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Comment by alexval | Hacker News Reader

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned Pittsburgh yet. uber did some early self driving pilots there. CMU is there. Google has a large office there. Amazon has also started hiring software engineers for an office in Pittsburgh too. Cost of living is very cheap. Many upsides to Pittsburgh. I don't know what the city could afford in terms of subsidies though.

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Philly sits halfway between NYC and DC, via Amtrak or I-95. They could get in on the new project to cap the rail yards next to 30th Street Station and find themselves situated between the University of Pennsylvania and Drexel campuses, with Temple University a stone's throw away and Princeton accessible via NJT/SEPTA regional rail.

There's also available suburban sites in Southern NJ and Malvern, PA that are accessible via mass transit, the Navy Yard (which desperately needs a subway spur) and tons of developable/reclaimable industrial space in North Philly.

Given how accommodating PHL has been with Comcast, I'm sure Amazon could get what they need.

Pittsburgh was my first thought. Northeast near DC/NYC, colleges, low cost (for now), a city with good bones

I have mixed feelings about this for Pittsburgh. The main con is 50,000 tech jobs in this city means a lot of new people. Being conservative, we can call it 30,000 new families. I think that will cause chaos in the housing market and increase the cost of living. I'm not sure about it.

There is real estate downtown that (I believe) is still undeveloped and unplanned where the Igloo was. The biggest issue I see is travel. There are no direct flights almost anywhere from PIT.

PA Corporate tax is one of the highest in the country. Though it's not a terrible option.

Effective rate, or published rate?

9.99% net income. It's flat so there is no "effective" rate.

How does that affect a company like Amazon that cam claim its primary HQ in another state, and its actual realized revenue as mostly in other states? What part of Amazon's profits would get taxed in PA?

Most states have tax nexus rules where that doesn't matter as much anymore. They'd certainly pay PA corporate tax on PA income, then PA payroll on every employee.

Philadelphia has gross receipts tax. It is a no go.

So does Washington State though.

Agree, when tech company choose sites, they tends to locate near schools. Somewhere in Midwest is no go, since Amazon would find it difficult to recruit people. I would say Pittsburgh is a reasonable bet.

Apple and Microsoft also have a presence here.

They mention at-site transit in the RFP, and the transit in Pittsburgh seems light.

It's pretty light in Seattle too

As a Seattlite, I kind of wonder if this isn't in response to our lack of transit. We have some possibility of improvement, but it is almost 20 years out for my neighborhood and Amazon is growing super fast. Since they can't stem the growth to the rate of infrastructure development, maybe they can offset the growth to another city. And that city needs infra already waiting. Of course this narrows down city choice significantly.

To the suburbs, yes. Just a few park-n-ride lots.

Inside the city to downtown is pretty good though. Lots of busses to downtown and oakland from the most popular neighborhoods (East Liberty, Shadyside, Lawrenceville, etc).

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