The current nominees include 19 metropolitan areas across the United States and just one in Canada:
Indianapolis
Chicago
Denver
Nashville
Los Angeles
Dallas
Austin
Boston
New York City
Pittsburgh
Philadelphia
Montgomery County, Md.
Columbus, Ohio
Newark, N.J.
Washington, D.C.
Raleigh, N.C.
Northern Virginia
Atlanta
Toronto
Dubbed “HQ2,” the tech giant announced last September that it would be looking to construct a brand new, second headquarters somewhere in North America, equal in size to its current base in Seattle. The application process closed up by October, and just recently it was suspected the e-commerce giant may have dropped a clue with reported expansion plans in Boston.
Amazon has said it plans to invest over $5bn in construction and produce many as 50,000 high-paying jobs at HQ2, with the further promise of “tens of thousands of additional jobs” as well as billions of dollars more in additional investment in the host city — prompting a flurry of (sometimes outlandish) bids from cities and states to woo CEO Jeff Bezos and company.
