According to the latest reports, Houston may be falling off Amazon’s HQ2 list

Downtown Houston is covered in a shroud of haze in the afternoon, as seen from the north Friday, Aug. 4, 1995. Mayor Bob Lanier has approved the city's participation in a program to issue ozone smog alerts when air pollution reaches unhealthy levels. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)

Data studies firm Moody’s Analytics just released a list of major cities likely to land the deal for Amazon’s second headquarters (HQ2).

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Coming in at 49th out of 65 possible cities, Houston wasn’t a top contender, according to the Houston Press.

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Moody’s rating criterion came from several the factors listed on Amazon’s website it describes as important for its deliberations, including cost of living, cost of doing business, transportation and human capital as considerations for its rankings.

Other cities ranking higher on the list were Buffalo in upstate New York, Pittsburgh, Grand Rapids in Michigan, and Oklahoma City.

While Houston may not be number one on the projections, Texas earned some recognition, with Austin taking the top spot on Moody’s list.

As part of the calculations, Houston’s food scene apparently scored a one out of five on Moody’s scale, but this is not a unanimous opinion, with the community working together to put on a good show.

For example, restauranteur Jonathan Horowitz reportedly invited Jeff Bezos down for a tour of the city’s food scene and an up-close view of the H to change his mind.

“I think Houston has more to offer than maybe the study reflects,” Ed Friedman, an analyst for Moody who lives in Texas, said in an interview.

The study further suggests something potentially contributing to Houston’s dip in the rankings and Austin’s place at the top could be scant job growth projected in the tech sector for the Bayou City.

Austin is acclaimed in its dedication to tech, with Dell and Facebook each headquartering a regional location near the state capital city.

Meanwhile, oil is still king in Houston.

“You don’t have a knowledge loop for tech here,” Bill Gilmer, director of the Institute for Regional Forecasting, said in an interview with the Press. “And you can’t just create these things overnight,”

Transportation issues also reportedly hurt Houston’s ranking:

Public transportation is widely underused by people living in Houston, with only one percent of people walking and 0.3 percent of them biking to work. Studies show the rest take their cars.

One could argue Austin’s growing population is only going to make its already-clogged infrastructure worse, though.

People maintain the lower cost of doing business in Houston, and the larger population from which to hire, still make it a better choice, it scored less than one out of five for its crime rate – five being the lowest rate of crime.

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Stay tuned.

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