Amazon HQ2 RFP

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Went to Austin last year for the first time and was underwhelmed by it. Airport was nice, Rainey was cool, 6th ok... but was shocked at how truly small it felt...almost boony just outside downtown. Another positive was the food, which I thought was very good eveywhere I went but “live music capital” ? Nashville wins hands down. Also there’s no stores downtown just restaurants and bars...I think a good mix is nice since most of them close during the day. Austin does not deserve the hype.

Anyway, Amazon is going to DC end of story.
 
Texas gets points deducted for Ted Cruz, Greg Abbott, and Ken Paxton.
 
I was going to mention Austin's culture.... including but not limited to its bohemian attitudes, clothing optional Barton Creek, wild times in Zilker Park, the over-rated music events, 6th Street, endless hookups, sunburnt debauchery out on Lake Travis, Hamilton Pool & Hippy Hollow..... racing the P-car on the Bee Caves Road twisties vs the snotty folk from Lakeway, The Hills & Briarcliff..... Crazy parties at a certain estate in Dripping Springs...... 99F on the 2nd of February.
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That's the most useless "greetings fellow kids" comment I've seen in a while, and you post nonsense at least twice a day.
 
617 said:
Went to Austin last year for the first time and was underwhelmed by it... but was shocked at how truly small it felt...almost boony just outside downtown. .....but “live music capital” ? Nashville wins hands down. Also there’s no stores downtown just restaurants and bars...I think a good mix is nice since most of them close during the day. Austin does not deserve the hype.....
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unquestionably.... btw, Lake Travis and the Canyons out towards Marble Falls makes Austin the unique place that it is.... At one point during the drought a few years ago, Lake Travis was down 90 ft from its normal level. Tough times.
 
cadetcarl said:
That's the most useless "greetings fellow kids" comment I've seen in a while, and you post nonsense at least twice a day.
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Oh, I don't know, after reading Odurandina's take on fun times in Austin, if I were a few decades younger, hell, I'd just have to head out there to see for myself some of this debauchery that he speaks of. I just hope he was speaking from experience about Lake Travis, Barton Springs, Dripping Creek and all the rest of it and had some fun himself while taking notes for those of us back east. :)
 
I think the major draws for Austin to Millennials are the young population, liberal culture, and relatively cheap cost of living. My cousin has lived there for 5+ years and she lives in a one bed room condo in downtown that costs only $1500/mo. That's prob 40% less than what you have to pay in Boston. Heck, I'd considered living in Austin if it wasn't for the fact that it is located in Texas.
 
odurandina said:
I was going to mention Austin's culture.... including but not limited to its bohemian attitudes, clothing optional Barton Creek, wild times in Zilker Park, the over-rated music events, 6th Street, endless hookups, sunburnt debauchery out on Lake Travis, Hamilton Pool & Hippy Hollow..... racing the P-car on the Bee Caves Road twisties vs the snotty folk from Lakeway, The Hills & Briarcliff..... Crazy parties at a certain estate in Dripping Springs...... 99F on the 2nd of February.

The Texas Hill Country in March and April is sublime. Then the humidity begins to drift in around mid to late April..... Then hail and tornado season, followed by the onset of 5 months of unbearable Texas heat and every few years Hurricane-induced floods.....

Texas is wild times. Beer, coolers, muddin' fire ants and debauchery....
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I think you just unknowingly wrote the best sales piece possible for Amazon to choose Austin in that first and last paragraph.

You do know that the majority of those 50,000 Amazon techies look differently at "debauchery" and "bohemian attitudes" than you and Aunt Matilda do, right?

Were you clutching your pearls when you wrote that?:D
 
My guess is Amazon already knows where this is going and is just making a play for tax breaks.

Realistically, I think only 6 cities have a realistic shot.
1) DC- an urban city with a well educated work force. Not on par with Boston from a tech standpoint. But, the MSA has the ability to scale in a way Boston doesn't.
2/3) Philly/Chicago- world class cities with cheaper cost of living than DC, Bos, and certainly NYC. Chicago has better amenities, Philly has better location.
4/5) Boston- very educated tech concentric city, the only draw back is the regions in ability to build housing on par with DC.
4/5) Atlanta- a big MSA with a slowly urbanizing core and a very low cost of living for big city.
6/7) NYC
6/7) Denver- big airport, growing, liberal techie city. Downside is it is still out west and it isn't a big as some of the other cities.

Everything else is either too small or too far west (Miami and Newark excluded).
 
mass88 said:
Perhaps she/he doesn't like the politics of Texas? Or the climate of Texas?
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Typically would mean the politics and actual laws. Is a bit of a culture shock for northeasterners.
 
Would not surprise me if Amazon has aded a new criterion to its site evaluation checklist: proximity to Canada.

Immigration uncertainty has America's tech workers fleeing to Canada
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https://www.nbcnews.com/video/immig...leeing-to-canada-1178997827690?cid=eml_onsite

And don't think for a moment that Amazon isn't aware and concerned.

http://montrealgazette.com/technolo...earn/wcm/760e1bf9-6ad6-4121-9bc0-c829d6308f3d

https://www.geektime.com/2017/03/07/cant-get-a-visa-for-silicon-valley-maybe-try-out-montreal/

https://www.geekwire.com/2017/trump...-force-amazon-microsoft-shift-workers-canada/
 
stellarfun said:
Would not surprise me if Amazon has aded a new criterion to its site evaluation checklist: proximity to Canada.



https://www.nbcnews.com/video/immig...leeing-to-canada-1178997827690?cid=eml_onsite

And don't think for a moment that Amazon isn't aware and concerned.

http://montrealgazette.com/technolo...earn/wcm/760e1bf9-6ad6-4121-9bc0-c829d6308f3d

https://www.geektime.com/2017/03/07/cant-get-a-visa-for-silicon-valley-maybe-try-out-montreal/

https://www.geekwire.com/2017/trump...-force-amazon-microsoft-shift-workers-canada/
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Not sure how proximity to Canada is relevant. (a) Amazon is already in a city that is very close to Canada and (b) being in proximity to Canada does not make visa issues disappear. Toronto is on the list and if Amazon feels visa issues are a major problem, maybe they will locate there, but that does not currently appear to be a major factor based on the rest of their list being cities in the US.
 
dshoost88 said:
I'll take the bait... what does that mean?
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Sure. Like I said, I think Austin is a nice place to live but as a person of color, outside the major urban cores in Texas, I feel like my kind isn't exactly welcomed and that isn't exactly the environment where I would like to build and raise a family. As ridiculous as that sounds, that is a factor I unfortunately have to take into consideration when deciding where I would move or even travel to.
 
KentXie said:
Sure. Like I said, I think Austin is a nice place to live but as a person of color, outside the major urban cores in Texas, I feel like my kind isn't exactly welcomed and that isn't exactly the environment where I would like to build and raise a family. As ridiculous as that sounds, that is a factor I unfortunately have to take into consideration when deciding where I would move or even travel to.
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Times change. It wasn't long ago (for some it still is) that you could have replaced the name "Texas" with "Massachusetts" in that post.

I appreciate your point and am curious as to how you find the 2018 version of the Greater Boston area, Kentxie.
 
shmessy said:
Times change. It wasn't long ago (for some it still is) that you could have replaced the name "Texas" with "Massachusetts" in that post.

I appreciate your point and am curious as to how you find the 2018 version of the Greater Boston area, Kentxie.
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I feel like Greater Boston is quite different than Texas. The people here are more unfriendly than the people in the south, but, in my opinion, they are a lot more tolerant and accepting of people of different backgrounds. I think it's due to the concentration of colleges of universities which created a diverse community as you bring in people of many different backgrounds from many different places. Problems still exist but at a lower caliber.

I don't want to pull the conversation too off topic so I'll leave it at that.
 
You're poorly informed. There's way more immigrants from all over the world/ and various ethnicities in Texas than there are in Massachusetts. Texas has a large Asian community as well. The young people in Texas are very Progressive.... but Texas has a very significant number of conservative immigrants that just happen to be a bit older.... People from all ethnic backgrounds are doing quite a lot to keep Texas a red state [for now].

I'm sure you'd feel quite welcome in Texas even after venturing out into the Hill Country, including the German communities of Fredericksburg, New Braunfels, Boerne, Walburg, and Bulverde. Oktoberfest in Fredericksburg and New Braunfels is pretty fun, that people from all ethnicities enjoy.
 
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odurandina said:
You're poorly informed.
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Are you a minority?

If not, then don't try to speak about how comfortable one should or should not feel in an area based on your experience as a non-minority.
 
odurandina said:
You're poorly informed. There's way more immigrants from all over the world/ and various ethnicities in Texas than there are in Massachusetts. Texas has a large Asian community as well. The young people in Texas are very Progressive.... but Texas has a very significant number of conservative immigrants that just happen to be a bit older.... People from all ethnic backgrounds are doing quite a lot to keep Texas a red state [for now].

I'm sure you'd feel quite welcome in Texas even after venturing out into the Hill Country, including the German communities of Fredericksburg, New Braunfels, Boerne, Walburg, and Bulverde. Oktoberfest in Fredericksburg and New Braunfels is pretty fun, that people from all ethnicities enjoy.
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Massachusetts (16.5%) and Texas (17%) have virtually the same foreign born (i.e. immigrant) population percentage.

The Massachusetts immigrant mix is much more diverse than Texas -- Texas is dominated by immigrants from Latin America. Massachusetts also has a higher percentage of Asian born immigrants than Texas (30% versus 21%). Perhaps try checking facts before writing.

https://www.migrationpolicy.org/pro...MIgY_qzsXf2QIV1brACh0X-QFVEAAYASAAEgJJovD_BwE
 
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