Amazon narrowed the number of cities it’s considering for its relocation and released a list today (Jan. 18) of 20 cities it’s still looking at for its $5 billion second headquarters. Dallas and Austin are on the list. El Paso, Houston and Frisco are off the list.
Two criteria the company said would be considered were equality legislation and access to public transportation.
One of the Dallas bids includes using Union Station as part of the new Amazon headquarters. The Red and Blue DART lines, the Dallas street car and the TRE from Fort Worth all stop at Union Station. The high speed train station to Houston will be nearby.
Dallas is ahead of Austin in the public transportation competition. The capital city has one light rail line, some bus service and some of the worst highway congestion in the state. Frisco has no public transportation. Houston has buses and one short train line.
As far as nondiscrimination laws, Dallas and Austin both offer protections. Houston voters repealed their ordinance revealing the disdain that city’s residents have for equality. El Paso has some protections and Frisco offers none. However, because Republican state legislators have pledged to revive the bathroom bill in the next session, and statewide legislation would preempt local ordinances, Texas may be wiped from consideration by Amazon. However, Raleigh is on the list despite only a partial repeal of North Carolina’s economically disastrous bathroom bill.
Here’s the list of all 20 cities:
- Atlanta
- Austin
- Boston
- Chicago
- Columbus, Ohio
- Dallas
- Denver
- Indianapolis
- Los Angeles
- Miami
- Montgomery County, Maryland
- Nashville, Tennessee
- Newark, New Jersey
- New York City
- Northern Virginia
- Philadelphia
- Pittsburgh
- Raleigh, North Carolina
- Toronto
- Washington D.C.
— David Taffet