OPINION: Why politicians are the real winners in Amazon’s HQ2 bidding war
Now that Amazon has announced the winners of its competition to host its second headquarters, a question on many minds is whether it’ll be worth the incentives offered.
We have a different question: Why did so many cities play Amazon’s billion-dollar bidding game in the first place?
One media narrative has portrayed the leaders of losing locations as simply fooled by Amazon’s ingenious scheme. Most of the 238 cities that made bids — offering lucrative tax and other incentives — really didn’t have a shot because they didn’t fulfill the basic requirements, such as access to skilled human capital, sufficient infrastructure and population density.