In the bid to snag Amazon, be careful what we wish for

What if Amazon set up shop down the street?

The Seattle-based online retail giant is looking around for a city in which to locate its second headquarters. It promises $5 billion in investment and 50,000 jobs.

“This is the Olympics of corporate relocations,” wrote Conor Sen of Bloomberg News.

He said the successful city will have these traits: a large metropolitan area; a well-educated workforce with a strong local university system; access to an international airport, highways and public transit; lots of land for office space, and a reasonable cost of living. Sen and other analysts have proposed the top contenders: Toronto, Boston, Washington, Atlanta, Dallas and Denver.

Here in Waterloo Region, there was a brief flurry of excitement that we might make a pitch.

As it turns out, we can’t; we’re too small. Amazon has clearly said it’s looking for a metropolitan area of at least a million people.

But Toronto is preparing a bid. Its mayor, John Tory, recognizes and respects the top-level research institutions and robust technology sector here. University of Waterloo was already chosen as one of four top tech schools to help Amazon develop a voiceactivated virtual assistant.

Tory said he would be pleased to include Waterloo Region in Toronto’s proposal, which already includes such far-flung areas as Halton and Durham Regions.

It isn’t clear what Waterloo Region’s role would be. And the whole thing is quite a long shot. There would be some political uproar if Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos moved all those workers out of the country.

But on the other hand, there’s also the chance that Bezos — who owns the liberal newspaper, the Washington Post — would thoroughly enjoy needling President Donald Trump by making a point about the pointlessness of borders in global trade systems.

There’s also the matter of tax incentives, which Amazon has clearly stated it wants.

On one hand, “Canada is not likely to pay gigantic bribery,” said University of Waterloo economics professor Larry Smith.

“I’d keel over if they actually came to Canada.”

On the other hand, there are big-spending Liberals running both Canada’s and Ontario’s governments, and it would be a huge boost to their popularity to land a whale like Amazon.

But let’s be careful what we wish for. If Amazon were to land in Toronto, we would feel the

effects of it, just as the proverbial mouse in bed with the elephant is likely to get squashed if the elephant rolls over.

When 50,000 well-paid workers land in a city, the demand for housing goes up and prices rise. When prices rise in Toronto, they rise here, because we’re within commuting distance. We have seen that already.

A large employer like Amazon would heat up the competition for “scarce” innovative high-tech professionals, Smith said. That might starve the other tech startups and other companies of valuable skilled workers.

“I would not want them here for that reason alone,” he said.

Waterloo Region has its own, very robust technology sector. It is growing every day. As a result of that and of the light rail system that’s been built in Kitchener and Waterloo, we have highrise condominium towers, lots of great bars, restaurants and entertainment, and gentrification in both downtown areas as rents and property prices rise.

For some, these changes have been a boon. For others, they have been deeply unsettling. Perhaps we have had enough excitement, for now.