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Comment by thebradbain | Hacker News Reader

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.

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> 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.

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.

I believe an HQ2 would speed up Texas’ change.

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.

So Amazon should only be allowed to have large offices in Blue states? What dangerous thinking.

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.

>In my opinion this is not gonna happen any time soon.

Certainly not when there's so many people like you with bizarre black and white visions of the world.

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.

Homophobia went from the mainstream view to a tiny fringe in 20 years. Even Trump isn't homophobic. And even California is home to a fringe.

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?

> Even Trump isn't homophobic.

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-...

Way to miss the point.

> 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.

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.

Similarly, Massachusetts currently has a Republican governor, and it's certainly not a red state

Who surprisingly has the highest approval rating in the country, even higher than Warren.

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.

Nobody knows their history, they're just chasing the quick dopamine fix.

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.

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.

>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.

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.

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.

I am in Dallas at least once per year.

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.

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.

Unfortunately Dallas is still in Texas.

Not really any different than Seattle, except Seattle has enough sway over the rest of Washington to keep it from going hard right.

> 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.

You're operating off a caricature of Texan politics. Its far more sane than the carnival of horrors that is the Seattle City Council.

(lived in Texas, now live in Seattle)

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.)

Texas is aggressively pro-life. They strictly regulate abortion clinics in particular.

Thanks for the info. I wasn't aware.

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.

the money that amazon would bring could shift politics in Texas alone.

just because you don't agree with something doesn't automatically makes it "wacky"

Denver is not suitable at all.

Why?

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.

Tech companies are serious about liberal politics.

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.

> Tech companies are serious about liberal politics.

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.

It might be good for a red state to get an HQ, though, since educated people will for once migrate there instead of away from there.

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).

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...

> 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?

The question and references are specifically about domestic state to state migration patterns. That was was obvious from context.

Illegal immigration to Texas btw is much higher than to California: https://www.sacbee.com/site-services/databases/article174373...

All in-migration is legal. The United States does not have an internal passport.

Well obviously all educated people vote democratic because only uneducated people would ever vote republican \s

> migrate there instead of away from there

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.

LOL. There are tons of educated people who move to Texas. Ever heard of Texas Instruments?

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.

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.

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.”

TI makes a lot more than calculators. But you’re right, nothing as interesting to the highly educated as yet another photo sharing app.

>... covering Seattle (West Coast), DC/NoVa (East Coast), Texas (South) gives them nationwide influence.

It's a bit hurtful whenever the Midwest is left out like it's not part of the country.

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.

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.

To add to what others have said: No state income tax. Relaxed zoning laws (compared to CA).

It's mainly the stuff that's pro-employee in California (wrt non-compete and what have you) are pro-employer in Texas.

Primarily, from my understanding, it's related to diminished permitting and (most importantly) very lax zoning laws.

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.

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...

Cheap housing, lots of land.

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.

There's a reason so many companies are moving to DFW.

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