I can't imagine Los Angeles being a serious contender.
- Land is expensive and not particularly abundant. Mid-Wilshire is relatively cheap has great proximity to everything (airport, downtown, west LA, Hollywood) if Amazon is willing to invest in the gentrification of the area.
- Labor cost is within 10% of Bay/Seattle/NYC
- Mass transit is currently effectively non-existent.
- One of the highest taxed cities in the nation.
On the plus side, there's:
+ A very well connected international airport
+ A lot of top tier universities nearby (CalTech, UCLA, USC, UCSB, UCSD, UCI, Pepperdine); any one of which can single handedly supply a workforce comparable to the other candidate cities.
It's a lot easier moving people and airplanes to the other cities than it is creating cheap well connected land in LA.
Wow, he has way more houses than I imagined. Two each in Medina, Wa and Beverly Hills, Ca. 30000 acres in Van Horn, Tx (not actually anywhere near Austin or Dallas despite being in Texas). Also, the single largest house in DC and a mere three condos in New York City (right next to Central Park).
