Thread by @Richard_Florida

2. My sleepers are Detroit as well as some less well served airport locations like Pittsburgh, Nashville and Austin ...

3. My second tier is Dallas, Atlanta, Twin Cities, Denver, Boston, Philly ...

4. My top three are: Toronto, Chicago (location, centrality to retail history) & DC.

5. I'm going to go all out, knowing the risks, and make a No. 1 pick. (I preface this by saying I usually get these things wrong) ...

6. Even though I love Toronto & think it would be an inspired choice & while I think Chicago makes good sense from a macro level ...

7. My gut tells me amazon will pick DC for its HQ 2 ... Why do I say that ... several reasons.

8. It is a walkable, reasonably dense, transit served urban center with a very high percentage of knowledge workers on the Acela Corridor.

9. The literature on HQ location documents the key role of CEO locational preference. Amazon's CEO has already signalled w/ a home purchase

10. People typically do not buy $23 million homes without an intent to live in them ...

11. And recall this is not a second office location or R&D or innovation center but a full-on second HQ.

12. Bezos already owns the WaPo and likely wants to spend more time shaping the national conversation, esp in such a divided nation ...

13. A CEO who himself moves to a 2nd location might want a 2nd HQ close by ...

14. A 2nd HQ location in DC would afford Bezos the opportunity to be involved in the highest levels of strategy while living in DC.

15. I do not think a location should give one red cent in incentives for this Amazon HQ II.

16. Amazon is the biggest or one of the biggest companies in the world & depending on the day Bezos is the richest or 2nd richest man.

17. Amazon should announce it does not want & will not take incentives (regulatory flexibility is another matter) ...

18. And it should fully commit to inclusive prosperity, upgrading service worker jobs, providing workforce & affordable housing etc ...

19. It should eschew the incentives it does not need & commit to urban inclusion to strengthen its brand.

20. It has the opportunity to differentiate itself from other "high-tech villains" & position itself as a better urban citizen.

21. This dovetails with location in DC. Amazon faces rising anti-trust monopoly sentiment ...

22. Bringing 50K good jobs to DC & committing to urban inclusion could help the way they are perceived politically.

23. One more reason DC makes strategic sense ...

24. Of course the issue is where in DC to put it ... where is the space in an urban, walkable transit served area ...?

25. But Seattle is also very built out ... So for all these reasons I think DC ...

26. Some key things to read:
@urbanophile: urbanophile.com/2017/09/07/ama…
@conorsen: bloomberg.com/view/articles/…
@geekwire: geekwire.com/2017/six-citie…

27. Usually heartened to see Toronto on virtually everyone's shortlist. Shows how much the city's brand has changed/grown/ improved!