No it doesn't. Not even close. Read Amazon's demands in its published RFP. It's demanding personalized transport with limited traffic. It requires dedicated transportation infrastructure for them for all means of transport and all of that would be built with public money. Houston also has the whole flooding issue so Amazon would probably demand some sort of flood mitigation on top of whatever they build. This is an extortion scheme designed to get a city to throw billions at them in the form of infrastructure, direct subsidies, tax cuts, and other unspecified requests. Check out the return on investment from the Texas Enterprise Fund. The amount of money spent per job is disgusting. Complete waste of taxpayer funding. I'm all for jobs but not when it'll amount to spending billions that could be used elsewhere. Houston isn't exactly the rust belt. It has strong organic economic growth on its own. I agree but this isn't the way to do it. Houston has been diversifying organically for decades and while plenty more is needed this is by far the most expensive way to diversify.
Are you planning on spending billions to build a light rail connection that far out just for Amazon (it really wouldn't benefit anyone else)? That's one of their demands.
Ehhh.... I see no reason why Houston or Dallas wouldn't get it other than the fact that Houston and Dallas don't really need it from an economic stand point.
Honestly, Houston is as ideal as any other city could be. Low cost of living, massive infrastructure, straight shot to the airport from the Woodlands area, massively diverse. Cons: 'Ugly', Not a 'tech' city, Hurricanes, Hot as F***. Has this been revised since the widening of the Panama Canal?
From the article... In terms of foreign tonnage, the Port of Houston is the busiest port in the US and the largest on the Gulf Coast. Located in the fourth-largest state, it stretches 25 miles and is just a few hours away from the Gulf of Mexico. WTF?
The Austin City Council would give Amazon every families first born if they could build a few miles of Lite Rail.
Austin's cost of living has skyrocketed, alot like Seattle. Denver too. Houston is cheap for a major city.
You guys act like Harvey flooding is a normal event. Even still.....most businesses and homes were not flooded. You dump 50 inches of rain on any metro area, see what happens. Hell, Look what Sandy did to new york with half the rain.
That site & those numbers are concerning shipping container tonnage only...not tankers, which Houston has just a few of coming and going, or any heavy equipment/stuff that won't fit in a stackable 40X8X10 foot box.
