Analysts Say Philly’s Among the Top 10 Amazon Contenders

Philly to be home to Amazon’s new HQ?

Once again, analysts have ranked Philly among the top contenders in Amazon’s hunt for a second headquarters campus.

Researchers with the Chicago-based Anderson Economic Group have ranked cities “at the top of Amazon’s wishlist” – and Philly did … pretty OK. 

Per AEG’s HQ2 index, Philly ranks seventh out of 35 cities vying to court the online retail giant, which claims its second headquarters will bring 50,000 jobs with an average salary of $100,000 to whatever city it chooses.

The group estimated performance based on 11 metrics across three categories: access to labor and services, ease of transportation and cost of doing business. Researchers also took into consideration factors like talent pool, infrastructure, location and incentives.

According to AEG, New York ranks number one, followed by Chicago, L.A., Boston, Atlanta and Washington, D.C. Then comes Philly.

The city ranked highest in the “ease of transportation” category (probably because of its proximity to D.C. and New York). It scored above New York and D.C. in the “cost of doing business” category, and in the “labor and business services” section, it ranked behind only New York and L.A.

We’re a little suspicious about AEG’s report – for starters, many other polls have excluded cities like New York and Boston (which they claim are too expensive) as well as L.A. (the company is probably planning a move to the East Coast). Plus, cities that typically rank high on other lists, like Denver (as chosen by the New York Times) didn’t do so well.

But hey, we’re not complaining – we’ll take seventh.

Follow @ClaireSasko on Twitter.

Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to state that Amazon’s HQ2 will bring 50,000 jobs, not 500,000 jobs as previously stated.