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Comment by Florin_Andrei | Hacker News Reader

Shouldn't Amazon be more interested in the economic conditions, rather than hiking and biking and the brewery scene?

Tons of sunbelt and non-coastal cities have spent decades optimizing for cheap land and making themselves "business friendly" over all other concerns.

They still don't have much of a tech scene or high impact industries. And the same calculus that has prevented a mass migration of tech companies to Boise or Waco is the same calculus that will prevent Amazon from moving there either.

My bet is Boulder; the Research Triangle; or Philly.

> Boulder

Boulder is almost as bad as the bay in terms of vested interests obstructing construction and development.

Boulder is too small. The whole city only has a 100,000 now. It's got a greenbelt and height restrictions, so you can't build it out much more. And there's very little regional mass transit to get people into and out of the residential areas beyond the greenbelt. There's nowhere to put another 50,000 families. Plus it is on the wrong side of Denver from the airport.

Denver or one of its suburbs would be a decent choice, but not Boulder.

No. While economics are important, a place employees will want to live is also important

They have to be able to get top talent willing to move to whatever city they select.

Agreed, and I've personally noticed a lot of people moving out to the Denver / Boulder area. On my team alone we had 3 people from the bay area move out to Colorado. It's an attractive place for tech talent, which certainly wouldn't hurt Amazon's cause.

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