IT WAS an announcement to set a mayor's heart aflutter. Amazon-one of the world's most valuable and innovative companies-plans to build a second headquarters, equal to the Seattle original, in a North American city. A whopping $5bn in Amazon cash could ultimately be invested in the new base, which should eventually house 50,000 high-wage technology workers, a tantalisingly large crowd of tax-paying, goods-and-services-buying residents. Cities from the small but precocious, to the deindustrialised and desperate to the already rich, are preparing to throw in their bids before the October deadline.
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