Amazon HQ2 near Washington 'a win for us and our whole region': Today's talker

Amazon announced Tuesday the selection of New York City and Arlington, Virginia, for its new headquarters — as well as Nashville for a major investment.  

From founding city to innovation hub

By Allison Silberberg

An inclusive and culturally rich community, Alexandria, Virginia, is a city of kindness and compassion. We welcome Amazon and their families to our historic city and our exceptional quality of life, as its National Landing home.

This marks a significant milestone as our city continues to diversify our economy and shift from one deeply tied to the federal government to one even more focused on innovation, science and technology.

Known for our important role in the founding of our country and our historic preservation, Alexandria has also become an innovation hub and is now poised to take a giant leap forward and build upon the fact that we are already home to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the National Science Foundation and numerous technology companies.

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We are thrilled that, as part of Amazon's HQ2 announcement, Alexandria will become home to a new center for tech excellence known as Virginia Tech's Innovation Campus. This campus in Alexandria is an integral part of our successful Amazon headquarters partnership proposal with Arlington.

The Innovation Campus will create opportunities in computer science, software engineering, with specializations such as technology and policy, machine learning and artificial intelligence. It will create an impressive pool of tech talent as well as bring together technology companies, startups, venture capitalists, entrepreneurs and public partners and thereby fast-track the development of technologies. Virginia Tech and the Commonwealth of Virginia have each committed to provide $250 million to seed the $1 billion project.

I am delighted that we and Arlington have partnered to create National Landing, as we highlighted the collective strengths of our communities — our workforce, education, infrastructure and our unparalleled quality of life — all of which will be strengthened by this new investment from Amazon, the Commonwealth of Virginia and our localities.

I am tremendously proud of all the hard work and regional collaboration that took place over the past 14 months to present Northern Virginia as the best choice for Amazon’s new headquarters. This is a win for us and our whole region.

Allison Silberberg is the mayor of Alexandria, Virginia. You can follow her on Twitter: @A_Silberberg.

What our readers are saying

New York City? Queens? What a bummer! The infrastructure there is so deteriorated (thanks to Democratic management), how will the city manage? Probably increase prices. And how much will New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo make out of this deal?

— Jon Gilbert

Horrible traffic will only be exacerbated in Crystal City, Virginia. Tons of places to go, and they choose this swollen, highly congested city? This was a stupid choice.

— Norma Gonzalez

Two big mistakes! Oh my God, the traffic in Northern Virginia is already bad enough and the price of housing is through the roof already. Austin, Texas, or Raleigh, North Carolina, would have been much better choices. I thought one of the elements of the bids was "affordable housing"? Neither fit that bill. After all, Jeff Bezos is a bozo for his choices!

— Alex Louis

As it stands, people are leaving New York City for places like Buffalo, New York, and people are leaving California for Arizona because they can't afford to stay in those places. And these are people with otherwise decent jobs and wages. Why couldn't Amazon have invested in a half-way, medium sized city with a large airport and an educated workforce like Duluth, Minnesota? Or Niagara Falls, New York? I just don't see anything good about moving yet more decent jobs to cities that very few people can afford to live in.

— Jonatan Lund-Morales

What others are saying

Margaret O'Mara,  The New York Times: "Jeff Bezos and his leadership team can apply the strategic thinking that has made Amazon such an extraordinary company to the task of building a tech hub that encourages growth and widens opportunity. This means breaking out of the bubble and redefining the corporate bottom line to include measures that reduce inequality, sustain existing small businesses and protect housing affordability, and, yes, even supporting cities in raising the tax revenue they need."

Joanne Butler, The Daily Caller: "Perhaps Amazon was promised a glory of infrastructure improvements if it moved to Crystal City. Good luck with that. ... Whether the statehouse in Richmond is open to paying for these promises is an open question. ... Amazon needs to do hard critical thinking into the quality of life of its employees before it commits to Crystal City. My advice: don’t go there."

Michael Farren and Anne Philpot,  The (Massachusetts) Eagle-Tribune: "It's not healthy for America's economy when our largest businesses focus on satisfying lawmakers as much as customers, but it's the reality. Some corporations eagerly trade in influence — even 'weaponizing' laws and regulations against their competition — while others do so more reluctantly and defensively. In this case, a prominent D.C. presence would allow Amazon's high-level corporate leadership to form influential ties with policymakers, cultivate a positive public image, and enmesh itself into the local identity as a 'hometown' company."

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