The Amazon finalists are already building tech economies. Which are the best?

In the race to land Amazon.com's second headquarters and its 50,000 jobs, experts say that writing a big subsidy check to the company probably won't tip the scales.

Instead, what curries favor with Amazon and other tech firms are long-term commitments to education, innovation and livability. These steps come with an added bonus: They are likely to benefit their communities regardless of whether Amazon or another tech giant makes its home there.

(Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon, owns The Washington Post.)

All 20 finalists for HQ2, as Amazon calls it, have a common interest in university research, science education and accessible neighborhoods.

“These are not the most incentive-aggressive places in the country," said Joseph Parilla, a Brookings Institution fellow. "They are the places that have the best public and private assets in addition to education and innovation.”

To see which of these metropolitan areas are building truly competitive tech economies, The Washington Post compiled an index of the places competing for Amazon.com based on metrics from Brookings and other analysts.

What we found is that all of them fare better than most other cities in the country, but fall well short of Silicon Valley jurisdictions — a sign of how far Northern California has distanced itself from the rest of the country in such measures as producing computer science degrees and securing patents.

Parilla says the cities that fare best on these metrics will probably add tech jobs long into the future regardless of Amazon's decision. Even the cities near the bottom of the index are already outperforming the rest of the country and are likely to enjoy future growth because of it.

“Sustained investment and collaboration across the public, private, educational and civic sectors — that’s the really hard work, and it can’t be done in a six-month application cycle when a company drops a potential investment at your feet," Parilla said. "It has to be built up over decades. You can actually make the types of investments in innovation and collaboration that will benefit your community — and by the way they are things that Amazon and other companies like, too.”

How does your city stack up as a tech economy?

Select a city to see how it compares on nine key metrics:

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More than any other indicator, what distinguishes cities on Amazon’s final list from other areas is a deep pool of talented workers. Software development engineers, in particular, are at a premium in the American workforce, and other than Seattle and Silicon Valley, America's best cities at attracting or producing them are all on Amazon’s list.