Alexa, Fix My City

by Erica Waltemade

During the lunchtime hour on Wednesday, February 7th, the SF Urban Film Fest’s Alexa, Fix My City program was screened in a crowded room at SPUR on Mission Street. The program of videos featured seven different American city’s pitch videos of the 238 cities who responded to Amazon’s 2019 Request for Proposal (RFP) for a new headquarters HQ2. Cities featured in the program included Dallas/Fort Worth, Boston, Las Vegas, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Atlanta, and Philadelphia.

The first video was from Dallas/Fort Worth, who’s short pitch featured a wide array of community members responding to the prompt, “I love DFW because of _______” Positive descriptions of the region included adjectives like, “diversity,” “vibrant,”sustainable,” etc. while footage depicting Dallas/Forth Worth’s cultural landmarks, construction work, and community activities play out.

Next up was Boston’s pitch, that used the language of the ubiquitous Amazon cardboard package delivery to tell the story of the city’s storied history, educational institutions, and mass transit infrastructure, while proposing potential sites for amazon’s HQ2 development.

Boston was followed by Las Vegas, who made the appeal for Amazon by highlighting Las Vegas as a recognizable brand with energy and importantly, “a favorable tax structure” for businesses. In a moment of self awareness, the narrator makes the point, “anything is possible, just look at the architecture! This place has no limits…”

Cities should be more forceful of expectations from these companies. Companies should be held accountable for promises kept. A hard lesson was learned with San Francisco’s `Twitter Tax Break’. Governments need to outline what the goals are and have specific ways of measuring success or failure in the short and long term.

Next up was Detroit, whose video was full of evocative, beautiful prose authored by the great Detroit poet Jessica Care Moore. This pitch was the most emotionally stirring, promoting the city and its residents as the most resilient on the planet. The narration touts its history in innovation and technology of the automotive industry — “Detroit is the starting line of the world’s imagination,” and, “You move here, you move the world.”

Pittsburgh followed, in a sentiment that echoed Detroit in making the connection to their history as a leader in American manufacturing: “The city that built America, the world.” Pittsburgh celebrates its reinvention as a city that is rebuilding itself around technology and innovation.

Atlanta’s video highlights the convenient flight route from Seattle to Atlanta by following a young woman hand deliver the proposal to Amazon in Seattle. In following this person, we are given a glimpse into Atlanta’s transit options, but not much else.

Philadelphia was the final city featured in the program. Prominent Philadelphia business owners and leaders are interviewed expounding on the energy of the city — highlighting the vibrant culinary scene, sport teams, diversity, and educational institutions, and innovations and talent pool within the STEM field.

Photo by Omeed Manocheri

A discussion followed the film between Allison Arieff, Editorial Director of SPUR and Jorge Rivas, the Deputy Director of San Francisco’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development.

Panel Discussion Takeaways

• Cities clearly put a lot of thought and effort behind these videos — it feels like a dating profile. To what extent did Amazon know what they were doing? Were they ever going to actually entertain these proposals?
• The proposals themselves all project their values — commonalities include diversity, the region’s cultural attractions, transit options and cost of living, educational institutions and innovation.
• The prominence of culture in all of the videos shows us how critical culture is in the development and attractiveness of cities. While the reference to culture differed in each video, each city depicts culture as commodity — a source of entertainment.
• The promise of these businesses motivates the cities to attract companies like Amazon. Cities likely see bringing a company like Amazon as a solution for a region’s problems, and that they will bring solutions like Job creation, increase tax revenue, additional housing, dollars for infrastructure, transit, etc.
• These proposals to bring in large companies are reminiscent of bids to host the Olympics — cities build new infrastructure, new, expensive venues, spending a lot of money in the process, but much of that money is never recuperated. They often go beyond what they can actually offer.
• Cities should be more forceful of expectations from these companies. Companies should be held accountable for promises kept. A hard lesson was learned with San Francisco’s `Twitter Tax Break’. Governments need to outline what the goals are and have specific ways of measuring success or failure in the short and long term.
• San Francisco submitted a regional Bay Area proposal for Amazon, teaming up with San Jose and Alameda County.
• SPUR Report a few years ago — Rethinking the corporate campus looks at how companies make location decisions. Where the CEO wants to live ends up being the deciding factor.
• One audience member commented that despite his cynicism, he found himself charmed by the videos, and their optimism in their outlook on cities. What they depict shows that cities are the key to the future.

Dive into the panel discussion:

This event took place on February 5, 2020 at SPUR — a non-profit research, education, and advocacy organization focused on issues of planning and governance in San Francisco, San Jose and Oakland. For more information about SF Urban Film Fest, visit their website.