Amazon’s HQ2 decision screwed over cities in Middle America

Many New Yorkers are to abandon its plans for another headquarters in Queens. But its decision to scuttle plans for an HQ2 altogether rubs salt in the wounds of smaller cities hoping to become the next Silicon Valley. 

One of the justifications for the immense wealth that flows through Silicon Valley and into the pockets of billionaires like Jeff Bezos is the promise of jobs. Tech provides jobs! And jobs are … good? Yeah, jobs are good.

This was an argument that Amazon alluded to when it announced in September 2017 that it was soliciting proposals from cities to become the location of its next HQ2. In addition to the sheer prestige of becoming the home of an Amazon headquarters, Amazon promised “50,000 high paying jobs.”

As the volume of city applications showed, this was an alluring prospect for metropolises such as New York and Los Angeles, as well smaller cities including Huntsville, Alabama, and Omaha, Nebraska. 

When Amazon announced the contest, the prospect that a major tech headquarters could go in an unlikely city — perhaps one that was victim to manufacturing erosion and population flight — was an exciting one. Former industrial centers like Pittsburgh and Columbus, Ohio, made it to the top 20. Could the revitalization of the Rust Belt start with Amazon?  

Sure, it was clear Amazon was looking for tax breaks, incentives, and a pliable local government. But the contest created a sense of hope that tech could bring jobs to a city badly in need, even if it was a moon shot.

Snow belt to sun belt migration patterns and the decline of manufacturing have resulted in population consolidation in fewer, bigger cities, and struggling economies in smaller ones. As a report from Brookings puts it, “despite a robust national economy, deep regional divides persist with technology hubs in the coastal states pulling away from the nation’s industrial Heartland.” 

So for a city that has come up with the short end of the technology industry stick, those promised 50,000 Amazon jobs might entice talent to live somewhere they might not otherwise choose. And the presence of well-paid Amazon employees could bring coffee shops, markets, and restaurants, and the service jobs that come with them. 

In a letter cities and advocates sent Amazon about their civic expectations for HQ2, one signatory wrote that “Amazon has a golden opportunity right now to reduce the inequality gap.”

So yeah, Amazon may have produced the world’s richest man — but maybe it could spread the wealth, too.

Image: alex wong / Getty Images

Silicon Valley billionaires have touted the potential for tech jobs to revitalize the former manufacturing centers that automation and globalization decimated. They’ve taken midwestern tours, and launched VC funds specifically to empower non-coastal tech communities. Tech could be a booming opportunity for all, if only the American workforce had the education necessary to fill it. 

This rosy vision was not to be. Amazon dashed many smaller cities’ hopes when it announced a shortlist of 20 cities, with only seven of the 20 finalists not on a coast.

Finally, Amazon announced that New York City had won the contest. New York City — already a hub of industries like finance, media, and fashion — would get 25,000 more jobs. 

The city’s residents were not pleased. Amazon said that the HQ2 would go in the Queens neighborhood of Long Island City. Critics said this would cause rents to skyrocket even further and an already overburdened transit system to bear still more passengers. At the same time, New York was cutting Bezos and Co. $3 billion in tax breaks. With the subway in disrepair and a housing and homelessness crisis, New Yorkers felt that this was a deal that would take more than it would give.

Amazon announced Thursday that it would not move forward with Amazon HQ2 in New York City. This is a victory for the activists who rallied against it, the residents of Long Island City who were set to be priced out of their homes, and anyone who likes to see a mega-corporation lose a battle.

But the people lost this one too.

Alongside its announcement about the scuttled NYC plans, Amazon informed the public that it would not choose a new site for HQ2. The Cincinnatis and Tulsas of the world were not to get a second shot.

Amazon’s bad New York decision left room for redemption. Bezos, Amazon, and the tech industry as a whole have faced more (valid) criticism than ever before about how tech works for the few, but not the many. Placing HQ2 in a struggling city was a chance to prove a counter-narrative, while getting plenty of tax breaks in the process. 

And perhaps tech does have the ability to do what its champions say: connect people, provide jobs, bring together a community of innovators. Just only in glamorous, wealthy, heavily populated areas.

But what were we expecting? Amazon provides thousands of jobs, but it notoriously exploits its warehouse workers, while simultaneously contributing to overwhelming gentrification in neighborhoods with its high-income workers. Bezos’ monster has killed industry after industry and never looked back. 

If tech has proved anything, it is that it prioritizes the disruptive ideas by and for the upper class at the expense of average Americans. As the company behind both the world’s richest man and rampant worker abuse, Amazon is perhaps a prime example of the inequality the tech industry has wrought.

Believing that Amazon could have made a choice with the health of a general population in mind — and not just its bottom line — belies a misunderstanding of how the industry functions. It was a lie some optimists chose to believe. And now, nearly everyone is disappointed.