We know Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Gov. Bruce Rauner and other city officials badly want to land Amazon's second North American headquarters. When Amazon representatives were in town last month to scout potential site locations, they were given a boat ride through the Chicago River, a meal overlooking Millennium Park, and met with some of the city's top techies.
The city even went on a graffiti removal blitz ahead of Amazon's visit, and paid William Shatner to narrate a dramatic video pitch to the e-commerce giant. In all, Chicago's bid to land HQ2 includes $2.25 billion worth of incentives.
Chicago officials are all-in. But what about city residents?
According to a poll by Elon University and The Business Journals (Chicago Inno's sister publication), 48 percent of Chicago residents said they have "strong support" for HQ2. That was fifth highest among the 16 HQ2 finalists that the survey polled. Residents in Atlanta, Pittsburgh, Indianapolis and Columbus all expressed stronger support for landing HQ2. People in Boston, Los Angeles and Denver were least likely to strongly support the company's expansion in their cities.
The survey, which excluded Toronto and grouped the three Washington, D.C.-area finalists together, came away with some interesting insights into how cities feel about different aspects of the HQ2 search. More than a quarter (26 percent) of respondents in Indianapolis said they would personally be willing to pay more in taxes in order to fund incentives for Amazon, which was the highest of any city. Nashville residents were second highest, with 23 percent saying they'd be willing to pay more to land Amazon. Just 16 percent of Chicagoans said they'd be willing pay higher taxes.
When asked generally about offering financial incentives or taxpayer support to entice Amazon, 21 percent of Los Angeles respondents said the city should offer “as much as possible,” the highest of any city. Austin was the lowest, with just 8 percent. In Chicago, 14 percent of respondents believe cities should offer as much as possible.
When asked "how much does your region’s economy need jobs from Amazon's HQ2," 43 percent of Chicagoans said "a lot," which was second highest only behind Pittsburgh. Fifty four percent of Chicago respondents said that they would explore job opportunities at Amazon if the company came to the city.
The study, which was conducted from March 30 through April 3, surveyed 7,397 total people, with each metro area having between 350 and 1,000 respondents. You can read the entire report here.
