NEW YORK — The communities said to be favored to become homes to a pair of big, new East Coast bases for Amazon are both riverfront stretches of major metropolitan areas with ample transportation and space for workers.

But there are plenty of differences between New York’s Long Island City and Crystal City in northern Virginia.

Set within eyeshot of the nation’s capital, Crystal City is a thicket of 1980s-era office towers trying to plug into new economic energy after thousands of federal jobs moved elsewhere.

Rapidly growing Long Island City is an old manufacturing area already being reinvented as a hub for 21st-century industry, creativity and urbane living.

Seattle-based Amazon, which set out last year to situate one additional headquarters but now may reportedly open two, has declined to comment on its plans. But people familiar with the talks said this week that Long Island City and Crystal City have emerged as front-runners for the “HQ2” project and its total of 50,000 jobs.

A look at two communities said to be at the top of Amazon’s list.

Long Island City is already the fastest-developing neighborhood in the nation’s most populous city, and Amazon could pump up the volume in this buzzy part of Queens.

If chosen, the neighborhood stands to burnish New York City’s reputation as a tech capital.

If any place in America can absorb 25,000 Amazon jobs without disruption, it may well be Crystal City, Va., where nearly that many jobs have vanished over the last 15 years.

Crystal City is populated by `70s and `80s-era office buildings. The buildings are connected by a network of tunnels populated with food-court style dining options, hair salons and newsstands.