No love lost in quest for Amazon HQ2

to author a winning bid.

Kenney spokeswoman Lauren Hitt said the city already has a large and talented millennial pool, the ability to form partnerships within the community, and a relatively cheap cost of living compared to other cities onthe eastern seaboard.

“Like the Amazon model, we are consumerfocused, not competitionfocused,” she said.

Still, when it comes to clout in Harrisburg, Philadelphia lags behind Pittsburgh. House speaker Mike Turzai is from the Pittsburgh suburbs. That chamber’s top Democrats hail from there too. And the Senate’s top Democrat, Jay Costa, lives there.

But political muscle will only take you so far, said Sen. Vince Hughes, D-Philadelphia.

“If the fundamentals aren’t there, it doesn’t work,” said Mr. Hughes, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Pittsburgh, he said, is a fine city. But Philadelphia, a transportation hub between New York and Washington with a cluster of higherlearning institutions and a tech corridor, dwarfs it in thefactors that count.

“Who’s got the better fundamentals? It’s not even a conversation,” he said.

Back in the day, he said, when someone was looking for a place to put a steel mill, they went to Pittsburgh.

He views the competition for Amazon the same way — but this time, the scale is tipped in Philadelphia’s favor.

“If you don’t have the fundamentals, what are you arguing for?” he said.