[gist]

I am aware of what you are saying. However living in a place that is 'moving and grooving' because there is economic activity has benefits that simply can't be measured. For example you can live in a nowhere ghost town with little restaurants and nobody around and think you have it great. But just the same people with any ambition will move out of that area and leave it even more isolated. Empty main street.

If you try to quantify you will often come up short. And w/o knowing the exact numbers who knows. But much of it is for tax (credits) which they wouldn't get anyway. The places in many areas that are being offered have been vacant for years. So we are not talking about Manhattan when you look at Navy Yard in Philly. It has land because nobody wants that land. And it could take forever to get it occupied.

Economic activity where there is little currently and no prospects is all around good. In the case of where I live (within 20 miles of one of the sites) I am thinking 'wow if they locate there people will end up buying used houses where I am and property values will increase and then people will spend money and they will build more restaurants and things will all around be good. So maybe I will stay in this area and not move in that case'.

By the way Amazon has not invented this process. It's currently being done where counties compete against other counties for lesser known prizes. Very common you just never hear about it. In many cases the company moving has no intention of moving either. Welcome to the world of business and how it works.