'Talent Wants Transit': Companies Near Transportation Gaining The Upper Hand
Companies looking to attract and keep talented workers are finding it easier if their locations are near public transit areas. Recent examples include Amazon’s choice of New York and Washington, D.C., for their second and third corporate headquarters, as well as McDonalds, who moved their Oakbrook, Illinois headquarters to a location in downtown Chicago near the subway and regional rail lines, even though 97% of their employees at that point were arriving to work by car due to the rural location. They made the move after finding during the recruitment process that some applicants confessed they shouldn’t have applied due to lacking a car, which can be common among millennial applicants. Current employees at the new McDonald’s headquarters have adjusted and approximately 90% arrive to work via other means besides a personal vehicle. Chicago's Metropolitan Planning Council had recently done a report which found that 60% of all new jobs created in Chicago since 2005 are in areas with high-quality transit. Within a quarter mile of a subway or regional rail station, jobs grew at a rate of 20 percent, more than twice the growth rate in the whole region. The nation’s transit systems as a whole, however, are aging and in need of repairs and upgrades, and this may limit economic growth.
See "'Talent Wants Transit': Companies Near Transportation Gaining The Upper Hand", David Schaper, NPR, December 4, 2018