#HQ2 Part II - Now What?

Thanks to everyone for sharing thoughts on my post. I wanted to add just a couple of points. To be clear, I don't blame communities for wanting HQ2. Old school (smokestack chasing) economic development practices legitimized recruiting companies from one locale to another, even though it meant a loss and hardship to the community losing the plant. That isn’t applicable here, so this is a better case scenario.

However, for too many, these opportunities are treated like lottery tickets. And like too many, when jackpots get big, people over spend in hopes of hitting the longshot – often more than they can afford. Certainly, some communities put forth proposals that if “won” would put such financial, infrastructure, talent, strains on them, they are lucky not to win. I hope/suspect Amazon will consider those factors in their ultimate decision.

Apparently, our great state of North Carolina offered “Monumental” incentives – as I would suspect most serious responses did. You can read about it here.

https://www.bizjournals.com/triangle/news/2017/10/24/commerce-secretary-n-c-offered-monumental.html

I sincerely applaud their efforts to be creative and put our best foot (or feet) forward. What I want to point out however is that a better strategy may be, for much less ‘monumental’ incentives, invest in ourselves. Instead of measuring our self-worth by what external companies we lured into our state, let us work on the common purpose of making each of our states great for starting and growing exceptional companies. It’s a better ROI, strengthens the economy and communities at a pace we can manage,

and builds a connection between those companies and the communities they live in that is proud, committed and won’t leave for a short-term incentive from another state trying to make up for their failed economic development efforts.

We don’t have to buy big companies, let’s build them!