Bezos at ‘Liberty’ to choose Amazon HQ 2

Amazon’s second home could be in an already techheavy city, such as Boston, New York or Austin, Texas. Or the Midwest, say, Indianapolis or Columbus, Ohio. Or the company could set upshopin Toronto.

Those six locations, as well as 14 others (see right), made it onto Amazon’ s notso-short shortlist Thursday of places under consideration for the online retailing giant’s second headquarters.

Chief Executive Jeff Bezos has said the second HQ will be “a full equal” to the Seattle one.

The 20 picks are concentrated mostly in the East and the Midwest and include several of the biggest metro areas in the country, such as Chicago, Washington and Los Angeles, the only West Coast city on the list.

The e-tail behemoth set off fierce competition last fall when it announced that it was looking for a second home, promising 50,000 jobs and construction spending of more than $5 billion. Many cities drew up elaborate presentations that included rich financial incentives.

The list of finalists highlights a key challenge facing the US economy: Jobs and economic growth are increasingly concentrated in a few large metro areas, mostly on the East and West coasts and a few places in between, such as Texas.

Nearly all the cities on Amazon’s list already have growing economies, low unemployment and highly educated populations.

Amazon shares lost $1.68 Thursday, to $1,293.32.

“Amazon has picked a bunch of winners,” said University of Toronto economic development professor Richard Florida ..