Few Cities Could Accommodate Amazon's New Headquarters

Which cities will lead the economy of tomorrow? And who will decide? Often it's an amorphous mass of companies and people over time, drifting to where land is cheap and weather is warm. Sometimes it's one company, choosing in one moment. Like now, when Amazon decides where to locate its second corporate headquarters.

The scale of Amazon.com Inc.'s undertaking -- over time, needing up to 8 million square feet of office space and 50,000 well-paid employees -- is unlike anything seen in recent memory. The only thing comparable would be cities bidding for the Summer Olympics. Amazon's Request for Proposal narrows the list significantly in terms of the number of cities realistically able to bid for such a project.