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If true, it would be a disappointing and, to me at least, surprising choice. Another big suburban office park with most employees driving to work from their homes in the endless suburb is not cutting edge thinking. In fact, it's about as 1960's-think as you could get.

And no, Oatlands is not served by the Silver Line, which is currently planned to end in Ashburn, some miles short of Leesburg. Of course, I imagine Metro would extend the line if that's Amazon's price. But all that would do is put Amazon at the end of a single metro line, not at a juncture which would give employees a much greater range of choice.

But hey … there's no question that a greenfields location would be cheaper, on the assumption that all the local authorities would roll over and give Amazon everything it asks for in terms of zoning and infrastructure costs. But this would mean that Amazon's great location hunt would have come down to nothing more than another suburban sprawl project in an emerging edge city.

But this would mean that Amazon's great location hunt would have come down to nothing more than another suburban sprawl project in an emerging edge city.

True. Very politically incorrect.

But Amazon's higher-ups are as concerned as other top execs with keeping the riff-raff (the rest of us) far away.

A capital-area location also goes along with Bezos's ownership of the local newspaper. He may be planning a political career, but even if he isn't it spells more subscribers and more influence in the area.