Detroit was not eliminated due to population, everything on the first map qualified for the population criteria. It failed the job growth test.

(There's an argument about whether “stable business climate for growth" really can be boiled down to just "job growth". But is Detroit really going to do well on any kind of proxy for stable growth?)

I think this is an excellent point. While Detroit has a relatively small population, it's metropolitan area does not. It's large metropolitan area has a large STEM talent pool thanks to the automotive sector, the second largest Delta hub (behind Atlanta and just a giant airport anyways), and has a very willing government plus Dan Gilbert.

It'll be a uphill battle, but I think Detroit is a serious dark horse.

Dan Gilbert has created RocketFiber. 1Gb for $79/month residential and business in Detroit. 10Gb available for reasonable amounts.

When I was running my own company, I came quite close to looking at spots there. I was in Plymouth (30 miles west), but needed lots of bandwidth at the time, and DC hosting wasnt an option.

FWIW: you could do air cooled DCs up and down the Michigan west coast. Wonderfully cool air coming off a natural chiller, Lake Michigan, cheap power, excellent transportation infrastructure, very business friendly state government ... though sometimes they lurch the other way, most of the time they don't do stupid things.

I tried gauging investor interest in this model of DCs a few years ago ... few thought DCs were a growth industry, and clouds/hosting was a fad. Go figure.

but big question is, will Amazon go into automotive sector? otherwise, I don't see Detroit being their pick.

Perhaps the point was that there may be some transferable technical talent already in place. Plenty of programmers, statisticians, UX experts, data scientists and IT folks needed for modern auto companies.

I'd say snubbed. The Detroit-Ann Arbor corridor and metro area is 5-ish million, with a strong tech scene, quite a bit of airport capacity (DTW, and if they wanted to use it, Willow Run). Cheap (and I mean cheap) housing, active and growing downtown, etc.

This is not the Detroit I went to grad school in, (mumble) 20+ years ago. Very different place, lots of investment. Ann Arbor is a dense tech mecca. East Lansing (90 miles away) less so, but between Wayne State, UofM's, MSU, Central Mich, MTU, and some of the smaller schools, there is a very strong engineering and computing culture. One that is frequently overlooked.

One thing I will note is a paucity of investment capital in the region, and a strong reluctance on the part of costal VCs to invest in fly over country.

However ... cost to hire/retain people here is very low compared to the coasts. Given how much the percentage of cost is in people, this should be a factor in any companies calculation on where to move.

Land/facilities are cheap. Transportation is ok ... we still have to work on local transit, as decades of mismanagement if not worse, have left the public transportation options in terrible shape. However, there are strong pushes from Dan Gilbert, the Illich family, and many others for modern regional transport. There are light and heavy rail all over here.

And, not for nothing ... we have 4 real seasons. Though, in my first few weeks out here (mumble) 30 something years ago, I surprised how they could all be on the same day ...

Detroit should be in the mix. As a leading contender. All of the rust belt should be.

Still, despite the size of metro Detroit, I think it's 100% off the table for Amazon's HQ2. The positive side of it is, sure, Amazon could own Detroit like vintage Ford – that's neat but I don't think Amazon wants that. The winters are still some of the most frigid and intimidating of any major American city, Michigan is still seen as the turncoat swing state (or one of them) that lead to Trump's election, and even though it's regarded as ripe for an artistic revolution (cheap permits, cheap housing) it's still not a "cool" place to be.

It's a huge gamble on a city that is pulling itself out of bankruptcy.

All depends on your perspective. Unlike many on ycombinator, I voted for Trump. I suppose it is more accurate to say that I actually voted for his Supreme Court justice list -- I viewed that issue as far more important than the president for the next four years. I lean libertarian, and while Trump had several justices that I'm OK with on his list, Hillary had no list and probably wouldn't have nominated anybody that I like. I live in Michigan, and I'm proud of our role in getting him elected (and getting a justice with a strict interpretation of the constitution nominated).

Also, please don't crucify me for admitting that I voted for Trump. I usually don't tell people IRL, because most left-leaning folks are extremely intolerant about it, many to the point of anger/hatred and possibly violence. If you want to know why you can't find the trump voters out in the real world, I think that's one of the big reasons.

You are the first person I have seen that has given supreme court justice list as reason fo voting trump and it seems like a pretty kosher reason.

Not sure about the 4 year damage offset but hey, it is better than voting for him because wall

Also, justices last a lifetime. A few bad justices could shred the constitution and trash our entire democracy faster than you can blink. A president properly constrained by congress and the courts cannot. Nominating activist judges and justices can seem like a great idea in the short term, when the chips are falling in your preferred way, but in the general case it's a terrible idea. If you don't believe me, think about how happy people were when Obama started abusing executive orders, and how upset they were when Trump continued the trend ... although they're not the first presidents to do this, there are some lines that just shouldn't be crossed.

I really couldn't care less about the wall. I do think that choosing not to enforce immigration laws through an exective order was wrong - that is the domain of congress. In the case of an institution as important as the government of the United States, the ends do not justify the means if the means weakening the foundations of the entire system. I think that this applies equally to executive orders from both Trump and Obama that effectively seek to legislate through executive action.

Also ... sigh, I've already got negative two on that post :( The rain of judgement is why we're all silent.

The reason I don't care about the wall is simple: Yes, our immigration laws are complicated and need reform, but people shouldn't be crossing the border illegally, full-stop. That's why we have laws. A country that selectively enforces its laws is a country where the government can imprison you on a whim (because you've broken a rarely enforced law that they can use against you at will), and historically such countries haven't been nice places to live. So as a basis, you want and need a government that consistently enforces laws, and if the laws are bad, you change them -- which is less likely to happen if lax enforcement eases the pain of the bad laws. So how do I move from "we need to enforce our laws, and change them if they're bad" to "I don't care about the wall"? Simple: whether or not we have the wall, immigration laws need to be enforced as they are written (love 'em or hate 'em), which means that until the law is changed anyone caught crossing will be deported anyway. At the point that the law is changed, people who want to cross will be allowed through as specified in the law. With this philosophy as a background, the wall is relatively meaningless in a practical sense, although I do admit that it does have some symbolic weight. I have always had far more concern for pragmatic thought than symbolism and idealism (which probably led me to engineering), and I'm assuming that building a wall would reduced long-term border patrolling costs to compensate for the cost to build it, and so this leaves me in a place where it's a wash and I don't really care whether or not they build it. And yes, I have been called an emotionless robot before ... I took it as a complement :).

One more note: I'm not saying that I expect the government to achieve perfect monitoring -- just like it would be impossible to catch all speeders, it would be impossible to catch all illegal border crossings -- but I am saying that when the government does know that a law has been broken, it should apply a consistent response that is compliant with the laws that have been passed by a congress and signed by a president.

Huh? We already have a wall. It covers about 1/4th of the US-Mexico border.

Trump would just be expanding it. Likely to around a half of the total border (Much of the border is close to impassable, due to mountains, desert, ect).

I think it'd be an amazing PR move, to be honest, and one Amazon would profit much from and suffer minimal risk. Amazon has been criticized lately for eating retail and causing economic upheaval. Going into Detroit turns all that around.

Shinola has been capitalizing on Detroitness. So has Chrysler, successfully.

Things are moving back from burbs into the city and gaining visibility. These are the successful test cases. "Imported from Detroit"

(The bankruptcy itself hasn't prevented much from improving in Detroit. The bankruptcy turned out to be the launchpad.)

Same with Phoenix as Phoenix metro is 4.5 mil. and lots of room to grow, great cities in Tempe/Scottsdale/Chandler and more with an Amazon presence already here.

But ultimately they are probably right, Denver deserves it. Great quality of life, smart governance, good markets, healthy living and room to grow. Lots of people moving to Denver just like Seattle so it is very close to the same style of city. It is very, very easy to attract people to Denver.

I work at a software company between Boulder and Denver.

It's easy to recruit people here. You fly them out (at any time of year, even winter) and the weather is typically sunny and pleasant. (yes, in the winter, it's usually sunny, dry, and mild temps)

Good luck doing that in Detroit.

But why would you want Amazon in Colorado? Rent there is already increasing, Amazon there would make everything unaffordable.

The housing prices in Colorado are high because of a specific reason that is soon going to end:

1) Land is available, but labor and building companies are still not fully recovered from the 2008 bust, and this has created a sharp supply issue with new housing to accommodate the hordes of newcomers.

2) This issue is quickly on the way to being remedied, because the housing prices are high enough to produce huge profits for builders, and the national companies are quickly getting their infrastructure in place.

3) If anything, housing prices are going to retreat downward, (probably not a crash due to demand) and Amazon would help cement the decision for big building companies to devote more assets to correcting the supply issue.

I can't speak for the grandparent poster, but it seems he was making a case for Denver being great for Amazon, not necessarily discussing if Amazon would be great for Denver.

That said, I wouldn't mind seeing Amazon HQ2 locate here. While I doubt I would personally want to work for Amazon due to its reputation as being a lousy place to work, it would probably boost the tech scene and salaries. I think Denver's cost of living is going to continue its steep trajectory with or without Amazon.

Correct. I think Amazon would be ok for Denver. It would probably boost tech salaries across the board here.

I agree that this is sloppy reporting. Amazon said they want metropolitan areas that have a million people, not necessarily cities with a million.

> ...keeping those metropolitan areas that have had the best job growth over the last decade, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Metro areas that have actually lost jobs (Tucson; Birmingham, Ala.) and those that have grown more sluggishly are out of the running.

This is a good time to remind folks that arbitrary political borders are, well, arbitrary and that all serious city-to-city comparisons should be done using MSA numbers.

A failure to understand this leads to all kinds of ridiculous impressions and conclusions.

As others have stated, Detroit was eliminated for sluggish growth, not low population. Having said that, I'm definitely in their target demographic (35 yrs old, BSCE and MSEE, 10 years software development experience and team leadership experience), and I think that their 'has the right labor pool' filter is a bit off. I'd guess that Amazon is looking to rein in their labor costs a bit, and often a large city with some tech (but not a ton) can provide a very good labor pool at a reasonable cost. They got rid of a lot of places I'd be willing to re-locate to in that round (I can't stand huge cities), but perhaps I'm alone in my desire to live in a place that has low cost of living, reasonable traffic, and abundant housing+land.

PS - I actually currently live and work near Grand Rapids. I have 11 acres that didn't cost me a fortune, and I love it. GR would probably have also failed their 'amenities' filter, which I think is also wrong - any place with broadway, concerts, sports teams, good restaurants/breweries/bars etc. is probably good enough for most young people.

I don't think you're in their target demographic if you want to live on 11 acres but don't want to deal with the traffic to work at a corporate campus of 50,000 workers in a city of 1M+

I think there are a lot of workers who would like to live on that much land, but it's just not sustainable. If 50,000 people each lived on 10 acre plots, the amount of land they'd need to live would exceed that of a large city. That's 780 square miles, larger than the 600 mi^2 of of Houston which has a population of 2M people.

But nobody wants to move there. I loved my four years in Ann Arbor, but any other metro area just blows it out of the water.

Detroit seems like a fantastic choice. Both Toronto and Chicago are fairly close. All the great Michigan and Ontario schools can be tapped and the city has tremendous potential to grow. Hopefully, they'd be nicer to their local population ala Facebook/East Palo Alto.

Speaking only for myself, "fairly close" is basically as far away as really far away. If I have to move, there's not much of a difference between moving 100 miles and 3,000 miles. If I were planning to operate in one city because it was fairly close to another city, I'd probably just go to the fairly close city instead (or somewhere else altogether).

If I work in Detroit, I can visit my family in Southern Ontario or Michigan over the weekend. This makes a huge difference.

I used to do that, but I got really sick of making long drives in traffic.

Well, Boston also has a population of only 600K, so they must have used some other criteria to include the metro areas of the cities.