This guest blog by Ed McMahon is cross published on ELGL from the National Main Street Center blog, an ELGL All-In member. Ed is a Senior Resident Fellow at the Urban Land Institute in Washington, D.C. and Chairman of the National Main Street Center’s Board of Directors.
Amazon recently announced the location of its second global headquarters, (HQ2). It will be split between Crystal City, Virginia, a first ring suburb of Washington, D.C., and Long Island City, a New York City neighborhood in Queens.
Almost 240 U.S. and Canadian cities bid for the headquarters, offering as much as $8 billion in economic incentives, but in the end, it all came down to one criteria: the ability to attract and retain talent workers.
