having lived in Northern Virginia aka NOVA which is where a lot of businesses have offices and would be the potential area of HQ2, Research Triangle park is a tech hub for North Carolina that also afford lower wages compares to NOVA or other urbanized areas and I would consider 'in the area' of DC. Maryland is also an overlooked option which also has many datacenters.
NOVA is much more likely due to it meeting travel requirements much easier.
NOVA also already has many giant datacenters and already houses complexes for companies like VISA in addition to being one of the major backbones in the USA of the internet.
I would prefer the HQ be closer to NY, Boston or Toronto but that is a long shot I think unless the political climate forces them to make an unpredictable decision.
> I would prefer the HQ be closer to NY, Boston or Toronto
While anywhere east of the Mississippi is going to be a rude awakening compared to Washington, Oregon, California, Colorad, Utah, Wyoming &c., New York, Massachusetts, Canada or Maryland would be far worse than Virginia, due to sclerotic governance. Virginia’s bad compared to the western half of the country, but those places are even worse.
The eastern seaboard has over 400 years of accumulated regulations, rent-seeking and 'we've always done it that way!'; Virginia is relatively better than the alternatives. If there's not a better argument for automatically-sunsetting laws than the East Coast, I don't know what it is.
>Virginia is relatively better than the alternatives.
Having lived in Northern VA for 7 years I do not think NOVA is any different than
> New York, Massachusetts, Canada or Maryland
in fact - out of that group....Maryland is far better than Northern VA in regards to governance... which is the only place in VA I could possible imagine.... especially with the location of international airports being a requirement. In Maryland...the BWI airport in my opinion has poor transportation options in my opinion unless Amazon is okay with employees driving instead of using trains/buses.
In any case... what we say does not impact what HQ2 will choose... I hope... unless the decision makers are reading this, in which case -- its time to get real and build your own island in international waters and stop this bs with choosing somewhere in NA :-)
