Speaker 1: There's a battle brewing across North America, and it's all
Speaker 1: about becoming the second home to the multibillion dollar tech
Speaker 1: company Amazon. What's its stake? I'm Jonavin Strickland and this
Speaker 1: is text updating. Amazon is looking to expand beyond its
Speaker 1: Seattle headquarters. As such, the company opened up the opportunity
Speaker 1: for cities to submit proposals to the company as part
Speaker 1: of the corporate decision on where it will set down
Speaker 1: roots next. A few cities responded to the call, specifically
Speaker 1: two thirty eight of them. Only seven states in the
Speaker 1: US did not submit a proposal. Those seven, in case
Speaker 1: you are curious, are Arkansas, Vermont, Montana, Wyoming, both the Dakotas,
Speaker 1: and Hawaii. It seems as though there will be no
Speaker 1: aloha spirit at Amazon. The competition is fierce and more
Speaker 1: than a little odd. Take the offer that originated from Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
Speaker 1: Banners in that city proclaimed that Calgary would fight a
Speaker 1: bear for Amazon. This likely falls slightly outside the list
Speaker 1: of requirements Amazon was looking at. Charlotte, North Carolina, declared
Speaker 1: October eighteenth, the day before the proposals were due, as
Speaker 1: c LT is prime day. No word on whether all
Speaker 1: citizens were expected to enroll an Amazon Prime and observance
Speaker 1: of the holiday, Tucson, Arizona sent over a cactus to
Speaker 1: Amazon's headquarters, twenty one ft saguaro cactus. The Amazon Twitter
Speaker 1: feed thanked Tucson for the gift, but explained they couldn't
Speaker 1: accept it. Instead, they donated the cactus to the Desert Museum,
Speaker 1: a natural history museum in Tucson. Birmingham, Alabama, built giant
Speaker 1: mock ups of the Amazon dash buttons, which our WiFi
Speaker 1: enabled buttons that allow you to order certain projects from
Speaker 1: Amazon just with a press of said button. The Birmingham
Speaker 1: version allowed people to walk up and press the giant buttons,
Speaker 1: which would then send out one of six hundred pregenerated
Speaker 1: Twitter messages to Amazon touting the benefits of moving to Alabama.
Speaker 1: Closer to my home is Stone Crest, Georgia. Stone Crest
Speaker 1: is just to the east of Atlanta, Georgia, my hometown.
Speaker 1: In an effort to convince Amazon to hang its hat
Speaker 1: in this relatively small city, the city council voted four
Speaker 1: to two to d annex Stone Crest and rename it
Speaker 1: Amazon Georgia. I'm not sure how I feel about that,
Speaker 1: Not all the proposals were accompanied by publicity stunts. One
Speaker 1: intriguing one would locate the headquarters in three nearby cities.
Speaker 1: The surprising thing is that these three cities aren't all
Speaker 1: in the same country. They include El Paso, Texas, Las Cruces,
Speaker 1: New Mexico, and Juarez, Mexico. Such a site would require
Speaker 1: special considerations such as border control, but it demonstrates the
Speaker 1: creativity many sites were employing when pitching their proposals. Not
Speaker 1: everyone saw this as a positive thing. The city of
Speaker 1: San Antonio published an open letter to Amazon pointing out
Speaker 1: that this process had created what amounted to a bidding
Speaker 1: war between cities and states, pitting them against each other.
Speaker 1: But then that's exactly what Amazon intended. By making the
Speaker 1: proposal process public, Amazon put pressure on prospective cities and regions.
Speaker 1: Attracting a massive tech company like Amazon would win powerful
Speaker 1: political points for any local government officials. Amazon's HQ would
Speaker 1: create jobs and other economic opportunities. In fact, according to Amazon,
Speaker 1: the new HQ will bring fifty thousand new jobs and
Speaker 1: five billion dollars of investment to a region. But to
Speaker 1: convince a company to build out a massive development in
Speaker 1: a city requires some incentives. Typically in the form of
Speaker 1: massive tax breaks, and it worked. For example, Newark, New Jersey,
Speaker 1: put together a proposal that included around seven billion dollars
Speaker 1: in state tax breaks. This is as high stakes as
Speaker 1: gambling gets. According to the financial services company Moody's Analytics,
Speaker 1: the cities that are most likely to get the nod
Speaker 1: from Amazon include, in order, Austin, Texas, Atlanta, Georgia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Rochester,
Speaker 1: New York, and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. New York City follows close
Speaker 1: behind in sixth place. Other firms have a very different
Speaker 1: lineup of the likely finalists, and Amazon is staying mute
Speaker 1: on the subject. That will likely be the case until
Speaker 1: sometime in two thousand eighteen, when the company is expected
Speaker 1: to announce its choice for the new headquarters. At that point,
Speaker 1: the city might discover what folks in Seattle have known
Speaker 1: for a while. Amazon's presence can be both good and bad.
Speaker 1: In Seattle, Washington, Amazon has been responsible for massive building
Speaker 1: projects throughout the city. Construction cranes seem to be on
Speaker 1: every corner, Housing prices have increased dramatically, public transit improvements
Speaker 1: have lagged behind the growth of the city, and the
Speaker 1: homeless population has increased. These issues must be weighed against
Speaker 1: the benefits of the company's presence, and perhaps more to
Speaker 1: and should be directed toward them before Amazon gets neighborly
Speaker 1: with a new city. To learn more about Amazon and
Speaker 1: tech in general, subscribe to The Tech Stuff podcast. I
Speaker 1: love to explore how tech works and how it affects
Speaker 1: us in our daily lives. That's all for today. I'll
Speaker 1: see you again soon.