Summary: Meet Me in St. Louis, Bezos
- Visitors
Ross Douthat, a New York Times op-ed columnist, thinks St. Louis may just be the perfect spot for Amazonβs second home. That is, if they want to avoid too much government regulation.
In his article βMeet me in St. Louis, Bezosβ, Douthat points out the irony that while tech giants appear to be losing favor in the political realm, Amazon is on the hunt for a place to house more than 50,000 employees and βan awful lot of tech-industry dollars over the years and decades ahead,β and speculates how a city like St. Louis could fit the bill.
Of course, Douthat points to several quantifiers such as βjob growth, an educated labor pool, quality of life and ease of transportationβ that data heads use to narrow Amazonβs list of potential landing spots, but he surmises that it might be in Amazonβs best interest to take this opportunity to not only choose a city where they would create profit for themselves, but also a city in need of an economic boost. In other words, Douthat sees an opportunity for Amazon to be a big business trendsetter to rebuild our nationβs heartland as a way to show their support for the country and in turn get back on the good side of politics.
With these new βwhatβs good for Americaβ metrics in place, Douthat argues for Amazon to consider βAmazon Cleveland or Amazon Detroitβ–or even our very own St. Louis–stating that a company like Amazon could really forge its own path by taking advantage of the space a once-booming city offers, and the stability that is found with employees who are married with kids. Douthat concedes that there is no one city offering everything Amazon needs. And he ends with his thesis that in order to sidestep regulatory actions that seem imminent, Amazon might want to to be seen as a patriotic company that revitalizes rather than destroys.