren't exactly an advertisement for attracting skilled staff. A TI calculator is less than $1 worth of functionality, $100 of "you can use this on standardized tests without being considered a cheater", and $50 of brand recognition. The whole selling point of the product is that it's just as bad now as it was 25 years ago.
That’s like saying GE can’t atteact skilled staff because people only know them for their light bulbs. The sort of people that TI needs to attract will know that they are far more than just old-fashioned calculators.
I'm saying "ever heard of Texas Instruments?" isn't a good argument, because while everyone has heard of it, they know it only for making useless products that don't need or want additional design.
The fact that you've heard of it is entirely unrelated to the number of people it employs and in what capacity it employs them.
This is a place where you’d expect people to know what TI actually does, not just the calculators.
“Ever heard of X?” is an idiom that means something like “here’s an obvious example you should already know about.” It doesn’t imply that knowing about it proves something. It’s a perfectly fine argument that just says, “TI exists and attracts educated employees.”
Yeah, what I meant by “ever heard of Texas Instruments” was expecting that people knew more about the company than the calculators that are literally 1% of its revenue.
Citation, or are you guessing? Which state has the most people migrating to it? To determine whether they are educated, the reason for the migration can help.
The writing is on the wall — Texas will turn blue sooner than later.
Dallas is a liberal stronghold in Texas, and in absolute numbers turns out more for Democrats than any other city in the state, including Austin (percentage-wise Austin wins by +5%, I believe). Unlike Austin, which is gerrymandered in the state legislature, every single state/county/city official in Dallas is a Democrat.
Dallas is also a gay rights stronghold, representing the only county and city in Texas, again including Austin, with non-discrimination clauses in employment and housing for LGBTQ+ individuals.
Furthermore— Texas is considering bi-partisan legislation to legalize weed. Dallas has already decriminalized it, and the State, while backwards in other regards, hasn’t indicated it will force Dallas to back down on that measure. Dallas also has stricter gun laws than the state of Texas.
Texas has a long way to go, but I think if you would step in Dallas you would learn to leave your preconceived notions of it at the door.
Anecdotal too, but everywhere in Dallas I see Beto signs — even in the affluent white neighborhoods. Hillary even won the conservative neighborhoods in 2016, and Sessions, a staunch conservative incumbent in the House of Representatives, could very well lose his seat — Hillary won his district by two points.
Ft. Worth, right next door, is not though. I don't see this happening, by the way. Abbott is up by 15-20 points in the polls this year. And Texas is just different, culturally, than these other states.
You can have your LGBTQ anti-discrimination and TX still remain red, BTW. They're not mutually exclusive.
Fort Worth is the largest non-Democratic city in all of the US, yes, but if you also look at every election you can see it too is turning bluer and bluer.
Also, the government race is not a good indicator. Lupe Valdez has made mistake after mistake in her campaign — I’m liberal, and even I wasn’t enthusiastic about voting for her. She’s doing so bad that she’s polling less than the percentage of registered Democrats there are in the state.
For change, look at the Beto polls — he’s not favored to win, but he’ll come within 5 points. That’s huge considering Cruz previously won by +21. Furthermore, in the 2016 election Texas was only +9 Trump — that’s less than conventional swing states such as Ohio.
Hillary did better in Texas than any Democrat since Reagan. Also, Texas last had a Blue governor in 1994. Texas hasn’t always been red — only for the past two decades — and it won’t stay red forever.
> Texas last had a Blue governor in 1994. Texas hasn’t always been red — only for the past two decades — and it won’t stay red forever.
California last had a Republican governor in 2011, but people will look at you funny if you try to cite that as evidence that California wasn't dyed-in-the-wool Blue at the time.
That's a fair critique. I think my main point wasn't made clear by my comment: all states – even those we consider as Blue as California or as Red as Texas – won't necessarily stay their current color forever.
To discount any state as unchanging is doing a disservice to all US Citizens: public opinion changes, demographics change, politics change, and people change.
Just to illustrate that point, California was a Republican presidential stronghold up through 20 (EDIT: typo, 30) years ago; they won the state in every Presidential election through that year except 1964 starting with 1952.
From my experience living in Massachusetts, it's not all that surprising! There are plenty of Republicans in Massachusetts who are successful politically; they just tend not to be as conservative as Republicans from other parts of the country.
We'll see how the Beto-Cruz vote turns out. Still think it will be closer to +10 for Cruz. Trump was a pretty unconventional R candidate. A lot of establishment Republicans (which are stronger in TX than elsewhere) were unenthused about Trump.
>Hillary did better in Texas than any Democrat since Reagan. Also, Texas last had a Blue governor in 1994. Texas hasn’t always been red — only for the past two decades — and it won’t stay red forever.
In terms of margins she did better than any Democrat since Bill. Bill had a 3 point and 5 point loss respectively thanks to Ross Perot.
Voter suppression is surprisingly open, there were two cases just this morning of poll workers verbally abusing black voters in Austin and Houston to discourage them from voting. The generation raised with segregation has a few decades left to influence things. Also Texas might be the hardest place in the United States to register for new voters - so even demographic changes could take decades to work there way through.
Not really, just the definition of "pro-business" is changing. It used to be that all you needed to do was slash a few taxes and you were a pro-business state. These days businesses are looking to be located in areas where their employees will feel safe and welcomed, which excludes states that fight against gay marriage, for example.
I don't really see the argument that businesses choosing location based on taxes is fine but choosing based on employee life satisfaction is a crisis.
Choosing based on culture wars is buying into the bullshit. Gay marriage, for example, is federally protected.
We need to fix the culture divide in this country. Let's work from places where we agree rather than searching for disagreement. Lots of states are near the tipping point if we could only speak to each other honestly.
> Choosing based on culture wars is buying into the bullshit.
It is absolutely not bullshit. I would flat out refuse to relocate to a red state. In the high tech industry, I'm not alone. Setting up shop in a deep red state is not a good way to attract world class talent from across the globe.
> Gay marriage, for example, is federally protected.
Small comfort when you are gay and wish to find a safe place to hang out for a drink and hook up... Small comfort when you are an ethnic minority waiting for a bus....
> We need to fix the culture divide in this country
In my opinion this is not gonna happen any time soon. The divide is almost to the bone. It is a fundamental divide that can't be solved with mere empathy or compromise. There is no empathy to be had and no common point for compromise.
You wouldn't move to a purple state and vote blue?
You can only tolerate an environment where absolutely everybody agrees with you?
You know where this goes, right? Let's pack all the liberals into 1/5 districts and give the rest to 60/40 conservative majorities. Great job everyone, at least nobody (rich) compromised their values.
Homophobia didn't end with gay marriage. Sexuality is not a federally protected class in housing, employment, services, etc. What good is the fancy new headquarters and the six figure job if you can just get evicted on a moment's notice because of your sexuality, or if you can just get your face bashed in at the bar on a night out with your friends? http://www.keranews.org/post/how-texas-does-or-doesnt-deal-l...
If you're an employer, a great way to pre-emptively shoot yourself in the foot is to make yourself unattractive to employees and shrink your hiring pool in such a tight labor market.
This is a bunch of malarkey. For a person who's supposedly not homophobic, he's appointed a lot of homophobic judges, has a homophobic Attorney General, is gutting a lot of executive orders and regulations on homophobia in the workplace, etc. And this is before we get into anything transgender. https://www.advocate.com/politics/2017/11/09/trumps-14-most-...
> These days businesses are looking to be located in areas where their employees will feel safe and welcomed, which excludes states that fight against gay marriage, for example.
This. Gay marriage is a good litmus test if you're a minority of any kind trying not to get discriminated against or shot.
> Abbott is up by 15-20 points in the polls this year
Careful making suppositions about politics based on a winner's party. Often it matters about the opponent strengths (or lack of). This is the same party-assumption failure people make about national elections.
> except Seattle has enough sway over the rest of Washington to keep it from going hard right.
Which, honestly, it should be - I get the /notion/ of a lot of US electoral history in trying to allow diversity and representation, but it's people who get to vote, not acreage. Punishing people for living in a city by making their vote worth proportionally less is wrong, and ironically, by acreage/population density is a rough analog of what many were trying to escape "more votes with more land holdings".
Given that the Puget Sound region has 65% of the states population...
> The writing is on the wall — Texas will turn blue sooner than later.
At this point the Democrats can't win for losing. If you field broadly likeable A teamers like Beto and Davis and still lose to comical villains like Cruz and Abbott, it's laughable to think the tide is really turning in our lifetime. Something big has to change, and I'm not sure what it is.
It's policies, not people. You can see many Democrats winning in many areas as well as Republicans in Texas. Many in Texas are issue-oriented. That many don't understand why likable loses to villain-like I think is a larger problem than the actual choice.
> likeable A teamers like Beto and Davis and still lose to comical villains like Cruz and Abbott
Saying stuff like this just makes you sound like a partisan hack. I'm not a "both sides are equal" guy, and I have my preferences, but you should work on trying to see other's points of view a little better than what you apparently have been.
Yeah I'm a hack for more sane Republican Party, not the one of fear mongering crytpo bigots, but one about sensible fiscal policy and a belief in healthy self sufficient communities and individual liberty.
Much of what you say is true about Dallas proper, but it's a small part of the very large (4th largest MSA in the US) DFW metroplex. The large outer suburbs of DFW are still very conservative though perhaps not in all the ways you would expect. And cities in Texas can't preempt state gun laws, so Dallas's gun laws are no more restrictive than anywhere else in Texas.
What an unnuanced and dare I say prejudiced comment. Whatever happened to liberals? We used to be the open-minded ones.
Even if you're just coming at it from a place of power politics.. you think MORE packing of liberals into fewer and fewer areas is going to swing it for us? If tech companies were serious about liberal politics, they'd be opening big offices in TX and OH. Could solidify the blue wall for a generation with a few 10k people.
I haven't heard about any specific issues with Texas politics, versus just regular red-state politics. Is there some specific action being taken against women in Texas that I'm not aware of? (Genuine question, not snark.)
Many of these statements are also true of the NYC metro area where there also happen to be 2 cities being considered (NYC and Newark). The key difference is that Amazon currently employs thousands of people in both NYC/Newark and in NoVa, where the number of people in Dallas is substantially smaller.
Both NYC and DC have far better public transit and airports than Dallas. The only thing Dallas has beat over these two places is cost of living, where in both it's not too difficult to find affordable housing outside the city (something that isn't as much the case in other tech hubs).
The business environment aspect tends to matter more to smaller companies, or those building things like factories, than it does for Amazon, as they already have the resources to push through complicated government processes, and will receive substantial tax breaks to make up for the rest.
Another great example of why cities shouldn't be selling out their residents to attract one of these large companies there. They'll never get their value out of it. Here Amazon changes the game to half the benefits after most of the discussions of incentives have been had.
This drama is getting ridiculous. HQ2-1, and HQ2-2? What does HQ even mean then? Even if they are called HQ, it is hard for me to imagine they can function as one.
Even if they are called HQ, it is hard for me to imagine they can function as one.
This is true of any large corporate campus -- 25,000 people at one site are not one cohesive unit, there are plenty of competing projects.
And you still end up using video conferencing even with people in the same campus because no one wants to take a 15 minute walk to the building on the other side of campus for a 30 minute meeting.
Sure, some business have multiple "HQs"...in that they split where some of their major divisions are "headquartered". For example, maybe the original HQ in Seattle is where Jeff B. sits, but maybe the crystal city HQ (if that's one of them) is where AWS - as a business/major division - is "headquartered", etc. Oh, and i would venture a guess that they likely will name them something like HQ1, HQ-East-1, HQ-West-1, HQ-South-1, etc. ;-)
My dayjob employer is currently kicking off a 150-year project to validate whether the AMZN GetPromoted service is worthwhile to eventually implement internally. But, alas, already there are project delays. ;-)
The article mentions first that the move is motivated by recruiting tech talent. Seattle is far-away in the eyes and minds of most Americans I would bet. Splitting means they are probably going after northeast and south/east.
Check out this population density map from the US census:
"The driving force behind the decision to build two equal offices in addition to the company’s headquarters in Seattle is recruiting enough tech talent, according to the person familiar with the company’s plans. The move will also ease potential issues with housing, transit and other areas where adding tens of thousands of workers could cause problems."
Seems like quite a bit more than a satellite office, but not quite close to another HQ. Really curious to see what kind of jobs will end up in these HQ2A and HQ2B.
I think for New-York as an HQ there is quite some better chance for Amazon to build some serious operations. They already have Qusidi in New Jersey, which they might be looking to consolidate.
This leak would be a terrific way to catch a leaker, if delivered to a single individual under circumstances where all others present are aware it’s a test.
Amazon is playing cities like chump. I had a sense in the beginning of this process that Amazon doesn’t really want to build a HQ2. They just want to open another office. Most large tech companies have large campuses across multiple cities. This exercise is no different than that. But Bezos branded it HQ2 to maximize handout. I also predict that they will end up hiring far less than the 25k projected. There is a recession coming in the near future, which could result in Amazon looking for cheaper developers globally.
Unimaginable that Amazon doesn't already do everything it absolutely can to reduce its engineering payroll, which is probably its biggest expense.
Without knowing anything about them, one would assume they're already tapping global talent pools with maximum aggression.
If anything, recession in the US may increase the supply and lower the cost (salaries) of American developers, thus making them more competitive against other countries.
"There is a recession coming in the near future, which could result in Amazon looking for cheaper developers globally."
It's dangerous to post speculative things with such certainty. The future is never guaranteed.
Well, I don't think it's speculative to say that a recession is coming. Predicting exactly when is hard, but isn't it a near virtual certainty that it will happen?
More like saying that a geyser at Yellowstone is going to erupt. If you believe that the timeframe for the next recession is on par with the timeframe for the eruption of the Yellowstone supervolcano, I have a bridge I'd like to sell you.
I’ve lived through four or five recessions and there’s no indication this is any sort of anomaly. It’s more like saying that a hurricane is going to hit Florida. Predicting exactly when and how is nearly impossible, but we can say with almost complete certainty that it’s going to happen within a few years.
Right. You said if a few is three, I responded to indicate that it’s looser than that, and you then basically assumed I’m a liar rather than considering that the “if” might be wrong.
If you’re not interested in a bet, why did you reply to me to ask if I’ve made one?
We're currently riding the longest bull market in history. Surely you don't think it will last forever and that we are closer to to it's end than it's beginning?
The more worried people are that there's a bubble, the less extreme the irrational exuberance. I love all the "shit, the bubble's about to pop" talk. If people weren't worried, it's just make the correction that much worse when it comes. And someday we'll have one, that's a given. It's just a question of when and how bad.
I am just going to leave you with this image here that shows the SP&500 since 1928: https://imgur.com/a/JCMbIvU
We have had 10 years of growth since the last recession (every gray line is a recession).
If you take into account the market corrections that we have seen this year as a sign, most people in finance will agree that there will be a correction in the next three years. It is far from speculation.
Edit: FYI I did not imply that market corrections == recession. The reason I put the image is to show that there hasn't been a recession in 10 years and that we are due for one. We have had a few market corrections this year, but no recession yet.
Market corrections and recessions aren't the same thing, the chart you posted clearly shows Black Monday as not being a result of a recession. A rebalancing of the stock market at large doesn't necessarily result in mass unemployment, followed by mass foreclosure and so on.
That plot appears to show a 20-year-long bull market from 1980 to 2000, so with that precedent set, who's to say we aren't only half-way through the current bull run? (I don't actually have a strong view one way or the other; my point is just that it's hard to conclude anything by reading an S&P 500 price chart by itself.)
Thank goodness you said that. I thought we had a time traveler among us, but then I read your comment! Luckily I was able to cancel the sell order I issued in a panic.
Don't just about all big corporations with some "weight" behind them do this though? A company employing tens of thousands floats the idea that they might leave the city/state due to some new proposed corporate tax legislation or something, and then the city/state exempts them from the increases to get them to stay since they're such a "big employer?" Isn't this just "negotiating from a position of strength?"
This happens in Oregon all of the time with Intel. We don't have a sales tax - we have an income tax and property tax. Everytime we want to raise property taxes, Intel makes a big stink and we give them presents to appease them.
Yeah, but just because this happens doesn't mean we shouldn't be upset about it. This is companies strongarming governments into giving them tax breaks. It's robbing society to enrich a few people at the top.
Amazon is following the Boeing example. I fully expect Washington state to give away massive amounts of money the same way they did before.
I fully agree. Giving breaks in terms of property taxes directly affects our schools. So we're just shooting the upcoming generation in the foot to keep jobs here "today"
You're saying they get enough money so we should give large amounts of money to corporations? That seems wild and like corporate welfare for the sake of portioning out some money to corporations. Why give corporations a fast-lane to government money because school's are getting some money?
To be clear, is your argument really that schools have lots of money so corporations deserve to get some too?
There is a difference between giving money to corporations and not taking away money from corporations. I realize a lot of people have the opinion that not taking something they already have is equal to giving them a handout but it really isn't.
I admit not being very upset about it. How are they strongarming governments? A government says no and everyone moves on. Or are you saying communities can't get businesses without this strongarming? I don't believe that. I recognize the art of both sides shopping for the best deal for themselves, and with how many of these governments operate against their companies, it's definitely bidirectional. The leverage does seem to be tipped in favor of the largest governments and largest companies, but the general practice seems reasonable.
Do you have any examples of "many of these governments operate against their companies?" I'm intrigued by this because this isn't how government generally works at all at a local level. They usually work with these companies and give them sweetheart deals knowing that the money will not really come back to the city and the effect will happen years down the road. All the positives for them of working with the company and someone else deals with the issues later that are caused from tax breaks and other deals.
You can see it in auto sales rules against Tesla, alcohol and zoning restrictions that aren't subject to votes, grandfathering old businesses on all sorts of things like parking lot regulations to denials of permits based reasons like too many restaurants in the area, etc. Some may seem reasonable, some may not. The point is in a transaction, neither side has to accept concessions they are uncomfortable with. Quite often cities make laws that harm or destroy business. Even in cases that are subject to citizen vote, the tyranny of the majority can occur. That's what makes bargaining on both sides of the compromise entirely reasonable.
So you're right (and I forgot about it), cities have fought against Tesla but it was my understanding that the push for that was lobbying from the old-school car dealerships and car companies to keep things from changing that would negatively impact their businesses. I don't think most cities have a real dog in the fight and many would welcome new electric car service/business since it's mostly positives for them.
I believe this is generally done more at the state level (consumer protection), rather than city when it comes to "banning Tesla". It's not actually a ban against Tesla specifically though, although some might be. As I understand it, this generally goes way back to when dealerships were worried about an actual car company, such as Ford, opening their OWN dealerships, and selling them at a price that the other car dealerships couldn't afford, which would be easy to do if you're both the supplier and retailer. Given how the deck is massively stacked against them, it's quite a testiment to their products that they are doing as well as they are. https://www.engadget.com/2014/07/17/tesla-motors-us-sales/
Yeah, it's unfortunate that often the deck is stacked against a company that could really bring some massive benefit to people, but you're right that they've done surprisingly well against that anti-momentum.
The problem seems to be less that the governments are being “strong armed” and more that the people running the government are incentivized to satisfy their own interests when dealing with the corporations, and those interests do not necessarily align with the constituents that they supposedly represent.
Yup, this definitely exists and misrepresentation is a real problem in all legislative contexts. We can only ask their citizens to care and make change (assuming elections are run legally). Being able to affect this change locally is very important and why these abatement decisions deserve to remain in their hands.
Having limited term length elected / appointed government figures responsible for making these decisions, and then free to accept industry positions, is toxic.
If we really wanted to stamp this out, throw some serious sand in the revolving door gears.
This seems to be the way it works with professional sports teams. The city officials and the team owners are all sitting on the same side of the negotiating table and the public has no one sitting in their seat to represent their interests.
Boeing went through on their threat IIRC and decimated the economy of Wichita. Amazon has more power than municipal or even state governments in some respects in economic terms.
So are the two cities going to cut their economic package in half considering they're getting half the jobs? Bet you they're not.
This is unfair to cities not making the list like Detroit. If Detroit was judged on only having to provide half the jobs would it not have been disqualified? Amazon changes the rules mid-stream.
This is an internal Amazon decision that is not regulated in any way. They are not obliged to any notion of "fairness".
Amazon just put some cities on a list and negotiated with them.
Any city not on the list is not there because Amazon didn't want it there.
I also doubt that existing talent pool size was such a major consideration. Crystal City VA doesn't strike me as an obvious tech hub, nor does Newark. Amazon is definitely counting on talent to relocate to its new offices, especially if they put them in such locations.
Crystal City and Newark are next door to massive tech areas. In VA there are tons of DoD/Military tech organizations and NYC is right next door to Newark. It's probably cheaper to plant themselves next to those hubs than inside of them.
* Added: Especially if you factor in all the people that would normally commute into NYC or DC/Arlington from the surrounding areas now commuting to a potentially closer office location. Could be really big for lots of people (and of course Amazon).
Maybe I'm thinking about this from the perspective of a young, single guy. I would not move to Crystal City for any job, definitely not with a horde of other young, single men. The number of young, college-graduate women there must be way too small.
That's certainly a fair perspective that I can't argue with at all. I can't guess on specific #s but I'd bet there are lots of single men that would though at the chance of snagging an Amazon job. That number is probably relatively high and would make you a part of the outlier group. Working for Amazon might have stigma on HN but I think generally people have a great impression of them and would love to work for them.
Oh, I completely agree that there are many, many worse places to work than Amazon. I realize I am very fortunate to be able to decline such a job and be able to find good offers at a place of my choosing.
As with most things there's an rms quote for this:
"State legislators in various states are starting to think about how to stop companies from playing one state against another for tax breaks and handouts.
I suggested many years ago that the states should form a union to bargain collectively with these companies. We could call it 'The United States of America'."
Can't speak for the other cities but there's been a steady expansion of Amazon in Toronto.
I suspect in the end they'll keep expanding in a quiet and steady pace while never officially declaring a "HQ2" at all whilst the cities feud over who gets the title and keep handing out incentives.
Big companies are funny animals in that they appear on the surface to make short-term decisions to appease the market, but behind the scenes tend to plan out a decade or more. A good fifteen or more years before Boeing moved their HQ out of the Seattle area and moved significant production elsewhere, they were putting out messages to suburban governments where they had smaller plants to not count on them being around. I would bet Amazon or any other company thinking of a move of this magnitude has a plan that stretches well beyond 2020.
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[ 0.19 ms ] story [ 282 ms ] threadhttps://www.seattletimes.com/business/real-estate/seattle-ho...
"
A sword was brought & Bezos said “Cut HQ2 in half. Each of you can have part of it.”
“Please don’t split HQ2,” the true host city screamed.
“Go ahead, cut it in half," the other city said.
Bezos pointed to the first city. “This is the real host. Put the headquarters here.”
"
It makes me wonder if this is another negotiation tatic by Amazon to get the final city to shell out more incentives.
[0] https://twitter.com/publicroad/status/1059533656694362115
Alternately, Amazon has liked pitting cities against each other so much, that they decided to keep doing it forever. "City A, we're looking to start a major new project up. City B is willing to offer X, Y, and Z if we launch it in the City B office, are you willing to beat that for us to open it in your office?"
It gives them more negotiating power, and a lot more flexibility.
For those who aren't familiar with the reference:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judgment_of_Solomon
I think it would drastically improve our government if there was an actually significant risk of people leaving when the government messed up.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_flight
Maybe we'll move away before the city is done paying for the stadium. See St. Louis and the Rams. It's rare that a city like San Diego refuses to buckle under.
In Portland, the City of Portland makes up the difference between the minimum wage and $15/hour for the employees who work the MLS Timbers games.
Nearby in Beaverton, Nike's property was guaranteed by the state not to be annexed by the city so they wouldn't be required to pay property taxes. There was muttering that maybe Nike would pack up and move if this didn't happen.
What I would love to see is that cities and states are not allowed to offer subsidies to companies. If you want to move here, great. How many stupid things like what Scott Walker is doing with Foxconn have to happen before something like that is prohibited?
In a show-down between corporate pros and local politicians, I know who's going to come out ahead.
And they get voted down. And the moneyed interests jam them through anyway.
I was stunned when the Chargers finally got told to get lost out of San Diego and it stuck.
While we're listing these cities, we should add Oakland to the list.
I'd be more upset if they stayed angry and showed up on election day.
Especially given that they are ramping up offices in Vancouver, BC, Northern Virginia, they have a presence in Austin thanks to Whole Foods, and probably other locations I'm forgetting off the top of my head, it has seemed to me like this "HQ2" business is somewhat of a red herring. Even if they do anoint some city as "HQ2" they've already put their eggs into more than one basket.
The DC suburb makes sense for an East Coast hub, and it’s smart to be near the capital for DoD contracts. And Denver is a nice, growing tech city with an attractive lifestyle.
Its more or less a ghost town since BRAC moved out a bunch of agencies and contractors a few years ago. This had the effect of hollowing out what little independent retail / dining there was there as most of it catered to the office lunch crowd.
From a commuting perspective, its right across the river from DC which makes it very difficult to get to from a driving / bus perspective. Taking the metro is somewhat better but would require a transfer for many people.
That seems to match south lake union in Seattle, which used to be warehouses and car dealerships.
Also there's a relatively high concentration of metro stops as is for a section that's not urban/DC core, and Potomac Yard is finally coming in in a couple years as well. Plus a pretty high commercial vacancy and a bit of marginal land that can still be developed. I mean, the dream would be they come in there and somehow spur additional transit down Columbia Pike, but that's probably a bit too much to hope for.
It's also already not easy at all to buy a home there (speaking as someone who bought a place in Arlington a few months ago), so it must not be too awful to live there.
Colorado is nice, but it's nothing compared to the Texas population and economic boom. 28m people in Texas, versus 5m in Colorado. Texas is also building high-speed rail, which will end up linking all of their major cities, an immense bonus. Denver / Colorado also sit in the middle of a dead zone in terms of major populations, along with being slightly too far west from any major ports (Dallas or Austin get you close to the Gulf).
Chicago is far larger than Denver to draw talent from (including more surrounding populations) and far larger to draw general labor for. All have relatively good real-estate prices (comparable to Denver), plenty of tech talent, and are large shipping hubs. All three also have slightly lower tech industry wages than Denver. Toronto's tech and non-tech wages are far lower than all of these. Toronto gets them out of the US, but still very nearby, as a talent immigration hedge (political insanity hedge).
Dallas / Texas gets an interesting nod, because Bezos has deep ties to Texas. He's putting one of them in Northern Virginia because of WaPo, his second home there, and the DC politics. It might make sense that he'd favor Texas for similar self-beneficial reasons.
Atlanta, Dallas and Chicago are more diverse versus Denver, which is likely an important consideration for a mega corporation like Amazon. Chicago and Dallas are dramatically more diverse.
Toronto's extreme real-estate prices, double that of Atlanta and Chicago, is likely a big negative.
I give Denver a zero shot at landing one of the HQ2 sites.
Like it's only not annexed by Atlanta because they made a ten foot wide city called Chattahoochee Plantation on the border of the county.
EDIT: It's like saying that Arlington isn't part of DC, which while technically true, misses the whole point. Atlanta proper is only about 1/10 the population of the metro.
That the reason for the lack of usable public infrastructure for white collar workers in Atlanta is due to overt racism on the part of government officials is just the cherry on top.
> Texas is also building high-speed rail, which will end up linking all of their major cities, an immense bonus.
Denver already has light rail connecting the airport, Boulder, and Golden as well as other metro areas, as well as amtrak, shuttles, and other public transport to the mountain regions for skiing and other recreation. It's also among the most bike-friendly cities I've seen in the US, with routes extending extremely far and having a vibrant cycling culture. Workers commute with all of these options every day.
For being a smaller metro, Denver-Boulder's tech scene is much more vibrant than DFW's. Amazon _already_ has tech offices in both Boulder and Denver.
Among Texas cities, Dallas also doesn't have the tech talent pool and established network of transplanted tech companies that Austin already has, let alone the politics that many west coast tech workers (and Bezos) find attractive (although that point is kind of moot, because either way it's still Texas).
I don't really think it's going to be Denver, either. I'd be really disappointed if it's Dallas. I expect Chicago, Boston, DC, or Atlanta.
On the plus side, the buses do leave every ten minutes, with plans to increase that to every five minutes within the next few years.
Austin's tech worker population is peanuts compared to the East or West coast so I don't think it gives them much of an advantage over Dallas.
I'm not sure what this is based on. Do you mean like startups? Or general tech companies? Or large companies with significant tech presence? So much of this thread has devolved into these kinds of suppositions and city comparisons. Why do these discussions always come to this, with everyone rushing to defend one metro and demonize another?
> Dallas also doesn't have the tech talent pool and established network of transplanted tech companies that Austin already has
I think this may be making the same mistake of assuming a few satellite offices of a few large companies makes a difference. Or that you hear more about startups on this site and others gives a certain impression.
Yes to all of the above if you consider the full Boulder/Denver metro.
The writing is on the wall — Texas will turn blue sooner than later.
Dallas is a liberal stronghold in Texas, and in absolute numbers turns out more for Democrats than any other city in the state, including Austin (percentage-wise Austin wins by +5%, I believe). Unlike Austin, which is gerrymandered in the state legislature, every single state/county/city official in Dallas is a Democrat.
Dallas is also a gay rights stronghold, representing the only county and city in Texas, again including Austin, with non-discrimination clauses in employment and housing for LGBTQ+ individuals.
Furthermore— Texas is considering bi-partisan legislation to legalize weed. Dallas has already decriminalized it, and the State, while backwards in other regards, hasn’t indicated it will force Dallas to back down on that measure. Dallas also has stricter gun laws than the state of Texas. Dallas, unlike Austin, actually has the political capital to push back on state laws, because Dallas isn't gerrymandered nor represented by 4 Republicans like Austin is.
Texas has a long way to go, but I think if you would step in Dallas you would learn to leave your preconceived notions of it at the door.
I believe an HQ2 would speed up Texas’ change.
---
As far as public transit goes, I'm sorry, but DART rail blows Denver out of the water. I'm personally familiar with both systems, and Dallas also has the funds and political capital to keep expanding. In addition to an already extensive LRT network, we have a streetcar network with 2 lines (soon to be 3), we're building a second subway Downtown to double system throughput, we've started construction on another 26 mile line to the airport (we already have 2), and construction on the high speed rail from downtown Houston to downtown Dallas starts in February.
1. DC area may have three potential cities, but Texas is the only other region that has two cities being considered
2. DFW airport is one of the US’s busiest airports, and American Airlines is headquartered there, so you can get a direct flight to anywhere in the country in 3 hours tops. Amazon already has multiple warehouses here and also ships freight through DFW and other airports in the area.
3. Public transit (Dallas has the largest light rail network south of DC), continued investment, world class museums, and honestly a pretty hip city with a lot of activity in the center, not unlike Seattle. Also lots of millennials moving there for its low cost of living and ample jobs.
4. You can’t beat Texas’ business environment — Bezos even praised it when he spoke at a business conference at SMU earlier this summer.
5. Establishing two offices will give Amazon influence in two places, and covering Seattle (West Coast), DC/NoVa (East Coast), Texas (South) gives them nationwide influence.
For instance, property taxes in Williamson County (Austin suburb, extremely conservative, are at 3.08% for new construction homes. Compare that to any other state.
California has the highest state income tax, near top sales tax rates and if you are a recent home buyer some of the highest absolute property taxes (thanks to the price dynamic described above). Plus you get screwed on federal SALT caps, mortgage interest deduction and maybe AMT.
I'll gladly take your 3% if there were more options for interesting places to work and it was not 110 degrees in the summer.
By this ranking, the tax burden in Texas is 33rd out of 50 states so it's not a low tax state, but it is definitely on the lower tax end of the spectrum. https://wallethub.com/edu/states-with-highest-lowest-tax-bur...
My understanding is that Texas doesn't have a lot of that or at least its minimized.
The reason "business environment" can't be duplicated or reversed because it's like a legal equivalent of tech debt code rot where also a large group of ops employees (politically influential bureaucrats) earn their life's income on the busy work the system creates.
Minus museums, this could be said of plenty of other cities that are in places with less wacky politics. Museums don't mean a thing. Low cost of living as a requirement means a relative low cost of living compared to the West Coast.
I'd prefer to see Denver as the location over Dallas. The State of Texas needs a swift kick in the ass regarding their state politics, specifically the war on women, and their continued absurd policies regarding weed. The last thing they need more of is to be rewarded for unsustainable tax policies.
I believe I've seen these trend analyzed in other states as well (low and middle income earners have the most to gain by moving to lower cost of living states, so it's a common pattern).
https://www.sacbee.com/news/state/california/article13647809... https://lao.ca.gov/laoecontax/article/detail/265 http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-california-migration-2...
Perhaps you should clarify that this is true of legal in-migration. Wanna take any guesses as to how wealthy and educated the folks crossing over the border on a continual basis are?
Illegal immigration to Texas btw is much higher than to California: https://www.sacbee.com/site-services/databases/article174373...
The fact that you've heard of it is entirely unrelated to the number of people it employs and in what capacity it employs them.
“Ever heard of X?” is an idiom that means something like “here’s an obvious example you should already know about.” It doesn’t imply that knowing about it proves something. It’s a perfectly fine argument that just says, “TI exists and attracts educated employees.”
Citation, or are you guessing? Which state has the most people migrating to it? To determine whether they are educated, the reason for the migration can help.
Dallas is a liberal stronghold in Texas, and in absolute numbers turns out more for Democrats than any other city in the state, including Austin (percentage-wise Austin wins by +5%, I believe). Unlike Austin, which is gerrymandered in the state legislature, every single state/county/city official in Dallas is a Democrat.
Dallas is also a gay rights stronghold, representing the only county and city in Texas, again including Austin, with non-discrimination clauses in employment and housing for LGBTQ+ individuals.
Furthermore— Texas is considering bi-partisan legislation to legalize weed. Dallas has already decriminalized it, and the State, while backwards in other regards, hasn’t indicated it will force Dallas to back down on that measure. Dallas also has stricter gun laws than the state of Texas.
Texas has a long way to go, but I think if you would step in Dallas you would learn to leave your preconceived notions of it at the door.
I believe an HQ2 would speed up Texas’ change.
A couple months ago I was there, and around my wife's parents' house, almost every yard had a Beto sign.
So I can verify that this is true, at least for some parts of Dallas.
You can have your LGBTQ anti-discrimination and TX still remain red, BTW. They're not mutually exclusive.
Also, the government race is not a good indicator. Lupe Valdez has made mistake after mistake in her campaign — I’m liberal, and even I wasn’t enthusiastic about voting for her. She’s doing so bad that she’s polling less than the percentage of registered Democrats there are in the state.
For change, look at the Beto polls — he’s not favored to win, but he’ll come within 5 points. That’s huge considering Cruz previously won by +21. Furthermore, in the 2016 election Texas was only +9 Trump — that’s less than conventional swing states such as Ohio.
Hillary did better in Texas than any Democrat since Reagan. Also, Texas last had a Blue governor in 1994. Texas hasn’t always been red — only for the past two decades — and it won’t stay red forever.
Which state did the only President to pass a civil rights bill since the civil war come from? And he passed 3 of them! 3-0 vs the field.
California last had a Republican governor in 2011, but people will look at you funny if you try to cite that as evidence that California wasn't dyed-in-the-wool Blue at the time.
To discount any state as unchanging is doing a disservice to all US Citizens: public opinion changes, demographics change, politics change, and people change.
In terms of margins she did better than any Democrat since Bill. Bill had a 3 point and 5 point loss respectively thanks to Ross Perot.
I don't really see the argument that businesses choosing location based on taxes is fine but choosing based on employee life satisfaction is a crisis.
We need to fix the culture divide in this country. Let's work from places where we agree rather than searching for disagreement. Lots of states are near the tipping point if we could only speak to each other honestly.
It is absolutely not bullshit. I would flat out refuse to relocate to a red state. In the high tech industry, I'm not alone. Setting up shop in a deep red state is not a good way to attract world class talent from across the globe.
> Gay marriage, for example, is federally protected.
Small comfort when you are gay and wish to find a safe place to hang out for a drink and hook up... Small comfort when you are an ethnic minority waiting for a bus....
> We need to fix the culture divide in this country
In my opinion this is not gonna happen any time soon. The divide is almost to the bone. It is a fundamental divide that can't be solved with mere empathy or compromise. There is no empathy to be had and no common point for compromise.
You can only tolerate an environment where absolutely everybody agrees with you?
You know where this goes, right? Let's pack all the liberals into 1/5 districts and give the rest to 60/40 conservative majorities. Great job everyone, at least nobody (rich) compromised their values.
Certainly not when there's so many people like you with bizarre black and white visions of the world.
If you're an employer, a great way to pre-emptively shoot yourself in the foot is to make yourself unattractive to employees and shrink your hiring pool in such a tight labor market.
What's the end game for "I refuse to deal with those people"? Permanent 60 R senators?
If you wouldn't live there, who should?
This is a bunch of malarkey. For a person who's supposedly not homophobic, he's appointed a lot of homophobic judges, has a homophobic Attorney General, is gutting a lot of executive orders and regulations on homophobia in the workplace, etc. And this is before we get into anything transgender. https://www.advocate.com/politics/2017/11/09/trumps-14-most-...
This. Gay marriage is a good litmus test if you're a minority of any kind trying not to get discriminated against or shot.
Careful making suppositions about politics based on a winner's party. Often it matters about the opponent strengths (or lack of). This is the same party-assumption failure people make about national elections.
Not really any different than Seattle, except Seattle has enough sway over the rest of Washington to keep it from going hard right.
Which, honestly, it should be - I get the /notion/ of a lot of US electoral history in trying to allow diversity and representation, but it's people who get to vote, not acreage. Punishing people for living in a city by making their vote worth proportionally less is wrong, and ironically, by acreage/population density is a rough analog of what many were trying to escape "more votes with more land holdings".
Given that the Puget Sound region has 65% of the states population...
At this point the Democrats can't win for losing. If you field broadly likeable A teamers like Beto and Davis and still lose to comical villains like Cruz and Abbott, it's laughable to think the tide is really turning in our lifetime. Something big has to change, and I'm not sure what it is.
Saying stuff like this just makes you sound like a partisan hack. I'm not a "both sides are equal" guy, and I have my preferences, but you should work on trying to see other's points of view a little better than what you apparently have been.
(lived in Texas, now live in Seattle)
Even if you're just coming at it from a place of power politics.. you think MORE packing of liberals into fewer and fewer areas is going to swing it for us? If tech companies were serious about liberal politics, they'd be opening big offices in TX and OH. Could solidify the blue wall for a generation with a few 10k people.
Part of that is ensuring they keep things as center to slightly right as possible and toss some money at social causes to keep their rep.
If the democrats actually won consistently they might start to shift left. These companies do not want a strengthened left wing in the US.
Yes, they do.
> Part of that is ensuring they keep things as center to slightly right as possible
Liberal politics are center-right.
> If the democrats actually won consistently they might start to shift left.
They might, at which point tech companies (and other big firms) would be less likely to support them.
I searched about this and found: https://www.aclutx.org/en/know-you-rights/abortion-in-texas
It does seem they have some fairly detailed restrictions.
It's a bit hurtful whenever the Midwest is left out like it's not part of the country.
Both NYC and DC have far better public transit and airports than Dallas. The only thing Dallas has beat over these two places is cost of living, where in both it's not too difficult to find affordable housing outside the city (something that isn't as much the case in other tech hubs).
The business environment aspect tends to matter more to smaller companies, or those building things like factories, than it does for Amazon, as they already have the resources to push through complicated government processes, and will receive substantial tax breaks to make up for the rest.
This works https://outline.com/pvJPEz
Side by side with this story, it's hard to see why states and cities are still willing to play ball: https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/29/18027032/foxconn-wiscons...
This is true of any large corporate campus -- 25,000 people at one site are not one cohesive unit, there are plenty of competing projects.
And you still end up using video conferencing even with people in the same campus because no one wants to take a 15 minute walk to the building on the other side of campus for a 30 minute meeting.
[0] like AMZN GetPromoted or AMZN WorkOnTheProjectYouWant
Check out this population density map from the US census:
> https://www.census.gov/history/www/reference/maps/
From the article:
"The driving force behind the decision to build two equal offices in addition to the company’s headquarters in Seattle is recruiting enough tech talent, according to the person familiar with the company’s plans. The move will also ease potential issues with housing, transit and other areas where adding tens of thousands of workers could cause problems."
Just kidding. What about completely remote companies, or companies where the CEO is remote?
If you have a conglomerate, the existence of an HQ is totally meaningless.
They have already expanded their engineering foot print in India and have continued to look beyond the US market when it comes to talent.
Without knowing anything about them, one would assume they're already tapping global talent pools with maximum aggression.
If anything, recession in the US may increase the supply and lower the cost (salaries) of American developers, thus making them more competitive against other countries.
That's enough for me.
Can I make the bet you describe for, say, seven years? I’d say five is highly likely to suffice but I’d rather play it safe.
Yep. Hence "if few is three" earlier.
I'm not interested in a bet. I'm interested in adjusting my priors. Thanks for the help.
If you’re not interested in a bet, why did you reply to me to ask if I’ve made one?
We have had 10 years of growth since the last recession (every gray line is a recession).
If you take into account the market corrections that we have seen this year as a sign, most people in finance will agree that there will be a correction in the next three years. It is far from speculation.
The charts was generated from here: https://www.macrotrends.net/2324/sp-500-historical-chart-dat...
Edit: FYI I did not imply that market corrections == recession. The reason I put the image is to show that there hasn't been a recession in 10 years and that we are due for one. We have had a few market corrections this year, but no recession yet.
It's also not even remotely clear to me that a plot of 500 of the largest corporations in the US SHOULDN'T be growing extremely/exponentially fast.
This happens in Oregon all of the time with Intel. We don't have a sales tax - we have an income tax and property tax. Everytime we want to raise property taxes, Intel makes a big stink and we give them presents to appease them.
https://www.oregonlive.com/hillsboro/index.ssf/2014/08/intel... https://www.nytimes.com/1999/06/09/us/fighting-sprawl-oregon...
Amazon is following the Boeing example. I fully expect Washington state to give away massive amounts of money the same way they did before.
To be clear, is your argument really that schools have lots of money so corporations deserve to get some too?
Am I wildly off here?
Yeah, it's unfortunate that often the deck is stacked against a company that could really bring some massive benefit to people, but you're right that they've done surprisingly well against that anti-momentum.
If we really wanted to stamp this out, throw some serious sand in the revolving door gears.
The only other alternative is to force companies to stay in an area, regardless of how attractive the business climate is.
But at least we didn't offer them crazy tax incentives like some other cities.
This is unfair to cities not making the list like Detroit. If Detroit was judged on only having to provide half the jobs would it not have been disqualified? Amazon changes the rules mid-stream.
Amazon just put some cities on a list and negotiated with them.
Any city not on the list is not there because Amazon didn't want it there.
I also doubt that existing talent pool size was such a major consideration. Crystal City VA doesn't strike me as an obvious tech hub, nor does Newark. Amazon is definitely counting on talent to relocate to its new offices, especially if they put them in such locations.
* Added: Especially if you factor in all the people that would normally commute into NYC or DC/Arlington from the surrounding areas now commuting to a potentially closer office location. Could be really big for lots of people (and of course Amazon).
"State legislators in various states are starting to think about how to stop companies from playing one state against another for tax breaks and handouts.
I suggested many years ago that the states should form a union to bargain collectively with these companies. We could call it 'The United States of America'."
https://stallman.org/archives/2007-jul-oct.html#23%20July%20...
I suspect in the end they'll keep expanding in a quiet and steady pace while never officially declaring a "HQ2" at all whilst the cities feud over who gets the title and keep handing out incentives.