The competitive bid over the location for Amazon’s HQ2 has finally finished. It was recently announced that Amazon will be splitting their HQ2 between Long Island, New York and Crystal City, Arlington. Before this conclusion was reached, various cities around the US were campaigning for Amazon to move there. This included cities offering a variety of tax breaks and other incentives to lure the company. The reason cities around the US are adamant about Amazon moving there is due to the immense impact their HQ2 could provide their economies. Along with offering over 50,000 new jobs with an average of salary of $150,000, the real estate in surrounding areas will receive a significant boost.

Recent concepts for the building shows a futuristic design and details the ambitious goals Amazon has for their HQ2’s. Outside the HQ2 itself, the placement of Amazon’s headquarters is expected to create over 22,000 jobs for companies and services outside it’s own walls. This is due to the projected influx of people and in turn demand for services. Undoubtedly, Amazon is expected to have a huge impact on Northern Virginia and New York.

Some critics are cautious about jumping the gun with incentives, such as Steven Strauss, a visiting professor of public policy at Princeton University and an expert on economic development, who says in an editorial in USA Today, “If your government is not willing to signal a serious willingness to say no, it could end up overpaying and losing by winning (the winner’s curse).” Despite this, most economic professors believe that Amazon’s HQ2’s will be great for the surrounding economy.

Amazon’s growth is unprecedented when compared to other companies. In one year their growth topped over 15 billion dollars. Amazon’s immense growth is due to their expansion into other business sectors. With the huge scale of the company, most jobs provided from the HQ2’s will be engineers, marketers, and other jobs of similar nature. Due to this Amazon announced that the base hourly wage (excluding window washers, janitors, lawn mowers, etc.) will be $15.

Amazon’s decision will undoubtedly have a great effect on the housing markets in the neighboring communities. Researchers from the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments found that by 2025, “… the region requires an additional 235,000 housing units just to keep pace with already anticipated job growth, and only about 170,000 are currently expected. Introducing 50,000 new jobs—the number Amazon promises to the jurisdiction chosen for HQ2—could necessitate about 267,000 additional units to meet the need, the Urban Institute estimates.” This rise in the market is projected to be huge for the economy in DC, but also in turn will cause already steep prices and cost of living to further increase.

Battlefield Junior Joe Shergill who has family connections in Crystal City and is following Amazon’s move to DC says, “the new move to Crystal City leaves the residents with high hopes of their houses to go up in value and the housing market to increase with the need of highly qualified workers to work in the new headquarters”. As D.C. and New York City are looking to grow their economic future, Amazon’s rapid growth will surly impact the areas.