Loss of business clustering/headquarters hurts secondary cities

 1.  "Boston has lost its financial services clout. Santander’s latest move is just another example," Boston Globe.

As recently as 25 years ago, Boston punched above its weight in financial services, with powerhouse mutual fund managers at almost every corner, a top 10 retail bank in FleetBoston, even a stock exchange of our very own. Now? That supremacy feels like it has slipped away. This is just the latest example.

... With each passing year, it seems, Boston’s Financial District sheds just a little more of the sector’s clout that gave the place its name. The big post-COVID hope for the district’s future hinges on real estate conversions: hotels, dorms, apartments, tourist attractions. Anything but new offices. (And many of the offices that remain are being taken over by the likes of tech firms such as SimpliSafe, DraftKings, and Klaviyo.)

(Baltimore too had at one time been a regional financial center with national heft.  The first private equity bank was founded there.  Some big mutual funds.  Insurance companies.  No more.)

Norfolk Southern headquarters, shown here in an aerial photo on Tuesday, March 10, 2026, sits squarely in the Midtown Atlanta landscape, reflected in its gleaming glass facade. (Hyosub Shin/AJC)

2.  A merger of Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern railroads likely means the serious diminishment of the importance of Atlanta to the new company--NS is based in Atlanta ("Atlanta is at the center of a railroad merger with big economic implications," "Coming soon to Midtown: A Union Pacific building?," Atlanta Journal-Constitution).  From the second article:

In addition to a Fortune 500 headquarters, the proposed plan would cost Atlanta jobs as operations consolidate in Nebraska, the application outlined. In total, more than half the Midtown headquarters’ management employee headcount would either relocate to Omaha or lose their jobs, the filing said.

... expects the company’s total Georgia headcount to remain at about 3,000 post-merger — versus its current 4,000.

3.  Corporate headquarters are leaving California.  Part of it is consolidation to bigger business clusters, such as Chevron from suburban San Francisco to Houston, but also conservative company owners like Elon Musk making political statements.  

Focus on new business development and growth.  The business columnist for the Orange County Register ("How can California survive the departures of big companies?") suggests the response should be to focus on the state's strength as a place for start ups and new businesses, some of which end up growing to be quite large.

4.  Another issue is the relocation of divisions from a corporate headquarters city.  For example, Starbucks, based in Seattle, has relocated its logistics division to Nashville, and appears about to sign a lease for space that could support up to 2,000 workers, far more than the size of the logistics group ("Starbucks reportedly eyes Nashville office large enough for hundreds," Seattle Times).

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Also see:

-- "A wrinkle on corporate headquarters: leaving the city as buildings age," 2026
-- "Clustering/agglomeration economies and revival of Southern California's space sector," 2025
-- "How the closure of a Pfizer research center in Ann Arbor, Michigan led to the development of a more robust and independent biotech sector," 2021
-- "Federal government research hub development initiative," 2023
-- "Universities and ancillary economic development (versus the anti-research agenda of the Trump Administration)," 2025
-- "Next Phase of Clustering of Business away from the Midwest," 2022
-- "Do tax incentives pay off? : Illinois; Tennessee; Rosslyn + "The Airport Access Factor"," 2017
-- "Corporate headquarters relocating to the center city: GE chooses Boston," 2016
-- "Businesses moving back to the center: not a universal trend," 2015 
-- "A lesson that seeing is believing: Panasonic's new building in Newark, NJ as an example, positive and negative, in businesses coming back to the city center," 2015
-- "Pennsylvania Avenue DC planning initiative," 2014
-- "Could bringing premier regionally headquartered business enterprises to the Pennsylvania Avenue Corridor be key to its renewal and revitalization?," 2014

Sprawl is All: Money Magazine Best Places to Live annual list

Every year Money Magazine publishes a list of communities under 500,000 population that it deems the "Best places to live," based on the following factors:

• Cost of Living 
• Economic opportunity 
• Diversity 
• Education 
• Fun (aka amenities) 
• Health & safety 
• Housing market 
• Income & personal finances 
• Quality of life

Interesting that these factors don't seem to include automobile dependence, transit access, walkable communities, etc. ("Extending the "Signature Streets" concept to "Signature Streets and Spaces"," "50 Reasons Why Everyone Should Want More Walkable Streets: from the Arup report, Cities Alive – Towards a walking world," "Further updates to the Sustainable Mobility Platform Framework").

The 2021 Best Places to Live list strongly leans to sprawl and automobile dependence, even if many of the communities on the list, like Franklin, Tennessee (#3), are more traditional towns with a Main Street like core.  

And Boise, a larger city with a nice core, is #10--it's the rare example of a state capital that is actually nice.

Rushton Meadows subdivision, South Jordan, Utah.  Photo: Rick Egan, Salt Lake Tribune, from "Some homeowners are at the mercy of unmonitored and predatory management companies."

"Ashburn" Virginia is listed as #5.  Is that a community or just a sprawl of subdivisions?  Same with Syracuse, Utah (#6), South Jordan, Utah (#27)  or Mission Viejo, California (#48).  

These places are textbook examples of the sprawl land use and transportation planning paradigm.  (Even though Mission Viejo is gross, it is Southern California!)

For me, I'd be much more interested in the neighborhoods identified in the lists that were once published by This Old House Magazine.  Sadly, they stopped publishing this feature in 2014.

And looking at amenities in terms of some of the elements identified in "8 Components of Housing Value" and "Revisiting factors influencing housing purchase."

Riots lead to gentrification, according to the New York Times

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Updated: On the pro-urb list, a commenter shares with us a Harvard study from 2014 ("A new view of gentrification," "Divergent Pathways of Gentrification: Racial Inequality and the Social Order of Renewal in Chicago Neighborhoods," American Sociological Review, 79:4) which makes the point that gentrification is more dependent on prime location, and in the case of Chicago, percentage of population that is African-American, not whether or not an area is riot-scarred.

---

Tom Toles editorial cartoon, Buffalo News, 1998, presages tomorrow's NYT article by 22 years.

In "Riots long ago, luxury living today," the point is made that districts rended and wrecked by riots in the 1960s are now being gentrified.

While that's a significant overstatement as many such areas in districts like Watts, or Detroit or Baltimore haven't experienced that kind of change in the way that neighborhoods in Washington, DC have, I think it's a facile argument.

(1) Starting after WWII, cities were abandoned by outmigration to the suburbs, wrecking urban residential real estate markets.  Outmigration was fueled by a sense of relief and new hope, spurred in part by the fact that cities had experienced 15 years of disinvestment during the Depression and the war effort.

(2) Outmigration was in keeping with the theory of "ecological succession" by University of Chicago urban sociologists, who saw constant out-migration from the innermost areas of cities by the better off.  Unlike in Europe, they didn't see people valuing in-city location as their economic circumstances improved, especially at the core.

(3) Riots in the 60s were response to racialized social control (Michelle Alexander's term, from The New Jim Crow) and a deep sense of abandonment and loss of hope after the assassination of Martin Luther King.

(4) But even after school desegregation spurred outmigration beginning in the mid-1950s, many people still saw value in city location (what we call, wrongly "urban pioneers" as people already lived there, better to term them "urban migrants" or "in-migrants", but different from what the Chicago sociologists described, as this is an in-migration of people with money, or if not money, commitment and skills).

(5) Taking a few decades, year by year in-migration finally hit critical mass about 2000, becoming visible and with a self-replicating momentum in terms of housing demand and neighborhood business district improvement.

In the early 1990s, there was a journal article, I thought in Urban Studies Review that discussed how people started wanting to live "downtown" as opposed to the suburbs. I don't have the cite anymore.  This article is similar, but not the one I am thinking of, "Having a Longer View on Downtown Living," by Professor Eugenie Birch, dating to 2002.

And yes, people less well off (like me) bought in areas that were well located but had been devalued by previous trends. (We first bought in 1989.  Too bad I didn't stay, now the house is four doors down from a Whole Foods Supermarket.)

The Live Baltimore residential recruitment program has a term they call "one over neighborhood."

People want to live say in Dupont Circle, but they can't afford to buy, so they choose to live in the next closest place with similar characteristics, in this case Logan Circle. People who can't afford to live in either choose Shaw, etc.

For me, H Street NE was "one over" from Capitol Hill, close to Union Station and close to Downtown.

Note that it was also a neighborhood scarred by riots in 1968.  21 years later when we bought it was still gnarly, and set to become even worse as a result of the crack epidemic.  (Around 2000, I decided if I didn't get involved the neighborhood commercial district would remain crappy, and helped to start a commercial district revitalization initiative.  Our timing happened to be very good, coincident with other trends favoring urban living.)

(6)  Around 2000, trends developed favoring or "revalorize" city living amongst bigger swathes of the market (cf. Rogers' diffusion of innovation curve and think about it in terms of desire to live in the city).

Many observers attribute part of this to tv shows like "Seinfeld" and "Friends" which were set in NYC, as opposed to shows in the past, like "Brady Bunch," set in the suburbs.

This is described by Christopher Leinberger, in The Option of Urbanism.   He argues that during the  postwar period through the 1990s, 70% of people preferred suburban living, but that sometime in the late 1990s, trends changed.

So that while the 30% of people preferring urban living remained constant (this was the source of year-by-year in-migration), now 30% of people seeking housing were indifferent, interested and willing to live in either cities or suburbs, which stoked demand for urban living, leading to the significant changes in demographics and ownership, and the "reproduction of space" (LeFebvre) in many urban neighborhoods.

So to me, there isn't much new to what the NYT article discusses.  But it's incorrect or at least not very nuanced to draw a direct connection between riots and gentrification.

The neighborhoods were already abandoned through outmigration, riots just made them cheaper and less livable.  As housing demand changed, so did the neighborhoods that were well located.

---

Other elements contributed to a willingness to live in the city, especially improvements in public safety, and I hate to say, the rise of charter schools, which gave people the sense that they could have some control over the potential for quality K-12 education in urban settings.

Cars travel south on Virginia's Interstate 395 during rush hour near the King Street exit in Arlington. The state plans to add more than 3,000 Park & Ride spaces along I-95/395 by 2012. 2006 Photo By Leslie E. Kossoff -- Associated Press Photo.

Cities with high frequency transit have another advantage.

As commute times become longer, living in the city, closer to work, reduces commuting times and hassles, further increasing demand for center city living.

Revisiting stories: the death of L. Brooks Patterson, County Executive, Oakland County, Michigan

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Note: I lived in Oakland County roughly from 1971/1972-1978 and the summers of 1979 and 1980.
======

L. Brooks Patterson won 7 terms as County Executive in Oakland County, Michigan, which lies north of Detroit.  Before that he was the tough on crime County Prosecutor for 4 terms.

He was strongly pro-County and pretty much anti-Detroit, as I wrote in this piece from 2014, "The rise of Oakland County is built upon Detroit's fall."

From the Crain's Detroit Business article, "What will happen to Brooks' deputies?":

Patterson was first elected county executive in 1992 after serving four terms as Oakland County prosecutor.

His tenure as Oakland County executive was marked with myriad successes, but also controversy. The county's AAA bond rating has been reaffirmed time and time again under his leadership, and the county has a lauded three-year rolling budget. He instituted the Automation Alley high-tech cluster and the Emerging Sectors program for knowledge-based jobs. Medical Main Street and Main Street Oakland also came into being under his watch. He was honored by Governing magazine in 2013. The University of Detroit graduate and U.S. Army veteran was generally viewed as a business community champion.

While his leadership of Oakland County itself has drawn wide praise, his comments about Detroit and other issues have drawn criticism.

His career had been marked by bitter feuds with Detroit and neighboring counties over a host of issues ranging from transit to the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department. Some viewed him as an obstacle to more robust regional cooperation.

Like Trump's very parochial bilateral "Make America Great Again" push, Patterson was a block to creating more regional approaches to the area's issues.

In e-talking with Nigel, our correspondent from New Zealand, I looked up the demographic data comparing Wayne, Oakland, and Macomb Counties population from 1960 to today.

Overall, there are only about 120,000 more residents in 2018 compared to 1960--although it must be acknowledged that the metropolitan area has grown beyond these three counties.

The difference is that 1.2 million residents from Detroit have been redistributed and Wayne County's population dropped by 900,000, while Oakland and Macomb Counties roughly doubled in population.

Patterson died not quite two weeks ago, and because in the 2016 election, the County shifted from a Republican dominated electorate to a more progressive and Democratic there is jockeying between Democrats as the Party aims to capture the County Executive position.

It's not clear if there will be a special election, which if one is held will be in the 2020 election cycle, for a two-year partial term, as the normal cycle for the office is in the "off year election" from Presidential elections.

Also see:

-- "Commentary: Patterson leaves enduring legacy, but time for region to move on," Crain's Detroit Business
-- "R.I.P. L. Brooks Patterson, A racist," Detroit Metro Times
-- "McGraw: Friends Say Brooks Patterson 'Loved' Detroit, But His Record Shows Otherwise," Deadline Detroit

A couple weeks ago in a post about segregation, I mentioned that I went to school for a time in the Pontiac School District, while the school system was desegregating and where school buses were bombed in protest. It turns out L. Brooks Patterson represented one of the incendiary anti-busing activists, Irene McCabe...

GE scales back its ambitions in Boston

Since GE announced plans to move from suburban Connecticut to urban Boston ("Corporate headquarters relocating to the center city: GE chooses Boston," 2016), the corporation has totally and completely tanked and significantly changed its focus, obviating the need for a larger headquarters campus with lots of space so people could work on digital initiatives that the company has now abandoned.

In less than two years, CEO Jeffrey Immelt was fired, and so was his successor, John Flannery, who has been replaced by Larry Culp, who had worked for the DC-based holding company, Danaher.

-- "What incoming CEO Larry Culp brings to GE," CNBC
-- "Larry Culp's long to-do list to fix GE," Washington Post

The Boston Globe reports ("GE says it will pay back Mass. $87m in incentives") that they've dropped the project, are returning $87 million in incentives they've already received, and are marketing the property where the campus was to be built.

Now, in line with the previous post on Amazon and NYC, I would have said that betting on GE was if not a sure thing, a good decision. So what do I know? (I had suspicions that GE did a lot of financial engineering and bad decision making, given the corporation's history with environmental contamination and various business disasters at GE Appliance, but who knew the extent?)

At the time, Strategy & Business had made a good point ("Corporate HQ and the Magnetic Pull of Cities"). As GE shifted away from financial services (and tv) they no longer had a reason to be so tightly connected to NYC. With their intent to refocus on manufacturing, Boston was a good choice because of the universities and Rte. 128 technology companies.

Other posts on the general topic of corporations moving back to the city include:

-- "A lesson that seeing is believing: Panasonic's new building in Newark, NJ as an example, positive and negative, in businesses coming back to the city center," 2015
-- "Businesses moving back to the center: not a universal trend," 2015

Smart Prosperity Institute (Canada) report/infographics on spawl

-- Report and related materials, The Cost of Sprawl

What can Suburban Atlanta and Greater Detroit learn from Virginia's Fairfax and Loudoun Counties

Detroit area transit planning.  I have been meaning to write about the initiative in Greater Detroit, after a failed referendum in 2016, to create a multi-county transit district. 

The QLine streetcar on Woodward Avenue passes under the People Mover near Grand Circus Park.  Photo: David Guralnick, Detroit News.

Besides various bus services in the region, which includes Washtenaw County where the University of Michigan is located, to boost support for transit, Detroit has a people mover system ("Making the case for intra-city (vs. inter-city) transit planning," 2011) and a recently opened streetcar on Woodward Avenue which I have not written about at all, but is very interesting because much of the funding for it came from local foundations ("Detroit charts a public-private path to its future, with streetcars," Christian Science Monitor).

(Note that a lot of the pundit discussion--do a Google article search--on the Detroit streetcar is pretty flawed, calling it a failure. In fact, flawed discussion of transit in Detroit and generally on intra-district vs. inter-city scales spurred me to write the intra-city transit piece in the first place.)

I-75 in Oakland County, Michigan.  Photo: Crain's Detroit Business, "I-75 plan opens transportation rift: Business planners, mass transit backers differ on 20-year freeway widening project." Circa 2003, Oakland County Executive Patterson kicked the City of Ferndale out of the county's Main Street commercial district revitalization program because the city opposed the widening of I-75.


After seeing a headline of a story ("Hackel: Let's not rush to create "obsolete" regional transit in southeast Michigan," Michigan Public Radio) quoting Macomb County Executive Mark Hackel (his brother, now a judge lived across the hall from me my sophomore year in college), I was thinking that in a situation where your transit system is mostly going to focus on bus service, what should a 21st century bus system look like? In short, Mr. Hackel was making a reasonable point.

Nevertheless, his thinking is flawed because he's still thinking individual mobility and cars instead of sustainable mobility and transportation system management.  From the article:

Macomb County Executive Mark Hackel says there’s no reason to build any system that relies on buses, suggesting those systems will soon be “obsolete.”

Instead, Hackel favors letting the auto industry and its new technology, especially autonomous vehicle developments, lead the way.

What should a 21st century bus-based transit system look like?

Cars are inefficient consumers of space.  Mobility systems focused on personal mobility conveyance--a car like vehicle--won't have much impact on congestion and will in fact create more congestion because they increase personal vehicle miles traveled and reduce the use of mass transit ("Your Uber Car Creates Congestion. Should You Pay a Fee to Ride," New York Times)

But bus rapid transit lines and system service redesigns aren't always game changers.  Concerning the design of a design forward bus-based system, I think it's fair to say despite what people argue, bus (rapid transit) vehicles "designed to look like trains" and high quality bus shelters are no longer enough to reposition bus service as a premium service in a mobility paradigm that preferences automobility ("Improving bus service overall vs. reversing falling Metrobus ridership," 2018), especially in a region like Detroit, which is the most automobilized of any US metropolitan area other than California and Texas.

Perhaps the way to think about it is that BRT programs and schedule and footprint reconfigurations only accomplish so much in terms of adding riders.

According to the designers, Studio Hill Design Ltd., the bus livery and typefaces chosen for the ART -- Albuquerque Rapid Transit -- bus line reference 1950s styles in an aim to reference the design of buildings along Route 66.

... even though BRT systems in Albuquerque (ART), Cleveland (HealthLine), Connecticut, and Mississauga (Mi-Way) are a quantum leap forward in design and operation compared to the legacy bus systems that serve most communities.

Wall Street Journal graphic.

I have outlined many of the issues with bus-based systems in these entries:

-- "Making bus service sexy and more equitable," 2012
-- "Will buses ever be cool? Boston versus the Raleigh-Durham's GoTransit Model," 2017
-- "Route 7 BRT proposal communicates the reality that the DC area doesn't adequately conduct transportation planning at the metropolitan-scale," 2016
-- "Thinking systematically about bus transit service improvements: spurred by Columbia SC, Edmonton AB, and Baltimore," 2017
-- "Takoma Langley Crossroads Transit Center: a critical evaluation," 2016.

To work, a transit system needs to be anchored by the development of a transit-first land use and transportation planning paradigm:

-- "Comments on Proposed EYA Development at Takoma Metro Station, Washington DC," 2006

and operationalized through what I first called the mobility shed and transit shed but now call the sustainability mobility platform, including microtransit, car sharing, and other types of services:

-- "Updating the mobility shed concept," 2008
-- "Free access to cargo bikes/e-cargo bikes as part of a mobility hub/sustainable mobility platform," 2017
-- Car share users are getting abused by the cities that ostensibly support car sharing as a form of sustainable mobility," 2016

Still mulling over Detroit, I saw more articles ("Patterson speech draws line in the sand between suburban counties and Detroit" and "Leave Brooks Patterson, Oakland County out of regional transit plans," Detroit Free Press) about how communities in Northern Oakland County (see "The rise of Oakland County is built upon Detroit's fall," 2014) aren't interested in participating.  (And I remember the story that made national news a couple years ago about a guy in Detroit using transit and walking more than 20 miles each day to get to and from his job in Oakland County, because of lack of an integrated transit system in Wayne and Oakland Counties.)

Atlanta.  A similar conversation has been occurring in Metropolitan Atlanta for all of the decade. After a failed transportation referendum in 2012 ("Failure of the transit-roads sales tax measure in Metro Atlanta"), the region continues to grapple with the need for transit/congestion management and how to go about accomplishing it, with the same kinds of animus and fear in the Detroit area about race and the center city vis a vis the suburbs. Atlanta though has heavy rail through the MARTA system, but its potential has always been crippled by the fact that Cobb and Gwinnett Counties opted out of the system from the very beginning.

More recently, the transit system has been successful at engaging these counties, although Keith Parker, the general manager who pulled off this wizardry, last year left the system for another job ("Keith Parker puts us back on track," Atlanta Magazine; "MARTA GM: 'Build, connect, innovate taps bright future," Marietta Daily Journal).

AJC photo of a MARTA train.

However, the recruitment of large business headquarters operations to Atlanta and/or MARTA-adjacent locations, and the talk that Atlanta is out of consideration for landing Amazon's HQ2 because so much of the metropolitan area isn't served by heavy rail -- means that the counties with limited transit service are reconsidering the car-centric approach.

Like with Northern Oakland County, some Northern communities in Fulton County seem to want to opt out even in the face of being less able to attract businesses going forward ("The issue: what is the right solution for North Fulton transit?," Atlanta Journal-Constitution), and despite the fact that the county passed a sales tax for transit and transportation improvements. From the article:

Johns Creek Mayor Mike Bodker said the only sensible choice to handle congestion and avert high-density development “is one that does not involve the investment in light or heavy rail.” Bodker also was skeptical of the improved bus service.

Newly elected Roswell Mayor Lori Henry said bus rapid transit would worsen congestion on Roswell Road, and a right-of-way for buses was nonexistent on Holcomb Bridge.

The statements appear to be counter to our understandings about transit and the impact on congestion (when you have the right density and tight links between activity centers and residential areas). I mean, in a big city like Washington, I can "Idaho Stop" through major intersections at rush hour--because both the urban design of the city and the heavy rail anchored transit system captures a significant amount of the mobility demand--within the city 57% of people get to work by transit, walking, and biking.

Interstate 75, Atlanta. Photographer unknown.

And certainly, the Atlanta method of having highways with as many as 24 lanes is not reducing congestion.  (The Detroit area too is focused on freeway widening rather than sustainable mobility.  See "MDOT: I-94 expansion will cost $3 billion through 2036," Crain's Detroit Business).

Northern Virginia. I think Northern Virginia's heavy rail extension of the Silver Line is a particularly relevant example to both Detroit and Atlanta, although Detroit's situation is different as they have limited recent experience with rail transit, while Greater Atlanta has MARTA even if many counties are not served by it.

It's really hard to lay the groundwork for moving to a transit centric or transit balanced mobility paradigm when your metropolitan area is car-centric. 

Even in areas with a great deal of experience with transit, such as the Washington area, development of new methods and modes such as streetcar and light rail, can be incredibly contentious.

The Silver Line expansion.  I am particularly proud of a piece I wrote about this in 2011, "Short term vs. long term thinking: transit, the Washington Examiner, Fairfax/Loudoun Counties vs. DC," because of its fundamental insight that the Silver Line heavy rail "extension to Dulles Airport" wasn't so much about providing airport access as it was repositioning and "reproducing" land use in the 21st Century around transit and more intensified land use (also see "Without the right planning "controls" you can't stop change: Loudoun County and rail service in Northern Virginia").

However, the difficulty of the applicability of the Silver Line example has to do with the fact that it is an example of polycentric transit system development in the arguments of Steve Belmont in Cities in Full--a five mile distance between many of the stations means that you don't get the same kind of intensification compared to places with a denser network of transit stations.

But it becomes transit adjacent and way more "transit rich" than places without fixed rail transit systems. 

And the way that Fairfax County's office market is being reshaped, away from car-centric office parks to transit-adjacent locations is a demonstration of the change in preference for such locations ("Silver Line reshaping office market in Fairfax County").

The real question is: what should metropolitan mobility look like in the 21st century?  Both Atlanta and Detroit need to work through that question.

The space demands of automobility are significantly greater than sustainable modes.


Mass transit moves significantly more people per lane of traffic.  Maximum motor vehicle throughput on a freeway is 2,200 vehicles/hour.  It's significantly less on arterials in suburbs and cities.

Image from an Auckland transit planning process.

Transit in New York City moves great numbers of people. (Image: Regional Plan Association.)

Person-capacity ranges for various transit modes.

Adapted from TCRP Report #100: Transit Capacity and Quality of Service Manual – 2nd Edition, 2003, pages 1-21

Despite all the talk about autonomous vehicles, etc., I think mass transit of various sorts, complemented by microtransit and other forms of sustainable mobility, makes the most sense in terms of moving lots of people.

It won't work though if activity isn't concentrated.

As far as autonomous vehicles are concerned, eventually they can make microtransit and what I call tertiary transit subnetworks--intra-neighborhood and intra-district transit based around transit station hubs--much more realizable by reducing labor costs.

But people aren't thinking things through about autonomous vehicles and personal trips.  Just because you need less space to park cars, because autonomous vehicles can be used throughout the day, doesn't mean that vehicle miles traveled is reduced, it may in fact, increase.  So that means no substantive reduction in vehicle trips, in congestion, in road lanes required, etc.

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Note that while many major corporations are locating near transit in Greater Atlanta, the Atlanta Braves chose to relocate to a location in the Cumberland District of Cobb County, which has no substantive transit connections ("The Braves' New Ballpark Is An Urban Planner's Nightmare," Deadspin).
.

Lecture: Modernism, Traditionalism and Authenticity: Architecture and Preservation in Washington, DC, February 28, 2018

From email:

The Latrobe Chapter of the Society of Architectural Historians presents a Lecture by Dr. Cameron Logan, University of Sydney

Preservationist critics and historians of American city-making in the twentieth century typically highlight a conflict between postwar urban redevelopment and the human-scaled and neighborhood-oriented architectural legacy of the nineteenth century to explain the rise of preservation from the 1960s onwards. This story of destructive redevelopment either explicitly or implicitly casts modernism as villain. But this orthodox account is badly in need of revision. In this talk I will draw on work from my recently published history of Washington, DC, Historic Capital, to rethink the relationship between modernist architects and the city's preservation movement in the 1960s and 1970s.

Dr. Cameron Logan is an urban and architectural historian and his work explores the relationship between, architecture, urban identity and history via two main lines of inquiry. The first of these is the exploration of civic culture and place-based citizenship in debates about architecture, preservation and urban design. The second is the history of building types in twentieth century architecture. He is the author of Historic Capital: Preservation, Race and Real Estate in Washington, DC (University of Minnesota Press, 2017) and co-author of Architecture and the Modern Hospital: Nosokomeion to Hygeia (Routledge, 2018). Cameron teaches in the School of Architecture, Design and Planning at the University of Sydney, where he directs the postgraduate program in heritage conservation.

February 28, 2018

The First Congregational United Church of Christ
945 G Street NW, Washington, DC 20001
6:30 pm – reception, 7:00 pm – lecture

Reservations are not required. $10.00 for Latrobe Chapter members, student members (full time) free with ID, $15.00 for non-members (reduced admission for non-members!).

=======================
Damn. I didn't know that Cameron finally published his dissertation, which I will have to track down. I saw him present about it as a work in progress more than ten years ago at the DC Historical Studies Conference, and I read the dissertation after it was finished. I'll have to track down and read the published book!

I wrote this about it in 2009:

The house as a haven and refuge, nimbyism, and urban-ness


Adams Morgan Day--a fun festival serving the city, or an abomination, an unreasonable sacrifice provided to the city on the part of Adams-Morgan residents?

I am not quite finished reading Cameron Logan's dissertation on planning in DC, covering the period from 1950-1990, and mostly dealing with the role of historic preservation in the city's planning processes, and how it organized neighborhood stabilization in response to expansion of downtown northward (Dupont Circle) and the U.S. Capitol Complex (Capitol Hill), and how developers and real estate interests learned to respond and reshape the debate in the 1980s, under a particularly hospitable political regime (Marion Barry).

One of the interesting things that I am pondering is how for many people involved in the neighborhood preservation movement, there wasn't an interest in creating the kind of urban vitality of mixed use and activities at different times of the day that is discussed in say, Death and Life of the Great American City, the Jane Jacobs classic.

This could have been because of the development of more nucleated families, and a more self-involved household focus, rather than a more externally connected, community-neighborhood involved perspective.

Clare Cooper Marcus, in "The House as a Symbol of Self" says that for the most part, people desire a house form that is "separate, unique, private and protected" while Delores Hayden writes in Redesigning the American Dream about the haven strategy, where the house--home--serves as a haven, a refuge, from the exploitation and competition of the mass market and the industrial world.

In the neighborhood preservation movement in DC (as opposed to the preservation movement focused on downtown buildings), for the most part people were focused on saving residential building stock, and perhaps because often preservation was a protective response to encroachment by commercial real estate developments, they were less inclined to be interested in or supportive of retail and other commercial activities.

Neighborhood commercial district cartoon, Peter Wallace.

Logan describes some discussions of neighborhood vitality including local retail in a positive light. Interestingly, these perspectives came from people with commercial interests, a real estate business proprietor key to resuscitation of the Capitol Hill neighborhood (Barbara Held), and from the mid-1970s editor of the community newspaper The Intowner, which still serves DC's "mid-city" neighborhoods.

I wonder if there really is a widespread commitment to urban-ness, mixed use, variety of activities, and vitality in the center city? Maybe there isn't?

I ask this question because on the ANC6A listserv, there is a negative thread about the recent National Marathon, which involved, besides running, the closing of a number of streets in Capitol Hill for a goodly part of one day. (Judging by some of the postings when the Marathon happened, one of the problems is inadequate training for the people, including police, working the Marathon, because for the most part when queried, they were unable to provide alternate route information.) One of the respondees wrote (edited):

There is an ever increasing number of races and other such events that burden the Capitol Hill community, often drawing large crowds and buses, and forcing traffic and parking restrictions. David has a point that it's time that other sections of the City share the wealth and/or the burdens.

Granted, I don't live in that area now. But I tend to think of street closures as temporary events that can be dealt with, minor annoyances that can be responded to with "work-arounds," but also part of the "ballet" of civic life and urban vitality.

As a resident in my neighborhood, I give up some things on occasion (I can hear loudspeakers for sporting events at Coolidge High School even though I live three blocks away; the pool is closed on occasion for swim meets; the occasional train whistle on the Metropolitan Branch railroad line; etc.), in favor of serving others, and I expect that "what goes around, comes around" -- that I get things back too, when I go to activities in other neighborhoods, such as Adams-Morgan Day, which can cause hardships for people in that neighborhood on that day, even as people like me reap the benefits.

Given that I have been pondering civic engagement and planning issues for the past few days in the context of Cameron's dissertation, I have been wondering if the idea of what it means to live urbanistically is a construct also, a construct that few residents really have an interest in or support generally, whether or not they face specific development threats from time to time, and utilize preservation policy or other neighborhood or community organizing strategies as a way to respond?

Maybe nimbyism is merely a smaller piece of a much larger problem?

Interestingly, while discussions of diversity talk about the value of different perspectives, research by people like Robert Putnam finds more civic involvement in more homogeneous communities.

I talked with Anwar Saleem of H Street Main Street about doing a session at next year's Main Street conference about the "difficulties" of doing commercial district and community revitalization activities in "hetereogeneous" communities. It's very difficult. That's what people have spent the last ten years learning on H Street. Sadly, the Main Street commercial district revitalization model doesn't adequately prepare volunteers for this reality.

An example when I may disagree with Richard Florida: incentives for landing the Amazon HQ2

See the past blog entries, "The Amazon second headquarters "****show": Part 1 | Where could it go?" and "Amazon second headquarters list of finalists."

From email:

From Richard Florida:

The level of incentives being talked about for Amazon HQ2 is pretty bad. Worse is that so many of these bids are not even public. We are talking about BILLIONS in public handouts - the worst in modern history.

This will take precious public money that could be used for housing or schools or transit or inclusive development and hand it over to one of the most valuable companies and richest men on earth. It will set a precedent for these billion dollar mega-deals and more companies and cities will follow suit.

I am organizing an open letter imploring the cities and states that are finalists to avoid these giveaways and perhaps even organize themselves into a pact which limits or avoids such incentives.

Robert Putnam, Ed Glaeser, Robert Reich, Amy Glasmeier, Jeff Sachs, Jason Furman, Stephanie Kelton, Alan Kruger, Ben Hecht, Bruce Katz, Saskia Sassen, Pat Sharkey, Scott Stern, Erik Brynjolfsson, Joel Kotkin, Dani Rodrik, Genie Birch, Michael Storper, Allen Scott, and a variety of other prominent economists, urbanists and social scientists have already agreed to support this effort.

======
Also see "Amazon sweepstakes can be great even for the losers," Bloomberg. From the article:

... there’s a worry that the scramble to lure HQ2 will give rise to wasteful urban policies and set a bad precedent. Already there is speculation that Apple Inc. will build an HQ2 of its own, sparking a similar competition. What if this sort of industrial sweepstakes, used in the past to win everything from auto plants to sports teams, becomes the norm?

Many urban policy experts are worried that Amazon-style competitions will hurt cities by enticing them to spend too much on tax incentives and other giveaways. A recent roundup of opinions by the Penn Institute for Urban Research showed that this concern is widespread.

My response:

you guys make me feel like a conservative neoliberal, when I think of myself as a progressive. Yes, generally incentives work out in favor of the recipient, because local jurisdictions are in asymmetric and very negative positions, especially vis a vis the competition from other localities.

But wrt this specific project I will say:

1. The cost/benefit is a helluva lot better compared to a stadium or other sports facility
2. It doesn't involve competition for the relocation of an already existing facility (e.g., Mercedes Benz moving to Atlanta from New Jersey; GE moving from Connecticut to Boston; etc.)
3. The firm seeking the incentive package has a high quality track record making the proposal significantly less risky compared to a business not already operating in the US or a start up firm or a project seeking to redevelop a brownfield site.
4. There are clear, monetizable benefits from landing this project

For cities like Washington or counties like Montgomery in Maryland, which have "local" personal income taxes, the economic benefits can be even greater compared to cities that rely on property and sales taxes for the bulk of their locally generated revenues.

Plus, while I am not too sure on how they are calculated, the company will pay some level of corporate income taxes which a locality would not normally reap from a firm of Amazon's size.

So I would argue that the Amazon project--because it is decidedly 100% new economic activity not likely to be otherwise generated by a company with a real track record--and similar projects like Foxconn (Wisconsin) and Toyota-Mazda (Alabama) are quantumly different from the typical incentive-based project, which tends to involve poaching of existing businesses located elsewhere or sports facilities.

How much is the right amount to offer is another question, and I am not so well versed in financial calculations to be able to say.

But it's a combination of a multi-year stream of revenues from (1) commercial property tax; (2) commercial income tax revenues; (3) the likely percentage of workers you can capture as residents and the income, property, and sales taxes they generate; (4) the economic impact of visitors to the complex, both daily employees who don't choose to live in the locale plus business related travel.

Versus the opportunity cost of the incentives. (E.g., I don't see why DC is prioritizing the hiring of veterans at $30,000 each; I just don't see how that is specifically a local priority vis a vis other segments of the unemployed/underemployed _within the city_.)

Figure out the first and you can lay out a reasonable Net Present Value and a range of incentive packages at which the economic return from incentives remains positive.

Sports facilities/relocation of existing facilities: often a bad deal.  But concerning incentive projects for:

1. sports facilities
2. competition for relocating already existing facilities

I'd say the concern is real and I wish there were overarching federal legislation to limit this.

Even so:

Some sports facilities better than others.  Some locations are better than others.

1. with regard to sports facilities, depending on the type (baseball, basketball, hockey vs. football), up to a point, it may be worth laying out some level of incentives, if a reasonable and independent case can be made for positive economic return.

With regard to DC, while I am against incentives for sports teams generally, objectively speaking, the return to the city of hockey and baseball at the now named Capital One Arena (its third name in 20 years) was an important element of rebranding and the city's currently positive trajectory. Similarly, the Washington Nationals stadium helps to anchor and brand the ever developing Capitol Riverfront/Navy Yard district.

To the contrary, Detroit hasn't been so successful in getting suburbanites to attend events at the new Downtown hockey and basketball arena--basketball relocated from the suburbs, hockey has never left the city ("New arena hasn't led to new fans for Pistons," Los Angeles Times).  Similarly, the New York Islanders hockey team hasn't been so successful at attracting fans to Brooklyn and is relocating back to Nassau County.

However, it's only a few months into the new Detroit arena and it's far too soon "to judge." (Also see "An arena subsidy project I'd probably favor: Sacramento.") It took a few years, and the parallel improvement programs of the Downtown DC Business Improvement District to fully reap for the city the benefits of the sports arena as an anchor and image builder.

Residential property tax abatements: Philadelphia.  Separately, Philadelphia City Council President Darrell Clark has raised the issue of the city's generous 10-year property tax abatement on new residential properties (both conversion of existing buildings and construction of new buildings as well as certain investments in current properties) costing the economically pressed city too much money. See "Time for an honest discussion about fair taxation in Philly," Philadelphia Inquirer.

-- Philadelphia Tax Abatement Program, Building Industry Association
-- "Dispelling common myths about Philadelphia's 10-year tax abatement," Philadelphia Business Journal
-- "No property taxes, no problem: Study finds controversial abatement has been positive for Philly," Philadelphia Inquirer

The abatement program, launched in 2000, was an important initiative that helped to rebalance and reposition the attractiveness of residential living in Philadelphia at a time when the city had lost out to the suburbs in competition for residents, commercial activity, and retail. But after 20 years, maybe it's time for a reassessment. From the article:

From 2014 to 2016, the city granted 10-year tax abatements on 4,286 properties, thus forgoing more than $420 million in revenue. Nearly $8 billion in taxable property value is currently abated, resulting in $111 million in forgone revenue in 2016. A conservative estimate based on recent market trends finds that more than $1 billion in property tax revenue will be withheld from the School District and the city over the next 10 years.

Without a doubt, our rapidly transforming skyline and growing population are in part the result of the abatement program. But, given the larger fiscal and policy environment in the commonwealth and in Washington, it is time to revisit the 100 percent, 10-year tax abatement in its current form as part of a broader conversation about equitable growth.

The city's school system continues to face significant problems and there isn't enough money to invest properly in transit. Maybe it's time to adjust the abatement program?

Note that Baltimore has a similar but subtly different issue wrt residential property tax abatements. There, it creates two classes of owners, legacy property owners paying higher taxes, and newer property owners paying lower taxes. Often newer owners are higher income, so older property owners are subsidizing the better off. Then again, especially now, the city needs more initiatives that can successfully attract new investment.

Amazon second headquarters list of finalists

-- "Here’s how cities are reacting to being finalists for Amazon HQ2," CNBC

See the past blog entry, "The Amazon second headquarters "****show": Part 1 | Where could it go?"

Sadly, Baltimore and Detroit didn't make the list, and landing this "whale" would have been an economic game changer for those communities.  Although Newark is on the list, and Philadelphia.


The finalists:

• Atlanta, Georgia
• Austin, Texas
• Boston, Massachusetts
• Chicago, Illinois
• Columbus, Ohio
• Dallas, Texas
• Denver, Colorado
• Indianapolis, Indiana
• Los Angeles, California
• Miami, Florida
• Montgomery County, Maryland
• Nashville, Tennessee
• Newark, New Jersey
• New York City, New York
• Northern Virginia, Virginia
• Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
• Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
• Raleigh, North Carolina
• Toronto, Ontario
• Washington, D.C.

The issue to me comes down to maybe 3-4 criteria:

1.  Economic nationalism.  While Toronto makes a great argument, and national health insurance means huge savings for companies in Canada, I think that were Amazon to locate a new headquarters outside the US they would invite serious attacks from the current administration/federal government, especially because Amazon's founder owns the Washington Post, which President Trump sees as an opponent.

2.  The cost of housing for employees.  Many of the cities making the cut--Boston, DC/Northern Virginia/Montgomery County, New York City--have high housing costs and a small increase in demand could make an already frothy market that much more turbulent comparable to what is happening in Seattle and San Francisco now.

Since part of the reason for Amazon to build a second headquarters is to provide employees with more reasonably priced housing options, I can't see a high housing cost city being chosen in the end.  

3.  Proximity to higher education institutions with leading programs in information technology, engineering, and business.  To be honest, I think that dings the DC area, Indianapolis, and Nashville.

It should make us appreciate former Mayor Bloomberg's initiative to create a world-class engineering and technology graduate school in New York City to better develop and attract business ("New York's Silicon Alley Is (Still) No Match for Silicon Valley," Bloomberg).
.

4. Transit/Urbanism/Placemaking/Quality of Life.  I would think this factor would eliminate cities like Dallas and Atlanta and Denver, although they have transit systems.  And even Northern Virginia because the sites proposed to Amazon aren't "close in" to the center, but more distant locations that would be termed suburban, almost exurban.

Not sure how to handicap Los Angeles.  It's cool, but the housing market has rebounded and Western Los Angeles City and County doesn't have low cost housing.

I think it might give Montgomery County, Maryland a boost because of the ability to do some large developments along the Red Line, even to extend the Green Line out New Hampshire Avenue as I've suggested in the past.  There's enough room around the FDA campus there, but it isn't particularly dense and urban.

There is opportunity in Silver Spring, especially given that Discovery Channel will be leaving, but to put the Amazon project in perspective, Discovery has one big building capable of supporting 2,500 workers and Amazon is demanding the capacity for 20 buildings of that size...

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Comments

WRT DC's bid ("DC discloses part of the Amazon HQ2 incentive package," Washington Business Journal, I was surprised to see such a huge incentive offered for each "veteran" to be employed.  I don't see why that would matter that much to DC specifically, compared to supporting DC business development and employment of residents.

WRT the likelihood of DC not being picked, I hope it will spur the city to take a deeper, harder look at the necessary antecedents for economic development and diversifying the local economy beyond its dependence on the federal government.

I think it means looking at DC's higher education institutions and figuring out how to up their game, along the lines of what Mayor Bloomberg started in NYC, collecting and publishing metrics on businesses developed out of DC universities and local research, etc.

See the past blog entry "Better leveraging higher education institutions in cities and counties: Greensboro; Spokane; Mesa; Phoenix; Montgomery County, Maryland; Washington, DC."

Where's the Catholic U research park? Along those lines, for more than a decade Catholic U has talked about creating a research park adjacent to their campus and they haven't done much of anything.

See the past blog entry, "Naturally occurring innovation districts | Technology districts and the tech sector".

Meanwhile, UMBC's business incubator keeps on generating new businesses ("UMBC eyes major expansion at research and technology park," Technical.ly Baltimore; "15 companies graduate from UMBC's bwtech, ready to grow on their own," Baltimore Business Journal).

Montgomery County, Maryland.  For all the hand-wringing about Montgomery County's competitiveness vis-à-vis Northern Virginia ("Montgomery County's real economic development problem: it's not part of the military economy," 2011 blog entry), Maryland's supposedly faulty business climate, and just announced decision of Discovery Channel to leave Silver Spring for New York City ("Discovery’s departure is ‘shot across the bow’ for Silver Spring, state and region," Washington Post) it says a lot that Montgomery County is a finalist.

Like DC, they need to look at this result in a very detailed way and figure out how to better leverage, strengthen, and market their competitive advantages.  (Personally, I don't think it's by outsourcing their economic development functions to the private sector, but that's me...)

My own belief: go for it.  It's worth aiming to recruit Amazon and to spend a fair amount of incentives to do it.  But recognize there will be some negative impacts to go along with the good.  See e.g., "Amazon has brought benefits - and disruption - to Seattle," AP and "How Amazon's Nonstop Growth Is Creating A Brand-New Seattle," Fast Company.

The Amazon second headquarters "****show": Part 1 | Where could it go?

Amazon has set off a massive flurry of local and state government responses to their issuance of a Request for Proposals (RFP) for the development of a "second" headquarters with a planned for headcount of 50,000 employees.

The company stated it would like to develop a second headquarters away from Washington State and will chose a location based on the following criteria:

- Metropolitan areas with more than one million people
- A stable and business-friendly environment 
- Urban or suburban locations with the potential to attract and retain strong technical talent
- Communities that think big and creatively when considering locations and real estate options
+ incentives in cash, land, and other considerations.

Responses are due October 19th and a decision will be made next year.

The print media across the country has been covering various local responses. I can't keep up.

Is it worth preparing a bid?  Mostly, I think it's a losing proposition, because a lot of time and effort has to be expended to prepare a credible proposal, and ultimately, you have to handicap your chances based on what your community has to offer and its place values versus the likely motivations of the company, rather than strictly being cheerleaders for your particular region. 

Henry Grabar at Slate wrote early ("Your city will lose the contest for Amazon's new HQ") after the announcement handicapping communities based on their existing base of talent, size, cost to acquire and build office space, and more residences, location, and whether or not the firm would be accommodated in new (greenfield) or existing (infill) places

Personally, I think Amazon wants to have a headquarters in an area with a decent quality of life, but are likely to seek favor with conservatives/Republicans as columnist Jon Talton argues, "Amazon's second headquarters: Expect the unexpected," in the Seattle Times, by putting it in a Republican state that isn't totally mossback politically, WHILE KEEPING ITS WAGES DOWN. From the column:

Bezos and his lieutenants may be reacting to our extreme political, social and cultural polarization by seeking a second base in a red state such as Texas. This would potentially give Amazon more political protection from Republican lawmakers — remember, President Donald Trump has threatened antitrust action against Bezos. Or they might be assessing America’s reactionary turn on immigration, trade and world leadership, and all the risks involved. In this case, a Canadian second headquarters would make sense.

Where? If Bezos stays to form, he wants a city, not only because of his commitment to sustainability but also to attract top talent. A suburban area with good transit might also make the cut. I suspect traditional incentives will play less of a role. The company will certainly take them and play localities off against each other. But talent, education (especially with a strong research university), a cool vibe, good air-travel connections and transit will be the big factors for the finalists. This is not going to be like the 20th-century moves from downtowns to far-flung, car-dependent office “parks.”

Talton's analysis is interesting because it means that the company is making business and political calculations that are just as important as an incentive package.

General Electric as an analogue.  Relatedly, I found very interesting the process General Electric went through in deciding to return to the city from a now traditional suburban campus.  They ended up picking Boston. 

During the search process they did make clear to some states that they weren't interested, because of how political decisions made by their elected officials, such as opposition to the Export-Import Bank, had negative impact on their business ("GE rules out relocation to Dallas because of Texas politicians' views," Dallas Morning News).

If competition for employees is a priority.  I think this matters because while Amazon says wages will average $100,000 per employee, competition for highly trained employees would push wages up further, such as in Silicon Valley and Seattle, because of the competition between the big companies, and startups, for the best talent.

That means most big cities: Chicago; Denver (the New York Times suggests that Denver would be the optimal choice, "Dear Amazon, We Picked Your New Headquarters for you"); Greater Los Angeles; New York City; Washington, DC; among them, are out of consideration, as well as those existing digital economy clusters already experiencing a great competition for technically qualified workers (Austin, TX; Boston; San Francisco; Silicon Valley).

Not sure about Pittsburgh, it has Carnegie-Mellon, which has drawn an increasing number of digital commerce firms, but a major corporate headquarters for Amazon could push wage competition to undesirable levels.

Baltimore's probably too close to DC from a wage standpoint, and Johns Hopkins is more known for medical technology than computer engineering. Similarly, Philadelphia may be languishing in terms of attracting and keeping corporate headquarters, but it's embedded in the Mid-Atlantic economy and wages wouldn't be cheap.

Is red state--conservative Republican--presence a priority? But maybe wages aren't the biggest priority for Amazon, currying more favor with conservative politicians is, as Jon Talton suggests.

If you want to locate in a Republican state but without terrible politics that means North Carolina is out, despite the presence of the Research Triangle and even Greensboro. Probably Texas is out for politics--Governor Greg Abbott and Senators Ted Cruz and John Cornyn are hard right, and the large cities (Austin, Dallas, Houston) have too high a prevailing wage, while San Antonio has a limited presence in digital technology business and no rail transit system.

Wisconsin, nope, even though it has the University of Wisconsin Madison with strong engineering and business programs and proximity to Chicago--Wisconsin may have shot its bolt with Foxconn and the promise of up to $3 billion in incentives ("$3 billion incentive package," Milwaukee Journal Sentinel).

Now that Sam Brownback is no longer governor, maybe Kansas has a chance. They definitely need an economic boost after the radical tax cut policies of the former Governor have wrecked the state's finances. Oklahoma City has strong leadership, great quality of life and is creating a streetcar system, but doesn't have premier technical engineering programs.

Maybe the Silicon Prairie initiative linking Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri and Kansas makes that region, strongly Republican, attractive.

If this is a priority, then I think Indianapolis would be a consideration. It's reasonable politically, conservative, flipping between Democrats and Republicans, with the presence of Eli Lilly. Purdue University isn't that far, with its strong engineering programs and the university's desire to develop a major online presence ("Purdue-Kaplan online university is one step closer to becoming reality," Lafayette Journal & Courier). Purdue and Indiana University have a joint campus in the city. While there is no real transit system, the city is compact.

Canada?  Even though the RFP says "North America" and is not limited to the US, because not drawing attacks on the company from politicians is likely an important priority--separately company founder Jeff Bezos is frequently attacked by President Trump over his ownership of the Washington Post--I don't think it's very likely that Amazon would pick a city in Canada, like Toronto ("Allan Sloan: Trump might be driving Amazon HQ2 to Canada") for its second headquarters, as a way to send a signal that parts of Corporate America are unhappy with President Trump over immigration, foreign trade policy, and other matters even if they are happy to get tax cuts. 

As a retailer--although the company makes a great deal of money selling computer services to other firms--Amazon is far more focused on the domestic market than other digital commerce firms that sell software and platforms, although Amazon is plenty active in various international markets.

Where? Jon Talton suggests Dallas; Denver; and Toronto; as well as Austin, although it lacks an international airport, and Atlanta, but it lacks a walkable center. He also suggests Calgary; Cincinnati; Guadalajara; Minneapolis; Monterrey; and Pittsburgh. He suggests Phoenix would be a possibility except for the state's politics, but doesn't ding North Carolina's Research Triangle for the same reason, instead handicapping it because of sprawl.

I would consider Baltimore--Amazon could be the 21st century anchor the city needs to reposition ("Opinion: What Baltimore and D.C. can do to start working better together as a region (Baltimore Business Journal op-ed),"); Indianapolis; Minneapolis; Philadelphia--in the thick of things, but more in need of such a boost despite what the Green Party of Philadelphia says ("Green Party to Amazon: Stay Away from Philly," press release).

Pittsburgh; maybe Chicago but the state government is completely dysfunctional and its choice wouldn't curry favor with Republicans, but it is so centrally located, possibly Kansas City, especially given its bioscience and Smart City initiatives ("Kansas City To Become The Largest 'Smart City' In North America," KCUR/NPR) and how smart city initiatives could be a new area of growth for Amazon (Pittsburgh has the same potential).

It will be interesting to see what Amazon does.


Moody's Analytics ("Where Amazon's Next Headquarters Should Go: We offer a data driven approach to selecting the best metro area for HQ2") doesn't seem to believe that wages are the foremost consideration, and lists various places that offer intriguing possibilities.  Except for global warming, Miami would be a good choice, offering multilingual business opportunities and Florida is a Republican state.  Portland and Salt Lake too, except both are probably too close to Seattle to offer the kind of geographic diversity the firm wants.

If Moody's is right, and they have better insights into business decision-making than I do, it looks like a big city truly has a shot, although based on recent wins such as Mercedes Benz, maybe it's Atlanta and not traditional cities like Boston, Philadelphia or Pittsburgh.

Atlanta
-- "Regional Transit A Strike Against Atlanta To Get Amazon's 2nd Headquarters," WABE/NPR.  From the article:

It's no secret Atlanta doesn't have a regional transit system. But with the city pegged as one of the top contenders for Amazon's second headquarters, metro Atlanta's lack of transit might cost the city the deal.

"The ability to get workers to work is a major consideration,” said Robert Puentes, president of the Eno Center for Transportation, a nonprofit think tank in Washington, D.C. “And in cities, states and metros across the country, the emergence and the reliability in public transit is a key consideration."

Despite the lack of transit, Moody's Analytics ranks Atlanta quite highly. Plus, the MARTA system seems on the verge of substantive expansion, although the current general manager credited for steadying the agency is leaving ("Keith Parker explains decision to leave MARTA," Atlanta Business Chronicle.

Austin
-- "Austin is top candidate for Amazon HQ2, Moody's Analytics says," Austin Business Journal

Baltimore
-- "Hogan plugs Baltimore as his preferred site for Amazon headquarters," Washington Post
-- "Opinion: Why Baltimore should be at the top of Amazon's list for HQ2," Baltimore Business Journal
-- "How Johns Hopkins is playing a role in bringing Amazon's HQ2 to Baltimore

Boston
Some of the commentary in the Boston Globe has been particularly interesting and will be discussed in the Part 2 piece.

-- "Boston's pros and cons surround the Amazon bid," Boston Globe
-- "Amazon Weighs Boston in Search for Second Headquarters," Bloomberg

Brooklyn
-- "Brooklyn May Be NYC's Best Bet to Win New Amazon Headquarters," Bloomberg

Chula Vista (Greater San Diego)
-- "This city is offering Amazon a $400 million incentive package, chance to develop university (and ocean views)," Phoenix Business Journal

Columbus, Ohio
-- "Few experts see Columbus getting new Amazon headquarters," Columbus Dispatch

Actually, Columbus could be a good choice.  Ohio is a Republican state, and the city has a top notch university, is the state capital, and has a significant investment program refocusing development on downtown.  The core has the potential to be walkable.  They have a decent bus system, and good enough air connections.

New York City
-- "Hey Amazon: this report says NYC is a tech dynamo," Crain's New York Business
-- New York City Tech Ecosystem Study webpage, report, HR&A for the Association for a Better New York

Northern Virginia
-- "Tysons Corner bypassed as Northern Va. vies for Amazon," Richmond Times-Dispatch

In the 1990s, Virginia created the Center for Innovative Technology in Loudoun County, and it has become the centerpiece of the state's technology development and innovation agenda.

Providing transit connections to that anchor was one of the justifications for the creation of the Silver Line heavy rail line through Fairfax and Loudoun counties. Amazon there could also provide the energy to reposition Dulles International Airport. The State chose that district rather than Tysons, for its bid.

Interestingly, had the State implemented its many years plan to "extend" the Northeast Corridor Amtrak service to Richmond, maybe Richmond could have been a contender, although it's a small metro. Virginia Commonwealth University is an up and comer, and focuses on engineering, medical, and business studies.

Pomona
-- "Pomona wants to be home to the new Amazon headquarters," Los Angeles Times

Prince George's County, Maryland
-- "Pr. George's Co. gives Amazon 3 reasons to build new HQ here," WTOP-radio

Just think what PG's chances would be if the Purple Line had already been constructed and was in operation and it had been used to already reposition the County ("Another lesson that Prince George's County has a three to five year window to reposition based on visionary transportation planning," "Part 4 | Making over New Carrollton as a transit-centric urban center and Prince George's County's "New Downtown"," and "PL #7: Using the Purple Line to rebrand Montgomery and Prince George's Counties as Design Forward") and College Park was truly a college town ("More Prince George's County: College Park's militant refusal to become a college town makes it impossible for the city(and maybe the County) to become a great place," 2015). It has University of Maryland, with a decent engineering school, has a Republican governor, sort of has transit, etc.

Toronto
-- "Toronto’s tech talent being used to woo Amazon," Toronto Star

Washington, DC
-- "DC pitches 4 sites for Amazon headquarters," WTOP-radio

WRT DC's proposals, none of the area's suggested have enough build out potential to accommodate Amazon's plans, although NoMA and the Capitol Riverfront are nice places.  The suggestion of Shaw is odd as it has almost no build out capacity of significance.

A truly path-breaking proposal could have been offered.  On the other hand, it would have been very interesting for DC to offer an expanded "Capitol Hill East" site with the addition of the RFK Stadium site immediately north, and the former Pepco generating site north of RFK, all on the west bank of the Anacostia River but immediately accessible to the so called "East of the River" district of the city, which is the least economically well off section. 

It's near the H Street entertainment district, pretty close to Union Station, one of the busiest train stations in the US, is served by a Metrorail station, and could be the hub of expanded streetcar service, which is currently provided on the H Street side of the RFK site, and the undergrounding of the Orange Line between the Armory and Minnesota Avenue Stations, adding more development capacity to the RFK parking lots.

The site offers reasonably convenient access to National Airport and isn't too far from BWI Airport, south of Baltimore.

It would have provided the means for a major transformation of this part of the city ("Wanted: a comprehensive plan for the Anacostia River East corridor," 2012), and far more economically impactful than the current plans to attract the Washington Redskins ("Half billion-dollar plans for RFK Stadium site include sports center," Washington Post).

The transformation could extend environmentally, as the city could leverage Amazon's choice of the city as a way to accelerate plans to restore the Anacostia River and watershed. Although it would have set up an interesting dynamic with the National Park Service, because there is an easement limiting use of the RFK site for recreation. 

The city could start with the Reservation 13 site and grow out from their as they negotiate changes with the NPS and integrate Pepco into the project.  To assuage the NPS, the city could integrate some recreational uses into the sites as well as invest in improvements to other park spaces along the river which are currently controlled by the federal government.

It could have also leveraged a long since forgotten revitalization proposal for the Spingarn High School campus that dates to 2003 ("The City Of Learning‚: School Design and Planning as Urban Revitalization in New Jersey, Berkeley, and Washington, D.C.," Roy Strickland, University of Michigan), current desires to spiff up the Langston Golf Course (The Langston Initiative, Federal City Council), and proposals for the old Hechinger Mall ("H Street Group Pitches Major Hechinger Mall Development As Activity Moves Down the Corridor," Bisnow)--the Mall is owned by a major national developer and could be brought into the mix.

It could even be used to push forward the plans to develop over the Union Station railyard, the Burnham Place development, including an extension of the project beyond its current boundary of K Street.  Plus push extension of the streetcar both east and west--Amazon has invested in Seattle's streetcar ("Amazon to Buy 4th Streetcar, Fund 10-Minute Headways," Seattle Transit blog). And the undergrounding of the Orange Line across the RFK campus could also be used to build another station on Benning Road, serving the site's northern section.

But it would send the city's residential real estate market into overdrive and definitely people East of the River would fear displacement in the pace of significantly increased real estate demand.

And the city wasn't capable of pulling such a vision together in the first place.