(Image source from: PhoneDog)

Atlanta ranked 2nd as a place tech industry workers would live in a survey of readers of a Seattle-based technology news website.

Raleigh, North Carolina, came bagged the first place in a survey of more than 2,000 readers of GeekWire.com. Austin, Texas were ranked third.

"For the past week, we've been asking our readers which of the 20 cities they would choose to live in to find out which city has the highest chances of attracting talent, a key consideration for Amazon officials as they deliberate. As of Thursday afternoon, Raleigh took first place with about 11 percent of the votes," GeekWire said in its story on the survey results.

"About 29 percent of respondents said they work in business and marketing, while 28 percent are developers and engineers, a specialty of particular interest to Amazon and other tech companies that compete for talent. About 13 percent said they are technology executives or startup founders."

Atlanta is one of the 20 cities on Amazon.com Inc.'s list of finalist locations to locate its second headquarters, dubbed HQ2, and is considered one of several favorites to land the project and its 50,000 jobs.

Raleigh and Atlanta were likewise ranked 1 and 2 among the finalist cities in a housing market ranking by Attom Data Solutions based on factors as housing affordability, crime rate, schools and property taxes. The GeekWire story also mentioned the Attom Data Solutions survey results.

In the competition for the massive project, the 20 cities are racking up hundreds of thousands of dollars in costs, in addition to the tax incentives, such as Newark's $7 billion incentives package and Maryland's $5 billion packages, to lure the Seattle-based retail giant, according to report.

A journal report says that, in addition to the tax breaks, cities and states "have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on site-selection consultants, quirky stunts and highly produced videos and graphics to win Amazon's attention."

By Sowmya Sangam