| > I completely disagree with the “race to the bottom” framing of the idea that cities shouldn’t compete to provide the best services for the commercial enterprises which reside there. Part of the problem here is the people negotiating don't really have much skin in the game. It's easy to negotiate with other people's money. There's virtually no recourse for their poor decisions. See: suburbia. > At the 50-75 year timeframe we are talking about at least hundreds of billions of dollars of economic value, if not trillions We're projecting what a theoretical second campus of a 23 year old company will be 50 and 75 years out? Please. Did we learn nothing from the nearly homogeneous business cities like Detroit and "coal country" today? Cities built around one industry or one company will fail. > Of course city governments should be working hard to bring this kind of value creation and massive economic engine to their constituents Amazon developed out of an existing city. Cities should invest their efforts to nurture their own businesses that one day may grow and provide jobs. Importing an existing business is a rather short-sighted proposition akin to a get rich quick scheme. > Personally I think the cities that only have tax incentives to offer will not come out the winner. Amazon cares a lot more about the surrounding infrastructure and ecosystem than a short term $1 Billion. Agreed. Amazon is going to go where they're going to go. Cities should stop clamoring over themselves to give bigger tax breaks to one of the biggest businesses on the planet. |