Drunk on Growth All Over Again? Bezos Throws The Bait Out-for-Bid

More than 100 cities are contending to win the economic prize of the decade, Amazon's second, "equal in every way" to its Seattle home, headquarters. Some $5 billion in investment and 50,000 high-paid jobs are possible. Both Phoenix and Tucson are among them.
The Rogue Columnist Jon Talton  strikes again . . .

". . . In the Upshot piece, Phoenix (and Tucson) is quickly eliminated: job growth isn't strong, plus lack of a highly skilled tech workforce, high quality of life (that attracts young, educated workers), strong mass transit, and willingness to "pay to play."
But let's not give up just yet. At the least, this could be an educational experience.
Phoenix has a checkered history of economic development. For decades, the economy was based on the agricultural empire of the Salt River Valley. Manufacturing that located there during World War II quickly closed after VJ-Day, leaving local leaders scrambling to find new jobs for a growing population. Under the leadership of legendary lawyer-fixer Frank Snell and the Chamber of Commerce, the city recruited new technology companies. The biggest catch was Motorola. This was also the third time the federal government came to the rescue, this time with enormous funding for Cold War defense industries.

When Greyhound relocated its headquarters from Chicago to Phoenix in the 1960s, it was thought that other Fortune 500 companies would follow. They didn't. And a familiar pattern settled in. City and state lacked any coherent economic-development strategy. But Phoenix kept adding people, leaders assumed that sunshine was enough of an incentive, and real estate became the major driver. After the collapse of 1990, the leadership regrouped and formed the Greater Phoenix Economic Council (GPEC), led by Ioanna Morfessis and backed by the then-considerable group of civic leaders. Morfessis set several "cluster strategies" in place to recruit, retain and expand advanced industries with high-paying jobs.
It didn't take. As Morfessis recalled, "We got drunk on growth again."
When Talton started writing about this in the Republic in 2000s, the local-yokels were offended. But privately, in a GPEC meeting, people said, "My god, Talton is right."
The "low tax/light regulation" of Gov. Doug Ducey and the strange privatized Arizona Commerce Authority might attract Amazon warehouses. But it won't make Phoenix, Tucson, or Tempe contenders for an Amazon headquarters.
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