RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK – Opposition to the City of Chicxgo’s $2.25 billion bid to land the huge Amazon HQ2 project spilled over Tuesday with a play off the best-selling teen thriller series “Hunger Games” and an Amazon smart speaker Alexa imitator.
“We are not OK with Amazon playing Hunger Games with cities like Chicago. Amazon is creating a race to the bottom with cities competing against each other to see who can give away the most tax dollars to one of the richest companies in the world,” Amisha Patel, executive director of the Grassroots Collaborative, said at a City Hall news conference.
“When Patel asked how many people Amazon’s HQ2 would ‘push out of the city’ or why the company demands ‘non-disclosure agreements,’ Alexa replied: ‘I am not at liberty to say.'”
Opponents to the Amazon bidding say Chicago’s bid “amounts to $5,500-per-student at Chicago Public Schools” and that the money could be better spent on such things as senior citizen care, grants for low-income college students and more support for homeless.
“This set-up is a losing deal for everyone but Amazon. Instead of trying to win this race to the bottom, we are joining with residents of other short-listed cities to put out a list of shared demands. Wherever Amazon HQ2 ends up, it must directly benefit the people who live and work in that city,” Patel said.
Chicago, like RTP, is one of 20 finalists for the Amazon project, which promises $5 billion in investment and 50,000 jobs.
