Where would you put HQ2?

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Hold your horses!

You need to answer all three questions before you can move on.

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Introduction
You are
Jeff Bezos.
Atlanta, GA
should HQ2 go?
Begin
Getting started

First, you need to decide what’s important. Amazon’s Request for Proposal outlines key interests for your company. Seven of those interests are listed below. Rank them from most (1) to least (7) important; each number can only be chosen once.

🌈  CULTURE & BUSINESS CLIMATE
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📊  ECONOMICS & INCENTIVES
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👥  LABOR FORCE
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💫  QUALITY OF LIFE
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🌿  SUSTAINABILITY & GREEN ENERGY
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✈️  TRAVEL & COMMUTE
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🌐  WIRELESS & BROADBAND CONNECTIVITY
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Submit
🏅🏅
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RANKING: 🥇 🥈 🥉

Congratulations! You’re locating Amazon’s second headquarters in SITE.

On the subject of connectivity: SITE’s metro area has a cell phone coverage rate of approximately NUMBER1 percent. Its upload/download speed averages a high of NUMBER2 mbps. And NUMBER3 percent of its home state of STATE is covered by fiber.

As far as sustainability: NUMBER3 percent of SITE is green space and parkland for its residents to enjoy. Its home county of COUNTY has an average, annual carbon footprint of NUMBER5 tCO2e per household. And its home state of STATE has the capacity to generate NUMBER6 megawatts of wind and solar energy.

Looking at its labor force: SITE's metro area of METRO AREA has an unemployment rate of NUMBER7 percent, and NUMBER8 percent of its adult population has a bachelor’s degree or higher. Of them, NUMBER9 percent have a degree in science or engineering.

How about cultural and community? Well, SITE’s metro area population boasts NUMBER10 residents, of which NUMBER11 percent are minorities. And SITE has a Moody’s RATING QUALIFIER12 bond rating (RATING SYMBOL) with a OUTLOOK outlook.

Moving on to quality of life: SITE’s metro area of METRO AREA has a crime rate of NUMBER13 crimes per 100,000 residents, and its cost-of-living index is NUMBER14 (compared to a national average of 100.) Its home county of COUNTY has NUMBER15 cultural, entertaining and dining establishments for every 1,000 residents.

On the subject of travel and logistics: The mean travel time in SITE’s metro area of METRO AREA is NUMBER16 minutes. But NUMBER17 percent of its residents walk, bike or take public transit to work. If they need to fly, the closest airport is NUMBER18 miles away from the city’s geographic center.

And finally, looking at capital and operating costs: SITE’s gross domestic product (GDP) grew by NUMBER19 percent between 2015 and 2016. And office space rents for an average of $NUMBER20 per square foot in the community. As far as incentives, SITE offered Amazon NUMBER21 to locate there.

See how this works

1OpenSignal.com (Screen grab cities with roughly 20 mile radius) | Image Color Summarizer (Martin Krzywinski; mkweb.bcgsc.ca) to analyze coverage map results

2SpeedTest; ISPs by City; USA and Canada; 2017 | TestMyCity.Net (for select cities in Montgomery County, MD, Arlington, VA, and Fairfax County VA)

3BroadbandNow; Fiber Coverage by State | Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission Data Collection; Key telecommunications availability indicators, 2016

4The Trust for Public Land; 2017 | Maryland-National Park and Planning Commission, FY15 | Fairfax County (VA) Park Authority, News, 2017| Arlington (VA) Department of Parks and Recreation Community Facilities Study 2015 | City of Toronto Parks Services; Parks Plan; 2013-17

5Berkeley’s CoolClimate Network; CoolClimate Map, Copyright © 2014 Regents of the University of California, University of California, Berkeley. All rights reserved

6American Wind Energy Association | Canada Wind Energy Association | Solar Energies Industries Association | Independent Electricity Solar Operator

7 Bureau of Labor Statistics; Civilian labor force and unemployment by metropolitan area, seasonally adjusted; Dec. 2017 Statistics Canada | Labour force characteristics; unadjusted, by census metropolitan area; Dec. 2017

8U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey, 2012-16; Metro Areas; Highest Educational Attainment | Statistics Canada; 2016 Census; Toronto CMA; Highest certificate, diploma or degree for the population aged 25 to 64 years

9 U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey, 2012-16 | Statistics Canada; 2016 Census; Toronto CMA; Major field of study for the population aged 25 to 64 years

10U.S. Census Bureau | Statistics Canada

11U.S. Census Bureau | Statistics Canada

12Moody’s credit rating

13FBI; Uniform Crime Report; 2016 | Statistics Canada; Incident-based crime statistics; 2016

14U.S. Census Bureau; Cost of Living Index | Expatistan.com; Cost of Living Comparison (Toronto v. New York) | Numbeo.com; Cost of Living Comparison (Toronto v. New York)

15U.S. Census Bureau; NAICS establishments by county 2015 | City of Toronto; Employment Survey 2016

16U.S. Census Bureau; American Community Survey; 2012-16; Aggregate Travel Time to Work by Metro Area/Metro Population |Statistics Canada;2011 National Household Survey; Commuting to Work

17U.S. Census Bureau; American Community Survey; 2012-2016; Means of Transportation to Work |Statistics Canada; 2016 Census; Commuters using sustainable transportation in census metro areas

18Google Maps

19U.S. Dept of Commerce; Bureau of Economic Analysis; Gross Domestic Product by Metro Area 2016 | City of Toronto; Gross Domestic Product (2011-2016)

20CBRE Research; Scoring Tech Talent 2017

21Media reports (Atlanta Journal-Constitution; CityLab; Business Insider; New York Times; Denver Post; Indianapolis Star; Miami Herald; Democrat and Chronicle; Tribune-Review; Reuters; Nonprofit Quarterly; Austin Business Journal; Texas Tribune; Toronto Star; CBC)

CREDITS:

Data Collection & Analysis > Emily Le Coz & Lucille Sherman

Design & Development > Tyson Bird, Mara Corbett, Dak Le & Tony Elkins

Well that was a lot of information. Let’s break down how it all worked:

FIRST WE ASSIGN A WEIGHT – OR POINTS – TO THE INTERESTS

At the start, we asked you to rank key interests as if you ran Amazon. Depending on how you ranked each interest, you gave those categories more or less weight. Here you can see an example:

Interest 1 > Rank 3 > Questions for this interest now have a weight of 5

Interest 2 > Rank 7 > Questions for this interest now have a weight of 1

Interest 3 > Rank 2 > Questions for this interest now have a weight of 6

Interest 4 > Rank 1 > Questions for this interest now have a weight of 7

Interest 5 > Rank 5 > Questions for this interest now have a weight of 3

Interest 6 > Rank 6 > Questions for this interest now have a weight of 2

Interest 7 > Rank 4 > Questions for this interest now have a weight of 4

See? The top-ranked interest has the most weight (a weight of 7, to be exact). The second-ranked interest has a weight of 6, the third-ranked has a weight of 5, and so on and so forth.

These weights now translate into points, which will be multiplied by the points earned by each site as you answer the three questions within each interest.

Keep reading to see how that works:

THEN WE ASSIGN POINTS TO THE QUESTIONS WITHIN EACH INTEREST

Let’s say you pick “WIRELESS AND BROADBAND CONNECTIVITY” as your first and most-important interest. (It now has a multiplier of 7.) The first question within that interest is:

QUESTION: How important is cell phone coverage to your site selection?

ANSWERS: Very Important | Important | Neutral | No big deal | Don’t care

The 20 cities are divided among the answers. So the sites with the most cell phone coverage are grouped under “VERY IMPORTANT,” the sites with second-most coverage go under “IMPORTANT,” and so forth and so on. It looks something like this:

VERY IMPORTANT

(Site 1 | Site 2 | Site 3 |Site 4)

IMPORTANT

(Site 5 | Site 6 | Site 7 |Site 8)

NEUTRAL

(Site 9 | Site 10 | Site 11 |Site 12)

NO BIG DEAL

(Site 13 | Site 14 | Site 15 |Site 16)

DON’T CARE

(Site 17 | Site 18 | Site 19 |Site 20)

The sites in the VERY IMPORTANT group earn more points than those in the DON’T CARE group no matter which answer you pick. But the sites will earn increasingly more points the more you care about cell phone coverage.

If you pick VERY IMPORTANT, for example, the point assignment looks like this:

VERY IMPORTANT(Site 1 – 5 points| Site 2 – 4.75 points | Site 3 – 4.5 points | Site 4 – 4.25 points)

IMPORTANT (Site 5 – 4 points| Site 6 – 3.75 points| Site 7 – 3.5 points |Site 8 – 3.25 points)

NEUTRAL (Site 9 – 3 points| Site 10 – 2.75 points| Site 11 – 2.5 points | Site 12 – 2.25 points)

NO BIG DEAL (Site 13 – 2 points | Site 14 – 1.75 points | Site 15 – 1.5 points |Site 16 – 1.25 points)

DON’T CARE (Site 17 – 1 point | Site 18 – 0.75 points | Site 19 – 0.5 points |Site 20 – 0.25 points)

As your level of importance decreases, so do the points. If you answer just IMPORTANT, the points start at 4 and go down to 0. (Site 1 gets 4 points, Site 2 gets 3.75 points, Site 3 gets 3.5 points, etc.)

Whatever the spread, each site’s points here then get multiplied by the points assigned to the interest.

So, let’s say you picked NEUTRAL:

  • Site 1 would get 21 points (3 x 7)
  • Site 2 would get 19.25 points (2.75 x 7)
  • Site 3 would get 17.5 points (2.5 x 7)
  • Site 4 would get 15.75 points (2.25 x 7)
  • Site 5 would get 14 points (2 x 7)
  • Site 6 would get 12.25 points (1.75 x 7)
  • Site 7 would get 10.5 points (1.5 x 7)
  • Site 8 would get 8.75 points ( 1.25 x 7)
  • Site 9 would get 7 points (1 x 7)
  • Site 10 would get 5.25 points (0.75 x 7)
  • City 11 would get 3.5 (0.5 x 7)
  • Site 12 would get 1.75 (0.25 x 7)
  • Site 13-20 would get 0 (0 x 7)

It’s worth noting here that if two cities have the same data, they’re awarded equal points. This happens in cases where we use metro-area/metro-division data, because some of the sites belong to the same metro area and/or metro division. Northern Virginia, for example, is included in the Washington DC metro area and metro division. Newark is included in the New York metro area (but not its metro division).

OBJECTIVE VERSUS SUBJECTIVE QUESTIONS

Questions like the one above are based on which city is the best at something (be it educational quality or Internet speed). The best cities will always earn the most points, which are assigned in a sequence.

But what if the answers aren’t always OBJECTIVE? What if they’re SUBJECTIVE? Like this …

QUESTION: What kind of metro population size would be a good fit for Amazon?

ANSWERS: Megatropolis | Big, but not too big | Mid-sized metro | Small-ish | Hometown feel In this case, bigger isn’t always better. Let’s say you pick SMALL-ISH as your answer. Here is how the points would fall:

METATROPOLIS (Site 1 – 2 points| Site 2 – 1.75 points | Site 3 – 1.5 points | Site 4 – 1.25 points)

BIG, NOT TOO BIG (Site 5 – 3 points| Site 6 – 2.75 points| Site 7 – 2.5 points |Site 8 – 2.25 points)

MID-SIZED (Site 9 – 4 points| Site 10 – 3.75 points| Site 11 – 3.5 points | Site 12 – 3.25 points)

SMALL-ISH (Site 13 – 5 points | Site 14 – 4.75 points | Site 15 – 4.5 points |Site 16 – 4.25 points)

HOMETOWN FEEL (Site 17 – 4 points | Site 18 – 3.75 points | Site 19 – 3.5 points |Site 20 – 3.25 points)

Instead of the points being spread out sequentially, they’re spread out radially – almost like a ripple in the water. Whichever answer you pick, those cities get the most points. The ones closest to them on either side then get the second-most points, and the spread decreases as you move away.

Again, the points assigned to each site are then multiplied by the weight of the interest.

AND ... we add an additional 8 points to these subjective questions, because we assume they’re more important to you since they’re based on your feelings instead of on data.

So here is what that spread would look like if this question appeared under your SECOND-MOST IMPORTANT driver and if you picked as the answer to this question BIG, NOT TOO BIG:

  • Site 1 would get 192 points (4 x 6) x 8
  • Site 2 would get 180 points (3.75 x 6) x 8
  • Site 3 would get 168 points (3.5 x 6) x 8
  • Site 4 would get 156 points (3.25 x 6) x 8
  • Site 5 would get 240 points (5 x 6) x 8
  • Site 6 would get 228 points (4.75 6) x 8
  • Site 7 would get 216 points (4.5 6) x 8
  • Site 8 would get 204 points ( 4.25 6) x 8
  • Site 9 would get 192 points (4 x 6) x 8
  • Site 10 would get 180 points (3.75 x 6) x 8
  • Site 11 would get 168 (3.5 x 6) x 8
  • Site 12 would get 156 (3.25 x 6) x 8
  • Site 13 would get 144 (3 x 6) x 8
  • Site 14 would get 132 (2.75 x 6) x 8
  • Site City 15 would get 120 (2.5 x 6) x 8
  • Site 16 would get 108 (2.25 x 6) x 8
  • Site 17 would get 96 (2 x 6) x 8

And so on …

The game adds the points awarded to each site and, at the end of the game, selects the one with the most points as your winner.