back to article Town wants Amazon's new HQ so much it plans to split off new town called 'Amazon'

If you've never heard of Stonecrest, Georgia, you're not alone: the town on the outer fringes of Atlanta only voted itself into existence a couple of years ago. But it's now put itself on the map by offering to rename 345 acres of land “Amazon” in a bid to land Amazon.com's new headquarters. The mall-disruptor and cloud …

  1. Mark 85

    Stonecrest, Georgia?

    Current population: 34,756. Looking to suck in Amazon and 50,000 jobs. Yes, it's near Atlanta so where are most of these employees gong to be living or hired from? Not Stonecrest.

    But still, it's an interesting idea for them and I hope they can pull it off. The down side will be their little town will suddenly grow and have big town problems. Having lived in a town that suddenly grew due a factory being built, at some point the natives looked around and wondered what the hell happened? And not in a good way. I hope it turns out better for Stonecrest.

    1. Sampler

      Re: Stonecrest, Georgia?

      Spoiler alert, it won't..

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Stonecrest, Georgia?

      Yes, it's near Atlanta

      Near? Its seven miles to downtown Atlanta, and in terms of developed land, there's not really any obvious break between Stonecrest and the greater metropolitan area of Atlanta. For UK readers, it is not unlike saying that Hounslow is near London. The statement is correct for a given legal definition of the city, for most people there both an integral part of the (relevant) metropolis. And Stonecrest is only about twelve miles from Atlanta's main airport. So on that basis, I wouldn't discount their chances entirely, although I'd expect other cities to be able to offer bigger cash bribes.

      Moral of the story: Just because we've never heard of it, doesn't mean it doesn't exist

      1. Daedalus

        Re: Stonecrest, Georgia?

        Betcha that if they win, they lose. Greater Atlanta will quickly annex them and their new tenants, sucking all that luvverly revenue somewhere it can put to proper use by fat cat pols.

        1. Charles 9

          Re: Stonecrest, Georgia?

          Doesn't need to. Atlanta's the capital of Georgia, so state taxes already head their way. Plus keeping suburbs separate as part of Fulton County reduces overheads.

  2. frank ly
    Coat

    Does a River Run Through it?

    (Running away now)

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Does a River Run Through it?

      Put it this way. It's a good thing the river featured in Deliverance was fictional.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Carefull what you wish for

    Jobs, but at what cost?

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It's good job it's not Pronhub, though for a town name it does have a nice ring to it.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Hello Bezos

    How would you like it? With icecubes or with hot coffee? We offer both.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What's wrong with

    "Taxminimalisation Town"

    1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      Re: What's wrong with

      Yeah, we see a lot of that all over the world.

      "and a willingness to offer it a tax holiday."

      Bribery or blackmail? I suppose it's bribery if a company is planning to move to somewhere and blackmail if they are planning to move from somewhere.

  7. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge
    Coat

    locales with a million people, a big slab of land, easy access to airports and a willingness to offer it a tax holiday

    Ireland?

    1. Teiwaz

      Ireland

      Phil O'Sophical locales with a million people, a big slab of land, easy access to airports and a willingness to offer it a tax holiday

      Ireland?

      Now, be honest, can you really justify <easy access to airports</i>?

      1. Faszination

        Re: Ireland

        Ireland?

        Now, be honest, can you really justify <easy access to airports</i>?

        Sure you can, access is easy enough for most of the airports now the roads have been upgraded from the more usual farm tracks.

        The real question is, do the airports actually have a flight schedule for places a business would want to fly people to/from? Ireland's problem is that outside Dublin, the airlines seem to have cast the less used regional airports adrift.

        Cork is a good example, great facilities, totally under used.

        1. Charles 9

          Re: Ireland

          As I recall, Atlanta is a hub city for at least one major airline, so routes are less of an issue.

      2. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge
        Thumb Up

        Re: Ireland

        Now, be honest, can you really justify easy access to airports?

        Back in the 70s I remember Carrickfinn airstrip, a Nissen hut at the end of a dirt track across the sand dunes in Donegal, with a grass airstrip. When someone wanted to land there they had to book a fire engine from Dungloe to meet safety rules.

        Today that is Donegal International Airport, tarmac runway, tarmac access road, and all, with a direct flight each day to Dublin and to Glasgow. Not very international, but it's the thought that counts.

        Joking apart, you can fly direct from Dublin to SFO these days.

      3. Teknogrot

        Re: Ireland

        It's criminal that Amazon employees have to take two buses to get to Dublin airport from the current HQ. Just criminal.

        1. chr0m4t1c

          Re: Ireland

          Dublin airport is weird, it has no links to rail, light rail or the tram system so you are basically stuck with bus or taxi to get into the city.

          Pretty well all of the buses stop around 23.30, so if your flight lands after 23.00 you miss the last of them - and flights come in until around one in the morning.

          I've been working there this year, I had to wait over an hour after landing and get an overnight coach that actually goes to Waterford, but happens to stop in Dublin every time I flew in.

          They do, however, have loads of parking, so they clearly worked out that people based in Ireland might be using the place to travel overseas, but don't seem to have worked out that overseas visitors will arrive /without/ their cars.

  8. HxBro
    Go

    That would solve the tld problem

    1. brand - tick

    2. geological - tick

    Here you go .amazon

    1. pxd

      Re: That would solve the tld problem (one prob with that)

      I think you must have meant geographical? pxd

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Devil

    the demise of chance for happiness for all comes with the leverage of big entities like companies that big as amazon or countries as big as murrica

  10. Erik4872

    This will be entertaining

    For those not in the US, this happens every single time a company announces they're expanding or not happy with their current situation. Atlanta is not a surprising choice...they spent most of the 90s vacuuming up corporate headquarters and back offices from around the country with lures of cheap taxes, free services and land as far as the eye can see. I imagine every municipality in Texas, North Carolina and other southern states is also competing heavily on a very similar platform.

    What I'm not quite getting is whether Amazon is planning on formally splitting off AWS from retail and sending the retail part of the business off to Siberia somewhere while they compete head to head with Azure in Seattle, develop Alexa, etc. I wonder whether they're going to need smart people or just back office order processors...that will definitely determine where they put their headquarters. As an example, the financial company running my 401k is based in Boston, but all the drone work is done in Dallas.

    The entertaining part will be seeing which municipality bent over the furthest backwards to attract the new HQ. I live in New York and we're constantly losing large employers who can just pick up and move because lower-cost locations will suspend taxes for decades, build them a headquarters for free, pay their electric and gas bills, reconfigure roads and zoning laws, and basically anything else they ask for. I imagine it's going to be somewhere in Georgia or Texas...cheap labor, nearly zero taxes for the well connected, and much more room to maneuver.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Hey, wasn't Georgia invaded by the Russians a few years ago??

    On a serious note though, shouldn't the town be named 'Zon' so residents can say iamazon?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Invaded by the Russians

      [AC] "Hey, wasn't Georgia invaded by the Russians a few years ago??"

      That was California, awhile back... their politics perpetually lean left.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Ross,_California

  12. The Nazz

    What confuses me .....

    Is the US slapping a 230%ish tariff on Bombardier for "illegal" state subsidies and yet Amazon (and many others) are inviting BIDS for exactly the same thing.

    I look forward to the EU slapping a 230% tariff on all of Amazon's EU trade once they have built this HQ.

  13. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken
  14. Kev99 Silver badge

    Ever hear of a town called "Truth or Consequences, New Mexico"?

    1. Toni the terrible Bronze badge

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