So much for Toronto not being in the running if they didn’t offer financial incentives!
Ohio is represented! (Columbus) Glad to see a few Midwest prospects.
20 finalists seems a bit undisciplined. Couldn’t they knock off 5 of those easily? They must be fishing.
Glad our city leaders will be kissing fewer butts. Maybe someday kid will be able to afford a one bedroom apartment in the city. 
It’s getting a little too cute. Decide already. What next? Final 5? Then semi final before announcing the finalist?
As for Apple, they want to build a green building. Does that mean they need sun or wind? How does their Iowa campus manage that?
But they had 238 proposals!!! 20 is top 8-9% or so. 
Of course it is free publicity for them to keep dragging this out and wringing a few $$ out of the top whatever.
Sure they can milk as much as they like. Do I approve of it? No. Does it matter that I disapprove? No.
“As for Apple, they want to build a green building. Does that mean they need sun or wind?”
Nope. Depends on how they define “green”. Many LEED certified buildings don’t rely on solar or wind power. Plus, solar is readily available in all the locations on the final 20 list.
Not my house. I couldn’t make it 100% “green”. Not enough sun, even less wind. I am sure that applies to most northeast. Anyway that’s Apple who wants 100% green energy not Amazon. Apple doesn’t have a list of final 20. They are not choosing anything publically.
@iglooo I would imagine Apple does just fine in Iowa in terms of green energy. Iowa is number 2 in wind power production and produces almost 10% of all wind power nationwide. I had to look this up but driving cross country it is not surprising that Iowa and Illinois are in the top 5 states, there are turbines everywhere and based on the components on trucks throughout the midwest more are going up every day.
Will they send the cactus back to Tucson?
@iaparent Thank you for the info. That explains it. Amazon should have picked 64. We could have had Amazon HQ madness. Won’t that be fun! We are glued to their announcement any way.
Look at what little Carleton College does with a few wind turbines and a solar array in icy cold, northern MN. I’m sure Apple will do just fine. 
There is plenty of solar power in the north. Further afield, look at what countries like Denmark do with wind power.
https://apps.carleton.edu/sustainability/campus/energy/renewable/
Cupertino Apple Park looks ugly.
I think it’s awesome. Different strokes…
I’m actually a little surprised that they cut out 218 proposals relatively quickly. Not surprised, though, that they are still looking at 20. They now are going to meet with each city and get more detailed information about the individual proposals. Some may be knocked off quickly but there may be several that, on closer inspection, look like good options. Why not explore 20 further and see which look best? A project of this size is not going to be decided overnight. It is usually going to be several months, if not years in some instances. Telling them to ‘decide already’ is unreasonable.
Some of the proposals came from cities that didn’t really meet the criteria Amazon set out. For instance, Tulsa has fewer than a million people and the airport doesn’t have any international flights or even flights to the NE. Brunswick and Scarboro Maine? Small cities with no international airport (unless you want to include Portland’s flights to Canada), small populations and almost nothing in the way of public transportation and tech infrastructure. Springfield MA? Pensacola Florida? Never serious contenders.
Some of these struck me as similar to the kid who says, “So what if I have a 28 ACT and a 3.2 GPA. Somebody has to get into Harvard, right? I may as well throw in an application!”
So now i’m thinking DC…though every guess I"ve made so far has been wrong. But did you notice that out of the 20 finalists, 3 are DC-focused? It makes me believe that they want to be in that area and now it’s just a matter of deciding what part of DC/VA/MD to park in.
Even if you don’t stand a shot at Harvard, I think there can be a benefit to going through the application process. For large numbers of kids its the first interview they have ever had outside a temporary fast food job. So too I think the process for cities that never had a shot at Amazon, you can still benefit from going through the process. Focusing on strengths, figure out what incentives you can offer, etc. Even if you didn’t land the big fish, you may land smaller fish down the line based on what you learned in the process.
Maybe its changed but I would be surprised if the Port Columbus airport had anything other than a flight to Canada in terms of daily international flights. That is true for a lot of “international” airports especially with all of the hub consolidation that has occurred over the past 10-20 years.