Greg LeRoy for the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy: Amazon.com’s announcement of a 20-site “short list” for its second headquarters, or “HQ2” location, is provoking a public backlash that could reshape how economic development is done in the United States.

In one sense, Amazon is continuing to behave as predicted, staging a public-relations stunt apparently to extract the largest possible subsidies from its chosen site. Its so-called “short list” is nothing of the sort. The 20 U.S. bids come from 15 metro areas that include 28 percent of the nation’s population, including nine of the 10 largest metro areas.