Amazon's Second HQ: The Best Bet

Jonathan D. Miller

Gargantuan Amazon has America’s cities groveling while executing one of the biggest PR stunts of all time—setting up a grand contest. The winner gets Amazon’s second headquarters, the prospect for large scale development and an infusion of thousands of jobs, maybe as many as 50,000. In return, the winner probably must fork over some combination of free land, long-term tax breaks, and various other incentives like taxpayer paid infrastructure improvements—well, that’s one way to get government to improve crumbling infrastructure.

Now 238 cities and counties have submitted applications, garnering massive attention for the retailing behemoth and raising hopes across the country for economic redemption or at least a welcome jobs creator. At the same time, lost in the publicity swirl, Amazon is helping put out of business local shopping malls critical to tax base in many of these places, which don’t have a remote chance for landing the company.