Amazon HQ2: Dallas, Pittsburgh fight for bid
Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) announced last September it was on the hunt for a location for its second headquarters and has narrowed down its list of finalists to 20 cities.
In two separate FOX Business interviews the Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings and Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto make the case for their respective cities would be best for Amazon’s second headquarters.
“We are really kind of soul sisters to Amazon, think about how they’ve grown in the last 10 to 15 years, that’s us. We’ve created more jobs in America then any city in the United States, we know how to keep costs low, our cost of doing business is 12% lower than the medium,” Rawlings told Stuart Varney on “Varney & Co.”
According to the company, the winning city would get up to 50,000 high-paying jobs and $5 billion in investments. Amazon also expects to create tens of thousands of indirect jobs in the surrounding community as a result.
The accessibility of Dallas and the technological advantages it has over all the other competitors are two reasons the mayor said will put the city above the others vying for the e-commerce giant’s attention.
“If you want to get to any place in America go to either coast and back in the same day nonstop to any place in the world, it’s an easier place to do business here. Plus we’ve got more technology than a lot of those cities on the list,” Rawlings said.
The Pittsburgh mayor argues that his city is one of the most cost-effective cities to do business. Once the eighth largest city in the nation, Pittsburgh’s greater metropolitan area currently stands as the 26th largest in the U.S. The median household income in Pittsburgh is $40,715, compared to $45,215 in Dallas, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Education level is also a factor in Amazon’s search with 91.4% of Pittsburgh residents being high school graduates or higher, while only 75.3% of Dallas residents are high school graduates or higher.
“We are one of the most affordable cities in America and are able to provide greater cost savings than the large subsidies other states are putting up. In Pittsburgh we have one of the lowest average home costs in the country around $100,000 and that’s a quality home. The Midwest is the west coast of the east coast, but we don’t have the costs and the expenses that come with it,” Peduto told FOX Business’ Liz Claman on “Countdown to the Closing Bell.”
While the Pittsburgh mayor believes that its colleges and research companies will out shine the other states.
“We have a talent pool in the city that is being fueled by our universities and the research companies from around the world that have basically created a North American global innovation center within Pittsburgh,” he said. “We have five separate companies that are experimenting on our streets right now with autonomous vehicles, predictive analytics, artificial intelligence and basically anything regarding robotics we’re back on the global stage.”
According to online bookie PaddyPower, Dallas has a 20-to-1 chance of winning Amazon’s bid while; Pittsburgh has an 8-to-1 shot and the leading city is Boston with a 3-to-1 chance of landing Amazon.
