We offer, no hurricanes, no earthquakes, no tidal waves, no forest fires, no flooding, and once every 10 year snow storms. We are on the opposite coast which protects you from N Korean actions. Plus you can fly anywhere from our airport!
I'm referring to the real possibility that Atlanta might become subject to laws that pretty much every corporation in America would consider a major downside when choosing where to site a HQ. I assume this is what they are referring to in the CFP when they talk about the "political stability" of a region.
Even then, the metro areas are blue, rest of the states are red, like everywhere else in the country.
ding ding ding! My bet would be on Pittsburgh. Maaaaybe Minneapolis, Madison, Detroit or Philadelphia.
I'm also betting on pittsburgh or perhaps minneapolis.
Just one NPR affiliate? We've got 2!
Some of our politicians are from the stone age though.
Right now it seems like mailchimp is getting as much of the graduates as they can.
As for the sprawl, there is a huge building boom going on inside the city, 10's if not a 100 thousand new apartments going up. Bike lanes being added, its actually becoming civilized!
The last year I lived in ATL I took marta to work as my commute.
Don't jinx it.
Atlanta looks good on paper. It always does. But actually being in the city tells me a different story.
That said, I think only Atlanta, NYC, Chicago, or Boston could absorb the extra demand for skilled employees without sucking the wind out of the other local businesses' sails. The Texan cities could, too, but I don't think Amazon will go there, for some reason.
If Amazon plopped down in Chattanooga or Harrisburg, or even Indianapolis or Detroit, it would exhaust the local talent pool immediately, and cause a local inflation bubble.
Great cities have (1) cool places to visit; and (2) lots of hidden gems - parks, restaurants, etc. - that take years to discover. Atlanta lacks the first, but has plenty of the second. That combined with good weather, great housing options and a Delta hub make it pretty nice to live in.
Boston and NYC are all developed expensive. Atlanta still has undeveloped area inside the city limits or old industrial areas that can be removed and replaced.
Chattanooga wouldn't work because they want an international airport and major university.
Atlanta has the world's busiest airport and Georgia Tech (engineering), Emory (business, medicine). Atlanta is also a huge transportation hub of the Southeast.
Detroit is a cesspool, but does have the added advantage of everything being cheap, lots of places to develop, and lots of transportation infrastructure, but no international airport.
It looks like Amazon wrote this RFP for Atlanta.
I'm certainly bias as I grew up in ATL, but the RFP seemed to be written for Atlanta to me.
Maybe nobody you know is going to chicago but 75% of my friends from the midwest have all congregated to chicago. I moved out west for the better tech jobs but I would instantly jump on the chance to move back to chicago to be close to friends and family.
Companies don't want to move to a state whose economic future and viability is in question.
This is a bad thing? Wouldn't that work in favor of Minneapolis-St. Paul where they would outbid their top retail competitors for tech talent?