Chicago didn't get Amazon HQ2. But to be fair, neither did any other city.
New York City and Northern Virginia have been officially named as co-HQ2 locations. In a company blog post, Amazon unveiled the two new headquarters locations, which will house more than 25,000 employees each. Amazon also announced that it has selected Nashville for a new Center of Excellence for its Operations business, which comes with more than 5,000 jobs.
Amazon's second headquarters is being split between New York’s Long Island City and the Crystal City area in Arlington, Va. The two areas beat out more than 230 other cities that initially applied to land HQ2 and the 19 other finalists---which included Chicago---that were announced at the beginning of 2018.
But while New York and the D.C.-area emerge as winners in the more than a year-long search for HQ2, neither city is receiving the full promise of 50,000 jobs and $5 billion investment, which Amazon had originally announced. When the HQ2 search was first announced, Amazon said its second headquarters would be a "full equal" to its Seattle office.
Amazon's decision to divide HQ2 in half, and to put it in America's political and financial capitals at that, has been met with sharp criticism. The Atlantic called it an "absurd spectacle" and a "wasteful exercise." Business Insider called it a "massive sham." The New Republic said Amazon "scammed America's hurting cities."
HQ2 had the chance to lift a local economy that could have greatly benefited from 50,000 high-paying tech jobs. Instead, Amazon's choice to drop HQ2 in two already wealthy cities that have long been thought as frontrunners to land Amazon leads one to ask:
Why did Amazon accept applications from 238 cities, announce 20 finalists, and take 14 months to decide on HQ2 only to choose New York and D.C.?
How many of those 238 cities would have applied for HQ2 if the end result was only 25,000 jobs---not 50,000---and how would incentive packages have changed? (It's unknown just how much Chicago offered in tax incentives to Amazon, or how much it spent to pitch itself as a logical place for HQ2. But this flashy video pitch narrated by William Shatner probably didn't come cheap.)
What type of data was Amazon able to get from all 238 cities that applied for HQ2, and what does it plan to do with that data moving forward?
To be fair, 25,000 tech jobs is certainly significant. But Amazon fell well short of its promise of a "full equal" HQ2.
While perhaps never the betting favorite, Chicago appeared to have many of the pieces that Amazon was looking for when selecting HQ2: a metropolitan area with more than a million people, access to tech talent and strong transportation infrastructure. Chicago's affordable cost of living and central location (and a shorter flight from Seattle vs. the East Coast) also were seen as advantages for the city.
The HQ2 debacle is a reminder to cities like Chicago, Columbus, Indianapolis, Nashville, Pittsburgh and others that Amazon is not going to save your tech hub. Growing your innovation economy starts from within---doubling down on efforts to nurture and grow your city's own startups. Chicago should focus on building the next Amazon-like business, rather than waiting for Amazon to plop 50,000 tech jobs in its lap.
And Chicago's tech and business leaders are already taking steps forward to boost the city's reputation as a hotbed for technology. Serial entrepreneur Chris Gladwin and Penny Pritzker recently launched a new initiative called P33, which aims to make Chicago a top-tier city for technology by 2033.
Justyn Howard, CEO of Chicago startup Sprout Social said it best last night on Twitter: "Chicago (and others) should invest the money they had earmarked for Amazon into the companies making it happen day after day in their cities, and programs to bolster the workforce. The next wave of economic growth is already here."
Chicago has a strong tech economy. It may not be a top-tier tech hub, but it's getting better, and companies like Sprout Social, Relativity, Uptake, Tempus, Reverb, G2 Crowd, SpotHero and many others are proof of that.
So yes, Chicago missed out on HQ2. And that's OK.
