Amazon has been searching for a place to host its second home. The e-commerce giant is based in Seattle but as it expands to become one of the biggest corporations in the world, it has felt the need to establish a second home in a new location. The search for Amazon’s second headquarter has been publicized quite a lot. Many cities in North America were competing with one another but the list has since been narrowed down to 20 cities.
The investment that comes with Amazon’s second home is huge. The e-commerce platform is promising over $5 billion in direct investments as well as thousands of high paying jobs. As such, many cities have been lobbying to try to get the attention of the company. However, even as all these things unfold, it’s becoming unsurprisingly clear that Amazon’s “perfect” second home would probably be a big city.
The officials who are charged with the role of picking the winner from the final list of 20 cities have been making visits in various parts of the US. The Wall Street Journal reported that New York City, Miami, Chicago, and Newark have all been under the radar over the last few days. However, the most striking thing about these visits is that, in their fact-finding missions, the experts have somehow ignored cities like Raleigh and Montgomery County. It looks like the bigger cities are starting to fall into Amazon’s priorities compared to the smaller suburban areas.
This is not a surprise, to be honest. Amazon has said that its goal at the moment is to build a second HQ that will be attractive enough for young professionals to work and live, and big cities offer that prospect better than the smaller suburban areas. In addition to this, some of these smaller cities may lack the capacity to fully house Amazon as effectively as possible. For example, take a city like Miami which is cosmopolitan in nature and draws hundreds of thousands of tourists from all over the world. The city does have the capacity to absorb people without any issues at all. On the other hand, Montgomery County, a small and less known town just outside DC, may have a hard time taking in 50,000 workers that Amazon promises to bring.
Despite this, it does look like Amazon will still take its time before finally making the decision. After all, it’s been a year since the search began and even though we are quite close to an announcement, it didn’t have to take that long. The cities that have provided tax cuts and other incentives may also be on the running if the company decides to consider economic factors in its decision. But even then, it doesn’t seem likely that this will factor into the final pick. Amazon received 238 proposals from cities in North America when it first announced plans to build its second headquarters, and a final decision is expected to be made before the end of the year.
