Amazon HQ2 RFP

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Rover said:
Boston's advantage perhaps would be that its more similar to Seattle in terms of size and scale if Amazon is just looking for the closest East Coast version of what it has out west (and in truth DC or Atlanta would also qualify).
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I must be missing something with Atlanta, Nice city but really strikes me as the epitome of a 20th century city in terms of big industry. It's very spread out and almost completely reliant on the car. It's almost like the opposite of Seattle.
 
Ruairi said:
I must be missing something with Atlanta, Nice city but really strikes me as the epitome of a 20th century city in terms of big industry. It's very spread out and almost completely reliant on the car. It's almost like the opposite of Seattle.
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More in terms of population. NYC is a colossus. Philly IIRC is 2-3X bigger than Seattle. Boston, DC, and Atlanta I think are all in the 650+ range.
 
stellarfun said:
After reading this article in the NY Times, I am leaning more than ever that HQ2 will peak at 20,000 employees, and the other 30,000 will be placed at existing or future satellite hubs.
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50,000 always seemed like a "as many as" number rather than a hard target. 20,000 is a more reasonable number of people to have on one campus or in close proximity. Closer to the capacity at Apple's new campus by comparison. Having the option to go higher is what they are looking for. Any state level incentives are going to have to be prorated.
 
Rover said:
More in terms of population. NYC is a colossus. Philly IIRC is 2-3X bigger than Seattle. Boston, DC, and Atlanta I think are all in the 650+ range.
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Atlanta is only 473,000; and at ~3,500/square mile, it is about 4x less urban than Boston (or Philly for comparison). Metro area size? Comparable. But culture fit? No comparison.
 
Ruairi said:
I must be missing something with Atlanta, Nice city but really strikes me as the epitome of a 20th century city in terms of big industry. It's very spread out and almost completely reliant on the car. It's almost like the opposite of Seattle.
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Well, Atlanta is the regional capital of The South, a more populous area than the Pacific Northwest where Seattle is regional capital. It is starting from WAY behind in walkability, but it does have walkable neighborhoods and the trend is progressing. It is on an up-swing of urbanism (like just about every city in the US).

Notably, most Amazon employees could afford to live in any neighborhood of Atlanta they wanted, even the most desirable/walkable areas. In Buckhead, I think probably the most hip urban neighborhood, average 1-bed rent is $1500.

Remember too that Seattle isn't exactly a utopia of public transit. About 75% of Seattle transit riders are on buses, so Atlanta's "weak" metro system actually carries more people than Seattle's light rail. I think Amazon wants to be in an area with better transit that Seattle or Atlanta, but by comparison Atlanta is not a clear step backward.

A tremendous appeal also come from Georgia Tech, one of the best engineering schools in the world. And Atlanta's role as capitol of The South gives it a leg up recruiting from other top universities from across the south.

I'm not saying all those things make Atlanta a shoe-in. I'm saying those are pluses for Atlanta. I still think HQ2 will go to a BosWash city - not Austin, not Atlanta, not Denver.
 
stellarfun said:
After reading this article in the NY Times, I am leaning more than ever that HQ2 will peak at 20,000 employees, and the other 30,000 will be placed at existing or future satellite hubs.
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tangent said:
50,000 always seemed like a "as many as" number rather than a hard target. 20,000 is a more reasonable number of people to have on one campus or in close proximity. Closer to the capacity at Apple's new campus by comparison. Having the option to go higher is what they are looking for. Any state level incentives are going to have to be prorated.
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I also have been saying for a while that 50,000 is quite ambitious. Seattle HQ has 40,000 today and it is hard to picture Amazon recreating even that in HQ2. 20,000 seems realistic and is still massive by any definition.
 
Rover said:
More in terms of population. NYC is a colossus. Philly IIRC is 2-3X bigger than Seattle. Boston, DC, and Atlanta I think are all in the 650+ range.
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It's not accurate to look just at city population. If you do so Boston looks smaller and less important then it actually is. El Paso, Fort Worth, Charlotte, Indy, Austin, San Antonio, Jacksonville, and others are all a good bit larger then Boston if we're just looking at city limits.

I think CSA paints a more accurate picture of the real size of a region. Using that Boston is the 6th largest, behind San Fran and ahead of Dallas and Philly. And the CSA includes PVD, Worcester, and parts of NH.

There aren't many other city halls where you can take a 10 min walk and end up in a totally different city and county. In Boston you can.
 
tysmith95 said:
It's not accurate to look just at city population. If you do so Boston looks smaller and less important then it actually is. El Paso, Fort Worth, Charlotte, Indy, Austin, San Antonio, Jacksonville, and others are all a good bit larger then Boston if we're just looking at city limits.

I think CSA paints a more accurate picture of the real size of a region. Using that Boston is the 6th largest, behind San Fran and ahead of Dallas and Philly. And the CSA includes PVD, Worcester, and parts of NH.

There aren't many other city halls where you can take a 10 min walk and end up in a totally different city and county. In Boston you can.
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The problem with CSA in terms of where Amazon chooses to locate is that it ignores the proximity of NYC/PHL/DC which run into one another. A better measure would be "population within x miles of HQ location," but of course the government doesn't track that.
 
Justin7 said:
The problem with CSA in terms of where Amazon chooses to locate is that it ignores the proximity of NYC/PHL/DC which run into one another. A better measure would be "population within x miles of HQ location," but of course the government doesn't track that.
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Although the distance from NYC to Philly, roughly 100 miles, is about the same as Boston to Hartford. They don't really share a commuting region, although I guess some long distance commuters from some towns in the middle of Jersey commute to both regions.

Providence is about 50 miles away. People do that commute. I don't believe there are many people who do a Philly to NYC commute daily.
 
tysmith95 said:
Although the distance from NYC to Philly, roughly 100 miles, is about the same as Boston to Hartford. They don't really share a commuting region, although I guess some long distance commuters from some towns in the middle of Jersey commute to both regions.

Providence is about 50 miles away. People do that commute. I don't believe there are many people who do a Philly to NYC commute daily.
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Agreed. Lehigh Valley to either, sure, but not NYC to Philly.
But, that's also 100% car.
Boston as the regional hub is rail connected to the 50 mile radius. Not incredibly, but it is rail connected, making commuting that much easier or more attractive.
Driving 50 miles and then trying to get into downtown NYC at the end, not very attractive.
 
dshoost88 said:
Atlanta is only 473,000; and at ~3,500/square mile, it is about 4x less urban than Boston (or Philly for comparison). Metro area size? Comparable. But culture fit? No comparison.
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Taking the population density of a sprawling city and then comparing it to an incredibly tiny city (i.e. Boston) is not fair at all. For example, LA County's population density is 2,100 per square mile, but LA County has many, many more urban areas than Boston does. Similarly, Atlanta has quite a few urban areas combined with a sprawling suburban outer ring.

It would be more accurate to include Boston's outer suburbs when comparing to Atlanta.
 
FenwayResident said:
Taking the population density of a sprawling city and then comparing it to an incredibly tiny city (i.e. Boston) is not fair at all. For example, LA County's population density is 2,100 per square mile, but LA County has many, many more urban areas than Boston does. Similarly, Atlanta has quite a few urban areas combined with a sprawling suburban outer ring.

It would be more accurate to include Boston's outer suburbs when comparing to Atlanta.
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His general idea is correct though. Atlanta is not that urban. It's much more spread out compared to Boston.
 
tysmith95 said:
His general idea is correct though. Atlanta is not that urban. It's much more spread out compared to Boston.
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Agreed, the entire city is not that urban. But for Amazon's purposes, there are pockets that are urban enough.

It would be like saying "LA County is not that urban" (which is true) despite the fact that there is Santa Monica, Venice, Long Beach, West Hollywood, DTLA, Koreatown, Westwood (UCLA), Silverlake, etc. etc. for Amazon to locate itself.
 
tysmith95 said:
His general idea is correct though. Atlanta is not that urban. It's much more spread out compared to Boston.
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FenwayResident said:
Agreed, the entire city is not that urban. But for Amazon's purposes, there are pockets that are urban enough.

It would be like saying "LA County is not that urban" (which is true) despite the fact that there is Santa Monica, Venice, Long Beach, West Hollywood, DTLA, Koreatown, Westwood (UCLA), Silverlake, etc. etc. for Amazon to locate itself.
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Going further down the rabbit hole...

City of Atlanta = 133 square miles; 3,547 people/square mile
City of Boston = 48 square miles; 13,903 people/square mile
City of Los Angeles = 467 square miles; 8,483 people/square mile


Los Angeles is nearly 3x the land area as Atlanta, and still features 2.4x the density of that city. Don't give me that "it's not a fair comparison" bologna... an area's density is a reflection of its propensity to allow for a more urban environment vs. a more rural/suburban one. Even if you incorporated Boston's abutting municipalities to reflect a land area comparable to Atlanta's, you'd still see an average density over 10,000 people/square mile. Why? Because we value urbanity up here--it's what we do.
 
dshoost88 said:
Going further down the rabbit hole...

City of Atlanta = 133 square miles; 3,547 people/square mile
City of Boston = 48 square miles; 13,903 people/square mile
City of Los Angeles = 467 square miles; 8,483 people/square mile


Los Angeles is nearly 3x the land area as Atlanta, and still features 2.4x the density of that city. Don't give me that "it's not a fair comparison" bologna... an area's density is a reflection of its propensity to allow for a more urban environment vs. a more rural/suburban one. Even if you incorporated Boston's abutting municipalities to reflect a land area comparable to Atlanta's, you'd still see an average density over 10,000 people/square mile. Why? Because we value urbanity up here--it's what we do.
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I think you're missing my point.

My point is that population density is not a proxy for urbanity. Your whole argument is essentially "Atlanta has a low population density therefore it is not urban [enough for Amazon]." I am saying that is not a valid argument; areas with low population densities can have very urban areas within them as I showed with LA county.
 
FenwayResident said:
I think you're missing my point.

My point is that population density is not a proxy for urbanity. Your whole argument is essentially "Atlanta has a low population density therefore it is not urban [enough for Amazon]." I am saying that is not a valid argument; areas with low population densities can have very urban areas within them as I showed with LA county.
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But LA does not have a low population density.
 
Interesting argument... I think it boils down to quality of urban environments within the context of the greater metropolitan area which you can argue about until you are blue based on personal preferences. For HQ2 purposes, it does boil down to quality which will largely depend on where people go to visit to get a feel for the city.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_metropolitan_statistical_areas

Some interesting differences in trends in that list... with Philly and Chicago not necessarily growing much. And Houston, Dallas and Denver growing very fast. Maybe Greater Boston is growing just right.
 
tysmith95 said:
But LA does not have a low population density.
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The City of Los Angeles has a relatively high population density because it explicitly excludes all of the suburban areas outside of it (similar to Boston). That's why all of my posts have been talking about LA County which includes the suburbs of LA.
 
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