I’m guessing this whole hullabaloo is just Amazon threatening to take their ball and leave just to pressure some NYC politicians. They decided on Long Island City so long ago I doubt anything is going to cause them to waiver. So my prediction is this is much ado about nothing.
(Although for the record my predictions are almost always wrong)
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Maybe, but Amazon also wants to go to a place that isn’t going to be extremely hostile to them. If this local movement keeps popular, there could be some regressive taxes put in place to essentially remove all the tax breaks. Now that doesn’t mean they are moving to Raleigh, but maybe just all in on DC or something
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I think they’ll twist enough arms to get what they want bc no politician wants to have a campaign commercial cut against them saying they lost 25k worth of jobs. When push comes to shove the politicians fighting this will get their “concessions” for political cover and Amazon will get its incentives.
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And this story was broken by the Washington Post, so my assumption is Amazon wanted it “leaked” to put pressure on the politicians, like @JosABanks said.
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Saber rattling. Nothing more.
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And the Amazon HQ2 saga…continues. ( duh…duh…DUH !!! ) 
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While I don’t buy that Amazon is actually looking to leave NYC, if I’m an NC official I’m on the phone with anyone I can get to talk to me and re-pitching Raleigh as a replacement. With the knowledge of NoVA and Nashville in the picture, I’m stressing the fact that adding a Raleigh spoke to the HQ2 hub creates a compactness that Long Island City can’t offer. It’s unlikely to work but maybe they toss you a small operations center just to get you to shut up and go away.
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There is definitely an angle where Amazon would still want an engineering operation in the Triangle. (Likely in Raleigh, just like their new downtown Nashville project).
Kind of like there’s still a chance for Apple to still move forward with some presence in RTP.
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Oreally? And I don’t recall Nashville being a part of the picture?
https://www.axios.com/amazon-cancels-hq2-new-york-city-26835523-1dc6-4948-91f7-5c769f3445fd.html
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Apparently it’s a 5000 worker hub
Looks like we were wrong. I wonder if they’ll restart the HQ2 process or if they’ll just use the info they got to open a new office without all the fanfare.
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Amazon says they’ll just work with the campuses they have now. Prepare the flood of the NOVA transplants moving south. Too bad we don’t have jobs for them.
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This is why I’m a proponent of converting Capital Blvd. into a freeway all the way to I-85. http://letsgetmoving.org/priorities/streets/us-1-north/
What post were you replying to? I can’t find it by scrolling back, and am getting tired of looking for it? Thanks!
Thanks! Interestingly enough, there was a time in the 80s where Raleigh was the fastest growing city in America that wasn’t connected through to the Interstate system at all. It wasn’t until the late 80s that could even get to Chapel Hill on 40, and it wasn’t until the 1989 that you could take 40 from I95 to I85. It was only then that Raleigh was connected through the Interstate system.
It’s pretty insane to think about.
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Every time I drive the family into Raleigh from the west I regale them with stories of driving Hwy 54 from Chapel Hill, or turning off I-85 and the wandering through Durham to get to the freeway. Since I went to college in Boone, it was a regular experience. Going north was, and I guess is, even worse.
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Going to Chapel Hill was 40 West and exit at Davis Drive. The rest was 54 into CH.
Going to Points west. 40 west continuing onto the Durham Freeway. Then take Duke/Gregson toward Northgate Mall and hop on I-85 west.
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Coming from west on I85, before I40 and Durham freeway was connected to I85, I got off at 751 cut south of Duke to Chapel Hill St to Durham Freeway. It’s really nice how much access to Raleigh from west has improved on last 30 years or so. I lived in Chapel Hill for number of years and would avoid coming to Raleigh, 54 was a long slow trudge.
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@pBeez @scotchman @Dave_M
The irony is that, back when the Triangle was much smaller & disconnected, it was considered a single metropolitan area. Now that it’s larger, grown inward to its center, and more connected than ever, it’s considered 2 different MSAs.
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