The only way we'd ever get a big HQ is if we invest in education and have a highly skilled and well-educated work force.
But we continue to do the opposite.
The only way we'd ever get a big HQ is if we invest in education and have a highly skilled and well-educated work force.
But we continue to do the opposite.
Stile99 and Mike_M,
I take your points and agree with them. Actually the MAPS issue is a perfect analogy for what the city ought to be doing. Address the quality of life issues, make this the kind of place people want to live and that is the best possible first step. We have laid the groundwork with the urban development of the last 20 years. The absolute next step is improving educational outcomes and a startup culture where we are growing entrepreneurship and organically helping companies grow. That really is the best long term strategy.
Except: I don't necessarily think it's a bad thing to walk and chew gum at the same time. There is no reason we can't do all of the things we know we need to do, while at the same time going through the process with someone like Amazon. Who knows? Perhaps we do that, and fail, and someone at City Hall gets to have a nice long conversation with someone in Seattle about the pros and cons of our bid (isn't that what happened with Ron Norick and United Airlines?) Perhaps they give us pointers, perhaps we learn something from the effort that informs us the next time we take something on.
It's like my mother said once upon a time about marriage and children: "Yes, by all means make sure you have all your ducks in a row, but at some point, you go for it, because if you wait until you're 100% sure you're ready, you'll never be ready." There will always be a reason that OKC isn't ready for Amazon. Other cities will continue to grow and innovate right along with us. We're not going to be the 10th biggest city in America in any of our lifetimes. That's all I was trying to say.
I don't think this is entirely true. Look at the Millennial magnets. Places like Austin, Denver, Portland, etc and to a lesser extent places like Nashville, Charlotte, and Columbus. Those are places that are highly sought out by educated young people and are also places that tend to be high on the list for corporate relocations. Those cities, in terms of population, are only a single tier up from OKC with most of them being in the 2-3 million MSA range. A good question to ask is what are those places doing that OKC isn't?
You just have to wonder if the location has been Austin all along, ever since Amazon announced the Whole Foods deal. They probably aren't interested in relocating the Whole Foods headquarters from Austin, but they likely need way more people in Austin to properly integrate WF into the Amazon platform.
But quietly moving/hiring more people in Austin won't create a bidding war with lavish tax abatements, subsidies and the like. This announcement for "proposals" just makes you wonder if Amazon is trying to leverage all of the crazy offers to force Austin's hand. And there's going to be some insane offers if Foxconn's Wisconsin deal is any guide.
+1
And putting aside the size of the workforce, the campus itself will be absolutely massive. For reference, their 8,000,000 sq. ft. figure is over 3 times the size of the Producers Coop site. One of OKC's biggest positives for corporate relocation/expansion is cheap land near downtown (a la GE), but even we don't have the space for something of this size in the core without ripping out an existing neighborhood.
You do realize they (CSA's) are at least 50 freaking percent larger than okc? You're trying to make it sound like an extra million people is just "a tier" larger. Austin Denver Portland were substantially larger than okc for decades before the millennial boom.
There's this thought process that those cities got large overnight because they became the hot new town for millennials. That's ridiculous, they've been larger for decades.
I support Amazon moving here and building 6 towers :-P
Thinking about this, I think OKC should definitely pursue this. Will Amazon choose OKC? Highly unlikely, but OKC should definitely throw its hat in the ring.
I also think the Olympics isn't a good analogy here. The Olympics are a one-time event and are very expensive to host. Something like an Amazon HQ that employs 50,000 would be a permanent fixture in the community and could propel OKC into boomtown status.
Not to be Donny Downer, but OKC has a snowball's chance in landing Amazon's HQ. 1) No international flights, a prerequisite. 2) Dreadful state government. 3) International reputation as being the state most hostile to public education and higher education, with low college education attainment.
If people want something other than oil and gas and government / military industries, we are going to need to have an electoral bloodbath at the legislature. Given the choice of locating your company in OKC or Denver, where would you go? Kansas City? Austin? Hell, Des Moines, Iowa?
This is not a progressive state. It is a regressive state. It is also suffering from a collapse of funding to core government services, which affects literally everything. Nothing is worse, though, than our reputation of abhorring investment in education.
Smart companies do not choose to locate in dumb states. Oklahoma needs to be less dumb if it wants to compete.
Well with Oklahoma fighting Mississippi to have the worst public Education in the US, I would venture that all of these other cities are ahead in that regard alone.
Honestly, most of us are not even touching the issue of OKC being a big league city. The city has come a long way as far as housing and amenities, and that's fine. The issue is that if Amazon chose to come here, they would be choosing to setup shop in a place significantly short of adequate resources, and our city and state leadership would gladly have us foot the bill to make up for the discrepancy.
It would be a huge resource drain just to support an Amazon HQ operation right now. It would probably take a decade for the housing market and infrastructure to catch up to the influx of people. If Amazon had a major layoff or lost it's dominance within a decade of moving, there isn't anywhere for that many people to continue to work. It could totally devastate the local market.
Again, invest locally. Grow organically. Pursue the big guys in 5-10 years.
Amazon got 238 proposals. The only States that did not have a city submit anything were North and South Dakotas, Montana, Wyoming, Hawaii, Vermont, Arkansas.
I must say, looking @ the proposal that Chicago leaked, it is extremely impressive. Complete with breakdowns of the various incentives (totaling near $2 billion!). Various site locations, renderings, how pedestrians and vehicle access each location...
https://chicago.curbed.com/2017/10/2...amazon-hq2-bid
Just looking @ it, makes me want to pick Chicago as the winner. But my gut is saying Austin or Denver - because hip.
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