Amazon

Rahm has all his media pets pushing for Amazon to locate their new "HQ2" here in the Windy City. The Sun Times actually ran an editorial that we laughed at.

• Chicago is Jeff Bezos’ kind of town, though he may not yet know it.
  
  Our city was founded on a swamp by entrepreneurs every bit as audacious as Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com. It was built by people of every color and background who worked hard, smart and long. It looks back for inspiration, in the same way Bezos looks back to Thomas Edison and Walt Disney, but leans into the future.

Really? Because the "other" narrative is that Chicago is a racist town, built on the back of exploited minorities, who still can't get a fair shake. At least, if you read Mope-rah, Dope-rah and all the assorted grievance-mongers on a daily basis.

• If Bezos chooses Chicago for Amazon’s second headquarters, known as “HQ2,” the company will need to do no more than live by its own corporate values — and both it and the city will thrive. Amazon represents the next chapter in the kind of quintessentially American disruptive innovation that has been Chicago’s whole story. Amazon, a company taking on the world, would find an ideal home in Chicago, a commercial hub for the world.

Someone is about to say "Chicago values" and we're going to have to slap them in the head.

• Amazon requires a quick commute to an international airport. Obviously, Chicago’s got that.
  
  Amazon requires close proximity to major highways, and Chicago’s got that.
  
  Amazon requires 8 million square feet of space, [...]
  
  Amazon requires a “highly educated labor pool” and a “strong university system,” and Chicago is powerfully strong on both counts.

Um, yeah. The airport leads the nation in delays most years. The major highways are potholed disasters that exist only to be repaired on a rotating basis. 8 million feet of office space is available because companies are leaving. CPS graduation rates keep rising only because of CompStat type accounting numbers and something like 75% of "graduates" can't read at their grade level. The numbers point to a massive failure of leadership, infrastructure and corruption.

• Amazon also is looking for a “stable and business-friendly climate.”
  
  Yeah, that one gave us pause.

It should give everyone pause - especially a company looking to make money.

• Then, of course, there is the crucial question of the quality of life, which frankly is Chicago’s ace card. If it is Amazon’s aim, as the company’s request for proposals says, to set up shop in “a community where our employees will enjoy living,” Chicago is hard to beat. We are a proudly multicultural city of great diversity and tolerance, and rich in culture both high and low, from festivals to theater to professional sports to museums to the symphony to art galleries to bike rides along the city’s stunning lakefront.
  
  Quality of life? We hardly know where to start. We’ll have to write more on that later.

Meaning, "Pay no attention to those pesky 500-to-700 murders every year for the past three or four decades (minus one year). Those wilding teens knocking over little old ladies on the north side? Not an issue! The others riding the Red Line up from the south side to beat up the alternative lifestyle folks in and around Wrigleyville? We call those folks the "Rahmish" after our lovely mayor. And four people slaughtered by rifle fire? It's "cultural!"

Would it be nice to have a big company like Amazon here with the potential tens of thousands of jobs? Sure. But let's not pretend that their corporate and legal teams are looking at exactly these types of issues. Amazon might be better off west of O'Hare where land is cheaper, taxes are lower and Chicago is an exciting place held at arm's length.