The rich get richer- Amazon HQ2
The attached article discusses the current trend in the modern tech economy: cites that already have wealth, opportunity, highly educated workers, and high salaries will keep attracting more of them. To support this claim it uses the example of Amazon, which recently had to choose two locations for its new headquarters. While there were many locations considered, the final locations chosen were New York City and northern Virginia. The article argues that the decision was never even a contest, considering how tech companies look for dense clusters of highly specialized workers interacting with one another to produce new ideas. The article cites research that states how scientists who move from smaller clusters to larger clusters of experts produce more inventions, similar to what takes place in Silicon Valley. New York, being one of the most highly educated regions in the country and full of tech workers, was a prime location for the headquarters.
Between 2010 and 2017, nearly half of the country’s total employment growth occurred in just 20 large metro areas. Following the “rich get richer” trend we discussed in class, it only makes sense that more high-paying tech jobs will try to locate in New York or other densely populated prosperous regions. Other contending locations were willing to rapidly build transit and accommodate to any of Amazon’s needs, but Amazon still decided to settle for New York City for the environment that could not be found anywhere else. While Amazon’s decision makes sense because they personally will benefit from the already-established tech environment, it effectively ensures that more companies will follow it in the future, and in the long run only reinforces a trend for the US economy where most of the prosperous regions grow more prosperous, and other regions grow worse and worse.