What About Middle America?
Andrew Thompson
Civil litigation, M&A and business attorney, handling acquisitions, divestitures, securities filings, scaling SME companies, compliance, family law, fundraising, and valuation services - walking by faith.
It's impossible to know the unspoken motivations for Amazon's choices, but suffice to say the online retailer didn't opt to locate its HQ2x2 homes in places where it could minimize its distribution times. Not that it matters for it's overall business model, but the fact is, it's a long stretch of highway from anywhere Amazon has an HQ to say, Phoenix, AZ.
Regardless of its reasons, Amazon's announcement, coming days after the mid-term elections, suggests that financial and political power centers are vital to Amazon's power structure going forward. For all the places it didn't choose, however, it means that attracting its extraordinary additional jobs, and residual economic benefits, will not come to fruition. At least not in the way you might have hoped. Instead cities like Indianapolis, Dallas and the like will have to continue to plod along as they are.
Two things come to mind that are worthy of consideration for all of the unchosen:
- So what? You're truly in no different position than you were a week earlier. Amazon wasn't in your backyard then, and won't be tomorrow. So business as usual means you don't have to worry about all the stress and strain it would have brought to your city's infrastructure if they were moving in. Furthermore, you did not have to follow through on the extraordinary taxpayer funded give aways that New York and Arlington will now have to spend.
- Now what? This is the real question, and it's a serious one. Amazon doesn't and can't prevent your city from catalyzing itself to be something great without their presence - that is entirely up to you, so get busy doing it. One of the other cities will eventually become the great home base for the next great innovation company, the next Amazon. Watch, it will happen. So why not your city?
The tears shed today by realtors, urban planners and talent acquisition consultants are truly tears better spent watering the fertile ground that must be under your feet for Amazon to have considered building its second home where you live. Never grow weary of doing good deeds. The rewards of doing so are being sown even as the pain you might feel over choices you couldn't control have been made.
On to the next great thing!