Noah Smith, Columnist

Big Cities Aren't Better in Amazon's Contest

The company could create America's next big tech hub.

September 14, 2017 at 11:30 AM UTC

Noah Smith is a former Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He was an assistant professor of finance at Stony Brook University, and he blogs at Noahpinion.

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The competition to host HQ2, as Amazon’s planned second headquarters is called, has captivated the nation. The lucky city can expect an economic bonanza: 50,000 jobs, plus the tech ecosystem that the online retail giant’s presence will inevitably attract.

But the winner doesn’t have to be a big metropolis. On the contrary, Amazon has the power to create an entirely new American technology hub.