One walk through Seattle's 'Amazonia' neighborhood made me very uneasy for whatever city gets HQ2

REUTERS/Marcus Donner

Working Washington's Sterling Harders speaks to a rally of several hundred protesters outside the Amazon.com shareholders meeting being held at the Seattle Art Museum in 2012.

The race for cities to win Amazon's $5 billion second headquarters, and the 50,000 high-paying jobs it comes with, is on.

The global e-commerce giant received 238 bids for the new campus, dubbed HQ2.

For those wondering what their city might look like if it is picked, Amazon's current home in Seattle is a cautionary tale. Locals point to snarled traffic, soaring housing prices, never-ending construction, and accelerated gentrification.

I recently spent a day in the Seattle neighborhood locals call "Amazonia," to see if the Amageddon is as bad as everyone thinks.