Apple announced Thursday it would be expanding its offices around the U.S., with a $1 billion new campus in Austin and new sites in Seattle and in San Diego and Culver City, California. The tech giant also said it expects to add hundreds of jobs in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, New York and Boulder, Colorado, in the next three years.

“Talent, creativity and tomorrow’s breakthrough ideas aren’t limited by region or zip code, and, with this new expansion, we’re redoubling our commitment to cultivating the high-tech sector and workforce nationwide,” Apple’s chief executive, Tim Cook, said in a statement.

With its expansion, the company has said it is on track to create 20,000 new jobs in the United States by 2023. While many celebrate the news of more jobs with one of the world’s most powerful companies, some worry that an influx of highly paid workers might exacerbate inequality, increasing housing prices and cost of living.

Apple’s announcement comes just a month after Amazon’s controversial HQ2 decision, when Amazon said it would be splitting its new headquarters between Long Island City in New York and Crystal City in Arlington, Virginia, after a year-long search that drew bids from 238 cities.

The decision sparked an outcry: for its theatrics, for making cities bend over backward to sell themselves to Amazon and for the company then not choosing cities seemingly more in need of the transformation it had promised to bring. Public officials in New York have been especially critical in wake of revelations that incentives from New York City and the state to entice Amazon amounted to roughly $3 billion, and the early days of planning for the Queens headquarters have been marked by protesters.

Apple said in January that it planned to spend $30 billion on new facilities and hire 20,000 employees in the United States over the next five years, and company officials said much of that growth would come at a new location outside California and Texas, home to its two largest hubs. At one point, Apple was considering Washington, D.C., and its suburbs in Northern Virginia for a possible 20,000-person office, The Post reported.

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In the ramp-up to Apple’s expansion, Cook said in a March MSNBC interview the company was explicitly trying to avoid the “beauty contest kind of thing” Amazon had spawned.

“From our point of view, we didn’t want to create this contest, because I think what comes out of that is you wind up putting people through a ton of work to select one, so that is a case where you have a winner and a lot of losers. I don’t like that,” Cook said.

Valued at $920 billion, Apple is the most profitable company in the world. It completed its new $5 billion headquarters in Cupertino, California, nicknamed “the spaceship” for its circular design, last spring. Currently, Apple employs 90,000 people in the U.S. and boasts employees in every single state.

The new North Austin campus, which will be located less than a mile from its current campus, will span more than 130 acres, according to a news release, including 50 acres of preserved open space and will be wholly powered by renewable energy. The facility will be able to accommodate up to 15,000 workers, making Apple the largest private employer in Austin.

“Apple is among the world’s most innovative companies and an avid creator of jobs in Texas and across the country,” Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, R, said in a statement. “Their decision to expand operations in our state is a testament to the high-quality workforce and unmatched economic environment that Texas offers.

In addition to new sites that can accommodate more than 1,000 employees in Seattle and in San Diego and Culver City, California, Apple also said it plans to invest $10 billion in U.S. data centers over the next five years, including $4.5 billion this year and next.


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