Amazon triggered more than a bidding war when it publicly aired its search for a second headquarters. It set off a once-in-a-generation competition.

Atlanta is smack in the middle of an international sweepstakes with just about every other major city in North America for the crown jewel in the tech giant’s treasury: a $5 billion bonanza offering 50,000 high-paying jobs.

It’s ignited the same feverish spirit that helped win the Olympics two decades ago. Not since that hunt for the 1996 Summer Olympic Games has the city’s political and corporate class been swept up in such a fervor ...