Except that I want to live in Atlanta even less than I want to live in Seattle. It has a kind of psychic oppression field over it that makes me want to immediately turn around and leave.
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.
Nobody's going to Chicago. The state government is in shambles, and taxes are going way up. The state is flirting with insolvency.
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.
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.
I meant companies. They are going to steer clear of Illinois. Illinois is at the start of an economic death spiral. Roads are hugely underfunded. State workers' pensions are extremely underfunded, as in, state taxes are going to have to increase significantly beyond the tax increase passed this year for them to not default on their obligations and their other loan payments. Once they default on their loan payments, Illinois' ability to issue debt for capital expenditures like roads, road repairs, bridges and other infrastructure is limited to high risk / high interest loans.
Companies don't want to move to a state whose economic future and viability is in question.
They could always set up in Gary in Indiana or Kenosha in Wisconsin. Metra commuter rail goes out that far, so anyone wanting to live in Illinois proper could do so and commute outward instead of in.
Maybe I'm biased because I live here, but Chicago seems like a complete slam dunk for Amazon. We've got: good public transit, plenty of space for development, an educated workforce with a a decently sized tech talent pool already developed, easy draw from Big 10 schools and the University of Chicago, and a (relatively) low cost of living when compared to comparable cities. Yes, the state and city have financial problems, but watch how fast the gridlock disappears when an opportunity like this presents itself. As I said in another comment, the city has been really good at getting companies, both from the suburbs and from out of state, to setup headquarters in the loop.
I'm sure Georgia State is reasonable, but it's just as reasonable as any other good state school in any other state. Georgia Tech and Emory are at the top of the list for their specialties though, engineering, computer science and business -- all things Amazon would find enticing.
As an Atlanta resident, I find it a terrible place to visit but a great place to live.
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.
I feel the same way about Atlanta. And the money that I save by living here as opposed to a cool place to visit means I can actually afford to visit those places.
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.