Could Raleigh "B" the one for Amazon? CNBC's analysis thinks so.

Here is another Amazon HQ2 shortlist story, with a positive result for Raleigh and the Research Triangle region.

CNBC ranked the 20 remaining cities* by Amazon's criteria of metropolitan population; stability and business-friendly environment; talent recruitment and retention; and creative thinking in regard to potential locations. Raleigh received the highest score among all shortlisted cities for HQ2.

Source: CNBC [https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/18/how-cities-rate-in-the-race-to-win-amazons-new-headquarters.html]

*For some reason CNBC grouped the two Texas (Austin and Dallas) applications together, even though those cities are 200 miles apart. They did the same for the two Pennsylvania shortlisted communities (Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, 300 miles apart). They also grouped the applications from Washington, D.C. with Northern Virginia (which makes sense, since they border each other), but they did not include suburban, Montgomery County, Maryland, in the DC/VA grouping, even though Montgomery County borders both Northern Virginia and the District.

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With those metro combination caveats in mind, let's look at how everyone scored with the four criteria.

Population - CNBC's ranking showed that literally everyone got an A+ in the population criteria, since each metro has 1 million or more people. So population was not a differentiating factor.

Stable, business-friendly environment - No one received an A for this criteria, with Nashville, TN receiving the only A- score from CNBC. Almost half of the metros listed received an F. Raleigh received a C+.

Strong local and regional talent - For this criteria, with a particular focus in fields like software development, again no one received an A according to CNBC, with only DC/N. Va. receiving an A-, and with 6 areas receiving F scores. Here, Raleigh scored a C-, which put us in the middle area of the list - a very strange, unexpectedly low ranking for Raleigh for this criteria.

Location - Finally, regarding the location criteria (and here, I am not entirely sure how CNBC was able to rank the proposals as being creative when it comes to location options), again no one received an A grade, with only Austin/Dallas garnering an A-. Around a third of the areas received an F, while Raleigh scored a B- for this criteria.

Overall scores - Looking at the rankings as a whole, and ignoring the population factor since everyone received an A+, we see that only Atlanta and Raleigh avoided an F in each of the categories. In fact, both of them had no Fs or Ds, with a C- as their lowest score. Raleigh received an overall ranking of B, with a 2.75 score, while Atlanta received a B- and an overall score of 2.6. Four other metros also received a B- ranking, with overall scores of between 2.5 and 2.67: Austin/Dallas, DC/N. Va, Indianapolis, and Nashville.

The bottom line: Raleigh had the highest score, with the only B ranking. The rankings clearly have a degree of subjectivity, and the difference in scores among the six highest-ranking metros is relatively slight, but a win is a win.

What does this all mean? Time will tell. At a minimum, it was great to be shortlisted, and it is also helpful to have the highest ranking by an independent group based on the stated HQ2 criteria.

As always, we wish Amazon well, wherever they choose to invest.

Joe Milazzo II, PE, Executive Director, Regional Transportation Alliance
RTA is the voice of the regional business community on transportation