An important correction to the article is that the head tax on Amazon here in Seattle was passed by the city council, but then revoked one week later as a result of heavy pressure applied to the Mayor and Council by Bezos. This was a chilling demonstration of Amazon's power and Bezos' aversion to civic engagement. Amazon views Seattle, and soon Long Island City and Crystal City, as incidental outposts on their march toward domination of new markets.
3
@EB Actually, no. The head tax was universally reviled, and rightly so, by those who realized the economically chilling impact it could have on employers of many sizes (Exhibit A; Uwajimaya).
It was not dropped a week later, but almost a month, as the voices against it were loud and numerous, not just Amazon. Saying anything else is revisionist history.
1
While the DC area may be generating a lot of jobs without Amazon, the growth has been uneven. Crystal City, Amazon’s new neighborhood, has lost about 24,000 jobs over the last 15 years and become a bit of a backwater. The job growth has largely taken place north and west of DC and not to the south, where Crystal City is located.
With the Amazon announcement have come plans for almost $200 million dollars of previously unaffordable infrastructure improvement; a large graduate school to be built by Virginia Tech, and another significant expansion of graduate programs in Arlington by George Mason University. Amazon will definitely be in the business of reviving a region when it comes to Northern Virginia.
1
In any case, they are going to pay their employees that will work in the office. In New York.
The money that comes in from the door, from a guy in Nebraska buying a pair of sneakers, is going to go out the door via a guy working for Amazon ... in New York.
Maybe the guy will spend the money on a haircut, or for groceries at a New York supermarket, or see a film at a cinema in Manhattan ... but still, it will leave Amazon via a guy living in New York.
2
As the statistics in this column demonstrate, Amazon will bring jobs to the DC area, but only a fraction of the growth DC is experiencing anyway. In other words, job growth in the DC area doesn't need Amazon. Housing, schools and transportation are already under stress from the robust growth in the area. So why is Amazon receiving enormous tax breaks to move to Northern VA? Are all the other job creators new to the area receiving similar tax breaks? No. Add in the cost of building schools and hiring educators, improving transportation infrastructure, to say nothing of escalating housing costs, Amazon should be taxed more for adding to the economic stress it will bring to the area.
8
Seattle is a worse place to live now than it was twenty years ago. Its rank in any livability index should be declining, unless of course its competitor cities are falling even faster than it is. One apocalyptic hypothesis holds that all pleasant living places will inexorably be dragged down to a national mean because they will continue to attract newcomers in droves until whatever advantage they initially possessed has been exhausted.
Housing in Seattle has become far more expensive. Traffic is infinitely worse, not least because virtually the entire central part has become a permanent construction zone. Struggling artists who depend on inexpensive work spaces are fleeing the city. Amazon is not the only cause of this decline, but surely the biggest and most obvious.
Bezos is a clever fellow. He is not indifferent to his public image. But he does not burnish it with the traditional philanthropic and community enhancement initiatives that seek to address local problems. Rather he looks for opportunities for creating and exploiting a high profile symbolism. Rescuing the liberal icon Washington Post from financial peril is a perfect example of this strategy. How many Eastern urban intellectuals feel warmly favorable toward Bezos because he saved the Post? Quite a few, I suspect. He is now cashing in on that sentiment.
7
I propose three remedies to curb the economic abuses of Amazon, Google, FaceBook, Big Pharma, and Too-Big-To-Fail Banks: 1) Anti-trust enforcement, 2) anti-trust enforcement, 3) and anti-trust enforcement. Do what Europe does, in other words.
8
@WmC Please tell me what US anti-trust laws Amazon has broken. I'll bet you can't.
I have some knowledge of banks and brokerage houses that tried to move their IT and operations to remote areas. In every case, they had trouble getting employees at those locations. Apparently, they thought that experienced Java programmers and Oracle DBAs were standing in cornfields waiting to be hired, but they found it was not so.
The idea was to pay lower salaries, but those they recruited to move there demanded the same salaries as they would get in NYC. It's a national market, so you might as well go where the workers are. Even in NY, they will still have to go after employees currently employed at banks and brokerages.
5
Jackson Heights neighbors LIC and frankly I'm terrified. Schools are already crowded, the subway collapses with a single storm, housing is unafordable already.
How is this going to work?
I guess it's called corporate gentrification.
I'm not buying via Amazon any more... are you Queens?
10
They just can’t win.
They are slammed from every possible angle.
Footprint too big?
Footprint too small?
Too “many” high paying jobs?
Good grief.
1
So much is wrong with this. First, the upset about the fact that NYS funds companies based on new jobs created. They were going to give this money away to any company. If you don't like that, rail against that, not this Amazon deal. Go ahead and vote for Republicans. The current administration's position is that investment in jobs creates more income to the state than it costs.
Second, the notion that there was $1.5B that could have been used elsewhere. For those who are math challenged, I have to tell you that $1.5B is basically nothing, certainly in comparison with NYC and NYS spending. If it were actually available to spend, it is nothing. It could not fix the subway system. NYC budget is $89B by comparison. This sum could not even rival Donald Trump's boasts of individual income.
Third, the notion that companies should come in and transform a city. Why is it that voters and citizens should not be responsible for that? Which companies have actually done it in the past that we are happy about?
Fourth, the editorial page essay that didn't provide opportunity for comments. They took the trouble to make two snarky jabs at Amazon for requiring a helipad. Please tell me, which companies have come into NYC and didn't need a helipad?
I am not sure whether this is good or bad for NY/Queens, but it bothers me that this newspaper and its opinion writers jump on such terrible arguments to deride it. Please, do your math, which is your responsibility, and give a factual assessment.
1
@Incontinental Since when is $1.5B basically nothing? That is a huge amount of money; if you consider the population of NYC to be around 10MM, that is 15K per individual...being handed to the richest company on the planet when so many people are barely getting by.
1
Amazon makes $191,000 a minute while paying zero federal taxes. The company's goal is to be the marketplace; not to control the marketplace but to be the marketplace. Over 85,000 jobs in local economies have been lost over the last decade. Of every dollar spent on internet commerce, 50 cents goes to Amazon, a company who gives virtually nothing back to the local economy, its fulfillment center workers or the non-profit sector.
Time to revitalize the anti-monopoly laws on the books while America still can.
16
@Amaratha
You may want to re-think what 'makes $191,000 a minute' actually means or does not mean in GAAP terms
@Amaratha You will have to explain how we lost 85,000 jobs in local economies over the last decade while the national unemployment rate fell from 9.9 percent to 3.9 percent at the same time.
It's interesting that any positive 'spin' about Amazon in Queens, has nothing to say about the likely increase in RE development in the Queensboro Plaza/LIC/Astoria area, an overburden on the subways serving the area, and ensuing rental increases. It doesn't matter how many 'jobs' they may provide, and at what salaries, when Amazon's presence will so negatively impact far, far more than just the 25,000 new employees they plan to hire in NYC.
Amazon and certain local pols can promise NYers all kinds of nice things for the city in return, but that's all they will be....empty promises. Does any jaded NYer seriously think any of these 'promises' will materialize...that anyone will hold Amazon to these promises? No, because the powers that be realize that people will eventually move on ...they will forget...they will have more pressing things to deal with....like finding a new affordable rental apartment further outside the city.
8
@Lisa - "like finding a new affordable rental apartment further outside the city" which is not such a bad thing. Many exurban areas are desperately in need of young energy and families and would welcome the new energy with welcoming arms. More crowding in already overcrowded cities does not help anything at all ...
What is missing here is that Amazon even with the reduction in taxes Amazon will end up spending more money to build here than to build someplace else that offered no inducements to Amazon.
Amazon should not be expected to move to New York without those tax reductions.
For argument lets say to build the headquarters in Queens will cost 10 billion dollars and if they built it in New Jersey they would spend 7 billion.
Why would they build it in Queens.
Jeff didn't care where the headquarters were built.
He is a business man.
He cares about his business.
It was the Mayor and the Governor who wanted Amazon to build here.
Why would Amazon come here when they can build a headquarters in Jersey for so much less.
You have to give them a reason.
That is why the Governor and the Mayor did what they did.
I am happy they chose Queens.
People who claim they think will make it harder to travel by Mass transit are wrong.
The problem with the way it is now is that too many people going to the same place.
Manhattan.
By building in Queens the trip to work for those who live in long Island or in Queens will be shorter and people coming from Manhattan will be going in the opposite direction most people are going and the trains that are going in that direction are being underutilized.
3
@lucky
So he is a business man and somehow doesn't care who he can attract as employees, and he magically believes that Jersey has the same pull for new hires as NYC?
Magically public transit won't be impacted, and that impact will magically be absorbed with no corresonding tax revenue from Amazon?
I won't bother with the rest because magical thinking has its limits.
2
@Andy
It's not done by magic.
First did you know know American telephone had their research facilities in New Jersey.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Labs
Except for IBM Bell labs are more responsible for the advancement of computer technology than anywhere in the world.
Did you know the most important computer language C++ was developed there.
Princeton University is considered the top in the country by many.one
Princeton is in New Jersey.
It is also very easy to get to Jersey from Manhattan.
The same about Philadelphia where U of P is located.
You can drive there in less time than to drive from Brooklyn to LIC during the Rush hour.
Route 95 goes thru Jersey.
Rout 95 which in Jersey is the turnpike is the most used Interstate in the USA.
Conrail and Amtrak are located in New Jersey. Maybe you didn't know the above.
Now you do.
1
Newark is dying to be gentrified...It could’ve been a hip Boston...Newark is sooo full of potential...
2
This is the most rational description of Amazon's decision I have read so far. I think one of the reasons Amazon sought a new HQ outside of Seattle is that is senses that it has become too dominant of a presence for one place. And if too dominant for Seattle, imagine what it would be in Nashville or Columbus. And by the way, Amazon was far from the only company to protest the "head tax", although perhaps it was more influential. Many believe that taxation of corporate profits makes sense, while a tax on each job is a disincentive to hiring.
2
I haven't seen any mention that one of the primary reasons Amazon is so rich and powerful is because up until very recently they did not charge tax on purchases. Amazon has effectively put major retailers out of business and also the tax income for local city governments have shrunk considerably because of Amazon. I don't know if the Tyson's Corner mall in Northern Virginia is even functioning anymore because so many stores have closed down. Shopping malls in Asian countries that don't have an Amazon are still thriving.
8
I can't help but think that the richest person in the world couldn't do a little more to help the poor and the sick.
11
A. Shareholder capitalism = maximizing profit for shareholders, as well as profit and wages for executives who usually are among the largest shareholders. Corporate governance is intentionally weak. Concern for additional stakeholders affected by corporate business is minimal.
B. Stakeholder capitalism = maximizing profit for shareholders while increasing the wages of workers to ensure enhanced productivity, corporate profitability, and societal prosperity. Corporate governance is strong. Concern for additional stakeholders affected by corporate business is maximal.
Amazon and America’s other mega-corporations are practicing A. We the people and our elected representatives in America’s local, state and federal governments must push them to practice B.
7
@Howard Gregory
Most companies in the US are C corps, where profit maximisation for the shareholders exclusively is compulsory, BY LAW, and any other outcome that does not provide the maximum return to shareholders opens directors and officers to lawsuits by any and all shareholders. Not just executives who typically hold a small proportion of Distributed shares, except for the special case of some of these tech companies Amazon, Facebook…
If you want option B, you need to change laws governing the articles of incorporation because public companies have literally no other legal option but A (noting your error concerning recourse on the part of other shareholder).
@Andy
Yes, shareholders can sue corporations for taking actions that fail to maximize shareholder profit. However, corporations can also be sued by the multiple other stakeholders their businesses impact, such as communities near corporate physical plants, customers of the corporations’ products, and taxpayers.
For example, a community whose air or waterways are poisoned due to a corporation’s violation of environmental regulations, can also sue a corporation. Additionally, the business judgment rule gives corporations some leeway to behave as responsible corporate citizens. Federal, state, and local laws in various areas give stakeholders another level of protection.
We progressives are going to make sure large publicly-held corporations behave responsibly toward other stakeholders beyond their shareholders. There are many ways to skin this cat. Passing stronger pro-stakeholder legislation, including laws that govern the articles of incorporation, may be the surest way, but it is also the most difficult. Good old-fashioned activism buttressed by the threat of stakeholder litigation is persuading some corporations to take the initiative and behave as responsible corporate citizens who are concerned about more than enriching their shareholders.
3
What are people criticizing Amazon doing for their neighborhoods? 99% are going about their own lives, their community involvement amounting to tsk-tsking on social media.
Why do people expect corporations to be better citizens than they and their neighbors are?
As for the tax giveaways, this criticism shows a fundamental misunderstanding. Amazon is getting a cut on taxes that it would not pay at all to NY if it wasn’t’ here, and it is spread out over a decade and tied to job creation. Does a store that offers a 10% off sale lose money on the sale? Not if it wouldn’t otherwise have had the sale.
Rather than focus on negatives, why not think what it can do to inspire the community to take up computer science? Plus actual community job training, which Amazon has agreed to do. This could raise the profile of LaGuardia Community College in LIC, and spawn new schools focus on tech education. The infrastructure will improve. Amazon isn’t teleporting 25,000 to LIC tomorrow.
People are schizophrenic. They want their neighborhoods to become more attractive … but only to them so rent doesn’t go up. They cry about the destruction of small businesses while their lobbies are choked with Amazon packages. They demand Amazon pay good wages, but shop entirely on price and customer service.
And they want businesses to bring only benefits to a community, as if their own lives are only a net positives to their environment.
18
More nonsense about what Amazon could have and should have done. Whats particularly rich is the City Councilman from Seattle who is basically whining because Amazon isn't doling out patronage to local officials. Mr. O'Brien is clearly not from Seattle otherwise he would have leveled the same criticism against Bill Gates, who was notoriously stingy until his mother died and, only under tremendous pressure from the Seattle community, finally parted ways with a fraction of his billions. Mr. Global Health, save the planet, Davos going Gates was a greedy young fool for the first 15 years at the helm of Microsoft.
What Bezos does in NYC and N. Virginia remains to be seen. The naysayers should maybe wait and see what 20 years in Seattle has taught Bezos about growing a company in an urban environment. Given the dearth of employers who can create 50,000 jobs these days maybe a little gratitude might be in order. After all, I don't see Koch Industries setting up shop in either place.
8
@McDiddle Mike O'Brien is universally reviled in my district and most are looking forward to voting him out in 2019.
What bugs me is the invasion of delivery trucks which seem to think they have a Constitutional right to double park where ever they choose, creating unsurpassed traffic congestion in cities.
1
@David
I share your feelings for trucks that double park even though I do not have a car.
I have money and can afford to buy a nice one but I see no need for one.
There are reasons.
For one thing commercial vehicles can
only park where commercial vehicles are allowed.
What trucks do Amazon have.
I have never seen a truck with the word Amazon on it.
I have no reason to defend Amazon.
I have never bought anything from them.
I want to see in person what I bought.
I am interested in the truth.
It's passenger cars that are double parked not delivery
trucks.
1
@David these jobs are going to be mostly (I would estimate ~90%) programmers and developers, so there shouldn't be a ton more delivery traffic
1
I sympathize, but businesses are not in the business of reinventing cities. Cities should reinvent themselves (as New York has done over the past 15 years, focusing on tech, especially under Bloomberg) and business will follow.
6
Money doesn't care about the well-being of people leaving in cities it invades.
5
Amazon is a company not a charity. It is the Sears Roebuck of our times and we must hope it will be more adaptable when times change than Sears was. It clearly is now but in 2115? It will have a transformative impact on LIC. The neighborhood is at the tipping point and this will tip it. It is a drop in a bucket for NY but it is a big deal for LIC. Why should Amazon or any other company try to score a PR victory by choosing to optimize civic impact when, no matter what they do, there will be a thousand negative anti-corporate articles published.
An unrelated point. Both places are very close to a big airport. LIC is just minutes from La Guardia and Crystal City is similarly close to National. A coincidence?
2
@Bill H And they are near some of the best public transportation systems in the country, even if they are experiencing problems.
Amazon is not and will never be your friend. They are all about making money, and at any cost. They must be accountable. That is true. Accountable to the share holders. Otherwise they are just part of the disruption which you support by ordering from them, and when you use use other services. Think Uber, Air bnb , your iPhones etc..
2
As a Seattle native I appreciate your article, especially in that you highlight the counter examples of large local employers who behaved ery differently, contributing to the good of the city ... which Amazon certainly hasn’t, and most likely won’t elsewhere.
6
@Christensen Jeff Bezos is certainly no Paul Allen, may he rest in peace.
2
It's not necessarily Amazon directly saving a hometown but by employing local individuals who get paid decent salaries which they use locally to pay for homes and to buy stuff and services, the local economy is necessarily improved.
I have no problem with this.
11
According to CorpWatch, "One in ten Amazon employees in Ohio needs government assistance to make ends meet, according to analysis conducted by Policy Matters Ohio, a Cleveland-based research group. This is despite the fact that, since 2014, the state has given Amazon over $125 million in subsidies to expand." Instead of supporting small, local businesses, these low paying jobs increase profits for the wealthy living in some distant place. Robert Reich has a video, "The Monopolization of America," describing what Amazon and other corporations are doing to concentrate power and wealth.
14
@Greg Maguire While I agree that there is plenty about Amazon's business practices to criticize, building corporate offices in NYC and NoVA are not among them.
@Greg Maguire
You are being misleading on purpose.
Because Amazon does most of their business prior to Christmas they employ many people only for those months.
Many of these people work for Amazon for less than four months a year and some of these jobs are not full time.
I was hoping for Newark instead of Long Island City as Amazon would have given its employees great transportation, the same educational options (NYU and Columbia are accessible from there too) and lower cost housing too.
That said, I wish that Paul Allen had actually got to donate all that land to a fabulous in-city park and promenade instead of making Vulcan even richer. Now that he is gone, there is no one to replace him. He loved this city and showed it. The current uber-rich really don't care about it. It's where they work and live, nothing more. Their job moves and so do they.
I remember life here before Microsoft moved from Albuquerque so I clearly remember what South Lake Union and the Denny Regrade were like before gentrification and Amazon.
7
@vacciniumovatum Were SLU and Denny Regrade better then? What was better about them?
@Larry Figdill
Denny Regrade/SLU was filled with small lighting, photographic equipment, musical instrument, labor temples, repair shops, and broadcasting buildings. It separated Seattle Center from the Settle retail area.
Compared to much of Seattle, Denny Regrade was not the safest place to be at night. the closer to First Avenue people got.
Just a quick note - the largest employer in Columbus, Ohio is not JPMorgan Chase. According to Columbus Business First magazine, the largest employer in Central Ohio is The Ohio State University (32K employees), followed by Ohio Health (27K), WalMart (26K) and the State of Ohio (25K). JPMChase has just under 19K employees, Nationwide Insurance has about 13.5K, Nationwide Children's Hospital has about 12K. And trust me, although I think Amazon made a big mistake not coming here, we kind of like keeping Columbus a secret - housing prices are very affordable, we have wonderful neighborhoods, great restaurants, arts, culture, festivals - we are LGBTQ-friendly, have the best public library system in the country, and on most Saturdays in the fall, we have the best damn band in the land AND the best football team. We have Jack freaking Hanna and the Columbus Zoo. I know lots of people who have moved here from the coasts, me included, and don't know anyone who regrets the move. Or who wishes Amazon had chosen Columbus. We'll do fine, thanks very much.
5
Boycott Amazon and Whole Foods.
7
This is just another example of the rich get to dance while the poor pay the band. Jeff Bezos aspires to be a trillionaire and New York and Virginia have amply helped him with tax payer funded breaks.Meanwhile, the low income residents of LIC will see little if any benefit from their new next door neighbor.
8
I’m a conservative but I’m with them on this one, Amazon will contribute nothing but more traffic in already clogged city . Tax breaks to them is obscene and should be investigated. Remember always follow the money
9
Amazon's primary responsibility is to its shareholders. As such, the company chose two locations where that it knew could easily absorb such a large influx of workers, would be attractive to those workers, and already has a large pool of potential employees and support services.
5
Granted it's not Amazon's job to revive cities but there are obvious areas of mutual benefit such as infrastructure, transportation, education and affordable housing that are critically important to Amazon's ability to attract and retain the workforce they need to thrive. It's in their corporate interest to work with local and state governments to make the most of win-win opportunities and it's in the interest of communities to make sure Amazon holds up their end of the bargain, starting with full disclosure of deal details and projected costs and benefits.
7
Although it would be nice if Amazon and other corporations "leverag[ed] its growth for a civic reinvention project" and used its new HQ's to "lift up" a smaller city, that's not what corporations exist to do and it's unrealistic to think that's going to be a primary focus. In Amazon's case, it appears that the principal consideration was having access to a sufficient number of potential employees with IT experience. If so, why would it locate one or more of these centers in Camden or Detroit? The job of lifting up cities should fall to state and local governments, and their respective constituents. And if I were a constituent of New York or Virginia, I'd be very unhappy with the decision to spend billions of dollars to add 25,000 jobs, representing even more people to put a burden on the local infrastructure. But I'm not going to blame a corporation for acting like a corporation. If you want to lift up cities, revoke the absurd corporate tax cuts and use the tax money to lift them up.
7
Corporations are psychopathic-- there may be participants in corporations who have a conscience but by its nature corporations are interested in thriving --- period . So all decisions are based on what is best for the corporation. It is why any expectation of personhood for a corporations is a fantasy -- a fantasy that the supreme court has joined with its citizen united ruling . the problem with amazon moving to LIC is that it undermines a more sensible measured development of an area primed to have a mix of business and housing. But then of course we no longer have city planning only developers, another corporation, with deep pockets .
7
Good article and spot on. But the way our system works, it's not the job of business to revive or even support a location. Sure, most businesses figure out that in the end, it's good business sense to do so. But if Amazon's model is different, so be it. Their job is to create value for their shareholders. And getting billions of dollars of tax payer money surely helps that goal.
The issue is money the government is throwing in. I like what Virginia did in committing $1 Billion to improve it's education (create an innovation center at Virginia Tech to pump out PhD's and BS engineers) - that's a smart way to invest since it will help the State as a whole and not just Amazon. Eventually States will figure out that their best investment is not throwing money at companies or stadiums, but investing in education and infrastructure.
4
Emily, have you ever been to Baltimore? It began it's decline in the late 1960's. Over the next two decades all the people I know who swore they'd never leave Charm City, left.
Charles Street, which is a kind of dividing line between east and west Baltimore allows for travel three blocks east and three blocks west. After that, you're in a shooting gallery. Johns Hopkins Hospital had to bring in a retired secret service agent to bring order to the surrounding areas.
Bottom line: if Crystal City and Long Island City had the same level of crime and violence as Baltimore, Amazon would have gone elsewhere; if Amazon moved to Baltimore, they'd have no employees.
5
@george eliot
She ignores the whole idea that’s companies have a legal responsibility to their stock holders.
Carrying out this responsibility well...is why they have money.
If they followed advice of those who want them to waste their money....they’d be broke.
Again...they can’t win, with their critics.
Worst company in America. I only use Amazon as a catalog and to get price estimates for stuff I’m shopping for. Then I buy elsewhere. Haven’t given a penny to this garbage company and its garbage owner in years.
9
@JR
Though no fan of Amazon by any means, I'd say "the word company in America" title absolutely goes to Walmart. But kudos to you for showing your stance by not using Amazon to purchase. We should all be such strong consumer advocates.
9
@JR
I find the search capability, reviews, and the Q & A to be a powerful shopping tool. I was recently looking for a lens for my camera and there were 82 sellers (including Amazon) which included at least 6 that were in NYC. Many small businesses (especially specialty, where a brick and mortar location would not be viable) are on Amazon.
In my case, while in Manhattan, I ended up purchasing it locally as that suited my needs. It's complicated and I'm not sure depicting Amazon, carte blanche, as a garbage company is entirely nuanced.
3
Smart.
Reader from Seattle speaking here. I for one did not support the head tax on tech companies or any other companies here in Seattle. That head tax was not just on Amazon but other companies great and small here. What this article fails to mention is how dysfunctional city government is here. Seattle has kowtowed to those in city development for years. Seattle has given the green light to rampant and unsustainable growth. Seattle has ignored its exponential homeless growth for years. Seattle city government has tried head taxes in the past on other companies and they have failed. Seattle city government has failed its people over and over again because it tells itself it wants it cake and eat it too: lots of $$$ but no vision or planning. So please spare me the sob story that Amazon has "ruined" our city. It couldn't have done so without the help of Seattle city government.
19
@Lillies - bear in mind that one of the reasons that the head tax was on the table is because Seattle cannot have an income tax as other cities (like NYC) can. And yet, as you point out, we're bering pulled apart by the extremes of wealth (real estate development) and poverty (rampant homelessness), so folks are looking for solutions. I don't think that Amazon "ruined" the city, but I do think that they are cut from a cheaper cloth, particularly with respect to employee benefits, than Starbucks or Microsoft. This stinginess means that they impact the city through their office space footprint, but they don't seem to have much of a civic footprint.
2
@Lillies The explicit thinking behind the head tax was - lets get the tax money and figure out what we'll do with it later. Maybe if the city council had developed clear plans and a proposal that people could evaluate, there would have been more support for some sort of tax.
@Lillies Agreed. The City Council has been dysfunctional for years. Any article which quotes Mike O'Brien is intellectually bankrupt.
As someone who grew up in NYC and has lived in Seattle three times as long as in NYC, I have a few comments:
1. Although NYC has many industries and amazing cultural institutions, Seattle only has five major companies and few cultural institutions. The museums here are terrible and, other than the outdoors, there is not much to do.
2. Amazon has helped to put Seattle on the map, but it and the other companies here have no tradition of giving to public art. They are all pretty pathetic when it comes to connection with intellectual endeavors (Boeing, SBucks, MSoft, Amazon, and Redfin, to name a few.
3. Long Island City has amazing views, access to 85 cultures from around the world, access to amazing restaurants, etc. One can get to these places with a subway which, even with its flaws, is far superior to the transportation in Seattle.
4. Seattle has amazing weather --- that is definitely has over NYC's horrible summers and horrible winters (albeit, it is not Chicago, which sets the bar for terrible weather).
5. NYC has great architecture that is stimulating.
6. Seattle just lost what was to be a major donation to its Art Museum. I am not surprised the donor decided to back out.
11
@bigdoc Sounds like it's time for you to go back to NY!
4
@bigdoc You seriously might want to read up on Paul Allen and his impact on Seattle.
You say we have lousy museums but I can go stare at Jimi Hendrix's Stratocaster that he played at Woodstock or take a peek at Spock's tunic from Star Trek.
Paul Allen is responsible for the Olympic Sculpture Park, Seattle Art Fair, MoPoP, KEXP, and countless contributions to the opera, the ballet, the symphony, the SAM (he would loan pieces from his personal collection), the Seattle Library, and SIFF. We could go on all day with his contributions to public art.
And not a lot to do indoors? We have Muckleshoot Bingo. What more could a person ask for?
2
@tom harrison
Thanks for sticking up for us. Olympic Sculpture Park wasn't from Uncle Paul but is one of the three locations of the Seattle Art Museum (disclaimer: I work there).
And when bigdoc references SAM losing a donation (assuming he's talking about Hopper's Chop Suey which recently brought $90 million at auction), the donor didn't back out, he died with only verbal intentions that his family chose not to follow.
Good luck persuading 50,000 software engineers and other highly technical workers to move to a place like Detroit or Camden, NJ, or any other city that doesn't have amenities comparable to those in Seattle, San Francisco, etc. Even Long Island City is a pretty non-optimal location, taking into account commute times from neighborhoods where these workers would want to live.
2
Have you been to LiC in last decade? It is no backwater. In fact, though software engineers may be well off in some cities in nyc they are way down the food chain and likely will not be able to afford LiC, let alone Brooklyn or Manhattan. They will be in deeper Queens.
If they actually want to own, have kids and give those kids an education for less than $60k a year, they will wind up in suburbs of Long Island.
Frankly I’d take Detroit in a heartbeat over LiC at that salary level.
Have you been to NY? The access to cultural institutions for LIC residents is 10x that of any city on the West Coast with the possible exception of LA.
2
Amazon already had a presence in both locations and dangled oversized "prize" of "50K jobs". So they extracted the maximum of concessions possible from the places they had already chosen to begin with, and are now "promising" half what they said they would bring to the table. I see this as a defensive move and perfectly rational on their part. Just because they can.
Do I think it's ethical? Not in the slightest, but then I already have a low opinion of this predatory job killing Ponzi scheme. I already don't buy from Amazon not only because they gave me lousy customer service the one time I used them, but also because can I see where that model is going. Amazon has already has killed tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands of jobs, net of its own hiring, in the process making everyone poorer including the suckers who use it. When noone is left but Amazon, where are going to go to find competition when they start stiffing you? Nowhere.
I want no part of that "rational" system.
6
Jeff Bezos is the reincarnation of another New Yorker, A T Stewart. Stewart become the wealthiest Merchant Prince in the world. He was an immigrant that sold his college textbooks to pay his fare to America. He inherited a sum of money and opened a dry goods store on a back street in NYC. Eventually he built the Marble Palace and Iron Palace, both department stores, a concept of his own invention. Other innovations included underground parking, and mail order. Stewart built Garden City, LI as affordable housing for workers and their families, He also built a school for boys and a hotel for single working women. Bezos is already making his mark in retail, like Stewart.
1
I'm watching people buying all their stuff from Amazon. And watching people getting fatter and fatter and fatter and fatter.
I'm not kidding.
5
@Rea Tarr
It's the drive to Costco-shop online-drink sugary coffee drinks at Starbucks Americans who are getting
larger and larger.
I think it is a bit shrill to complain that the person who brought the turkey to the Thanksgiving dinner didn't also supply the mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, stuffing, and hire a cleaning service to tidy up your apartment.
Amazon is bringing all sorts of opportunity. It seems as if it is the grossest kind of sense of entitlement to expect not just raw opportunity, but the perfect urban Messiah who will cater to your city's every wish without any effort on your part.
Get over yourselves and make your own cranberry sauce.
11
@Lucille Hollander
I can make my own cranberry sauce, no problem. What I cannot do any longer is afford my own studio apartment in Seattle. By importing tens of thousands of well paid out-of-staters, Amazon has driven an equal number of Seattle natives out of their hometown (or onto the streets). Seattle had a shortage of low income housing to begin with. Much of that stock has now been torn down to make room for upscale condos for imported Amazon employees.
Yes, Amazon brought a Turkey to our city...in the most pejorative sense possible.
11
@seattle Amazon salaries will be nothing next to what Wall St and all the financial institutions in NYC pay. Unlikely to have a big impact on affordability in NY
Amazon is Walmart 2.1.
18
I have read some of these comments saying Amazon is a selfish company and not a good corporate citizen. That's probably true. But this is NYC, baby, and these rubes from Seattle ain't seen nothing like NYC in terms of selfish. We will take them for all they have got. Let's see if they can survive and thrive when their people are trying to find housing, transportation, schools for their children. They will have to step in for their workforce's benefit. They have met their match!
11
So true.
2
Maybe it is better for its employees to be in NY & VA because I hear they burnout people quickly, so if employees leave they will have other options in the same place.
2
Everyone got excited about a new Amazon fulfillment center coming here, until they learned that most of the jobs are minimum wage. Not what we needed here as we are getting the rep for being a call-center town already. Google put in a data center 30 miles from here, but the people that work there are contractors...with no benefits. We've learned not to get too excited when a corporate giant says they want to put in an installation here.
10
Amazon recruits globally. It might not pay its warehouse workers well, but at the managerial and professional level it has to compete with other employers for workers in the global talent pool. People will move to Seattle, but not to places like Detroit or Oklahoma City. New York, on the other hand, is a definite draw. So is Washington DC.
Critics of Amazon should be honest with themselves and admit that its highly-paid HQ2 workers will be paying plenty of state income tax and local property tax, from which most public services are ultimately funded. If anything, the locals on Long Island will benefit from the profits that Amazon makes in other parts of the world, just as others in New York do from the banks, the media companies, and many other industries that are centered here.
7
How nice that Amazon wants the benefits of infrastructure without paying the taxes that support it. Can any of us private, tax-paying citizens choose to negotiate a more generous tax burden and still get the benefits of infrastructure? It's again corporations wanting the benefits of citizenship without the requisite costs, both monetary and social.
16
@Lmca Amazon and its employees will pay plenty of taxes — only the company will pay LESS taxes. Big difference.
At their income level (peanuts in this city) probably end up in Long Island (note that part of LiC is on LIRR). So, they won’t pay city taxes.
3
@Lmca
You miss the point.
They don't have to move here.
We wanted them here.
If we want them here then it is not unreasonable to believe we have to give them a reason to move here.
They are coming here after we invited them and gave them reasons to move here.
If you want to hate anyone hate the people who wanted Amazon to come here.
It is all relative. Although I would give NYS a D+ grade re landing this deal, it is better than the whopping Fs given to red state deals with their version of corporate welfare.
Botton line is that this country is going more the way of the robber barons of the early 1900s than the progressive companies of the latter 1900s.
Either extreme is no good, robber barons lead to extreme poverty and corrupt unions lead to the same thing with loss of jobs.
5
@fyi re: red states. San Antonio refused to be in this crazy war.we looked and passed.
2
@zandraj- thank you for your reply. Texas is getting to look more and more like a purple state and San Antonio like most major cities are more blue.
As mentioned either extreme is no good. History has proven it with the robber barons of the early 1900s and the corrupt unions of the later yrs.
1
@Paul re: robber barons/corrupt unions dichotomy: The opposite of one is not necessarily the other.
An unmitigated disaster for both the image and identity of New York City.
The arrival of Amazon HQ will cap the destruction of New York City's distinctiveness when this global behemoth will trigger an even greater exodus of young and struggling households out of what was once a metropolis which made the creative and industrious dream the world over.
New York City already suffers from the homogenisation process linked to the darker sides of globalisation. So out goes the edgy distinctive cafés and boutiques, bring in safe and familiar Starbucks and H&M ! And now Amazon ! How can things get 'better'?
5
Two billion dollars in public money is being given to Amazon and they have no part in their communities?
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@Rich Murphy
Not true.
Money will not be transferred from the City to Amazon.
Two billion dollars that Amazon would have paid if they had moved to LIC and did not get this reduction in taxes.
Without that reduction Amazon would have gone someplace else.
If they went someplace else Amazon would pay NYC nothing.
My point is that by getting the two billion in tax breaks the city isn't losing two billion.
They only gain by having those jobs here.
1
I don't understand why it's Amazon's role to be a savior of a city. That's a grat deal of responsibility and the article itself makes such ambitions sound risky.
5
Amazon is a business, not a charity. This is not a surprise.
5
Amazon is like a billionaire home buyer who goes from house to house in an affluent neighborhood trying to get a prospective seller to offer them the best bargain of their home knowing that they are operating in a buyer's market. Why would anyone believe a billionaire seeking a new house would overpay for the best house in Detroit or Camden when they could get a discount in suburban DC or in a neighborhood close to Manhattan where the city would pay for a heliport?
2
The partial answer to the conflict between corporate self interest and focus may be for Amazon to leverage their experience and needs with a new spin off involving real estate, housing, consumer distribution, (including both online and brick and mortar) and social responsibility. This spinoff, (Amazanon?) would go a long ways to protect Amazon from criticism and regulations limiting corporate growth.
1
Not a bit impressed with the promises. I’m glad I’m 30 miles from Crystal City.
But Google is moving in on my area. These juggernauts are not a positive influence.
1
I moved rural last year. I cannot buy entirely local. I am going to our wonderful Food Coop today. I am also a Credit Union member for decades. I switched to local.
But Amazon is supplying many things, that I cannot get anywhere.
Local is gone except for food...
5
"And it has been clear...that Amazon wasn’t interested in leveraging its growth for a civic reinvention project." Why should they be? It's not AMZN's responsibility to "reinvent" a city. It's their job to provide customers with the best product/service at the lowest price - period. Socialists like Ocasio-Cortez are demanding otherwise, contending that limiting the taxes that AMZN pays is somehow "giving away the store." She simply does not understand that economic value creation is NOT a two-way street. Government creates no value, and would not EXIST without resources first taken from the private sector. If OC thinks otherwise, she should try operating in Congress with ZERO tax revenue. She couldn't even keep the lights on.
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@c smith
Government creates no value? Who created the GPS system that Amazon, Google, and Apple use for free? Or launched those weather satellites that The Weather Channel and AccuWeather use for forecasts? How about safe food and drugs? Or the very infrastructure that allows commerce to proceed in an orderly way.
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@c smith the problem is that government is giving away tax money to the richest man in the world to have his company located in a certain city. A civic reinvention as mentioned in the article, could have been possible in cities like Columbus, Nashville or Indianapolis just by having Amazon in there. But Amazon (not surprisingly) decided to "split" its second headquarters between the economic and political centers of the US, where such "boom" wasn't necessary and potentially will in fact be destructive. So why is NY giving Amazon a 3 billion dollar tax cut (+ all sorts of other support for the infrastructure which probably will amount to even more) just to have it in there? When Amazon will very likely skyrocket housing prices in Queens, and cause more civic problems to the city residents, when NY already has the job growth it needs. Why a company gets this unfair advantage to go and kill all other businesses around it and make the economy less diverse? If Amazon is getting massive tax cuts then it should be "obliged to" be a part of the civic invention. If they don't want to be a part of any civic project then they just should not get this unfair advantage and pay taxes like any other company who just happens to decide to build their "headquarters" where ever they want.
6
@Steve ALL done with resources provided by taxpayers. If you want to start charging for any or all of these services, I'm all for it. Otherwise, let me know when ANY of these becomes self-funded.
2
I think of Amazon as a cancer that kills small businesses. Just yesterday one of my co-workers mentioned how she could get a certain item from Amazon and I replied that I don't buy anything from Amazon. Her reply was about how much money she saves by shopping with Amazon and I told her that my policy was philosophical. Now, upon further reflection, I see that my policy is also about money; I see small businesses being killed by Amazon, therefore having an economic impact on communities.
19
@Susan No one on earth needs more than a billion dollars. Period. And once a guy/gal hits that mark I find someone else to do business with so THEY have a shot at making some money in their lives.
2
I left NYC and my Amazon prime account In Sept, and both were the best decisions I've ever made. After living in NY all my life, I've come to understand that bigger isn't better.
I like living in a city with actual books stores (and not just B&N). I like shopping at local stores and have discovered that most of the specialty items I used to get from Amazon or a fancy NYC market (an avg 90 min ride each way from where we lived in Queens) are easily sourced at the markets within walking distance or a quick (20 min) ride to center city. And the prices are still better and staffed by friendly people who believe in customer service (gasp). Amazon is a predator, not a savior. And to be fair to Bezos never pretended to be. But cities and individuals should do the same, and decide if Amazon really benefits them or not. Like me, you might be surprised to discover you don't need Amazon as much as it needs you.
41
Why would a large outsider be the source of reviving a city? The inhabitants need to look at what is blocking businesses from coming in, and define what they want the city to look like. An outsider can't do that. Looking hard at my town, water is the crucial issue..there isn't enough water to satisfy the current residential needs much less the sprinkler needs in any new commericial building. Increasing the water supply means also means increasing the sewer capacity and that means someone other than the already excessively taxed resident needs to pony up. So, the new businesses are restricted to those who are willing to foot the bill for water/sewer expansion and don't need more electric than is currently available plus what they can generate on their property. Hard to diversify if you hang your hopes on one deep pocket...literally what happens when the well runs dry?
9
I see a new and potentially hugely profitable line of business here for Amazon. Analyze the mountain of info they amassed as governments groveled to them to assist other companies to leverage their way into the same tax breaks, infrastructure improvements that largely only benefit them, etc. The cost of accumulating the data was almost nil and the value created could be immense. Talk about ROI!
6
As hard as it is to conceive, Amazon loses money on their retail sales. The cost of shipping, breakage, and returns results in a net loss of 100 million dollars a year. Amazon makes money from Amazon Web Services, AWS, which sells internet cloud storage and services to Netflix, governments and businesses. AWS makes billions in profits. Unlike Apple, Amazon does not make enough profit to justify its valuation. Some believe it is just the world's largest Ponzi Scheme. They are infamous for being a predator company. It is hard to imagine a city which never allowed a Walmart to be built would welcome Amazon but then New York is not the same city it used to be.
32
But what is the value of the massive amount of data they’ve collected on nearly every American? How and when will they use it? What will they charge for access to it? That’s something only they know.
11
@Mike
How strange it is to watch a giant business lose money by conducting a business built expressly to force other businesses to lose money.
I never understood business, and now understand it even less.
9
@Mike The Motley Fool explains why: "Amazon's retail operations are solidly profitable, despite the cost of its growth investments. On the other hand, including the cost of capital leases and stock-based compensation creates a much-gloomier picture."
In other words, a lot of the loss is due to pouring money into retail-related expenses like fulfillment centers.
2
Housing. Schools. Transportation. All areas beset by problems that will be hugely impacted by an influx of Amazon workers. Just what support is Amazon willing to provide to offset the burden it brings to the city? The one-sided dealmaking offers little reassurance, only unanswered questions about the short and long term effects for city life.
12
@Nancy Lederman But will there really be a huge influx? There's a large existing talent pool in the City for Amazon to choose from.
4
@Annie I agree there's a pool already here, but I'm still wary of just where the talent Amazon will employ will be coming from and where they'll be living.
3
It seems that everyone involved in Tech is inherently selfish, insular and self-absorbed. Geeks were never admirable people, yet they seem to be determined to run the world. That makes them the dire enemy of all sensible people. Even when they do give money, which is rare, it is tied to their selfish interests. Bezos is a perfect example. His site doesn't even work very well for shopping. So why use it?
17
@Grittenhouse
Thank goodness the City of Brotherly Love was not selected for Amazon HQ. Perhaps Philadelphia will benefit from the fallout when more New Yorkers arrive to further confirm Philly's status as the new borough of New Yorkers fleeing their city's destruction.
1
If we want to have choices about where to buy things in the future, we need to get away from our addiction to Amazon. If you need a book, buy it from a store in your own community. If you need toilet paper, but it from the grocery store down the street. Sure, you might not be able to find that tiny watch battery at your local retailer, but you can find most things you need.
35
@Tamarine Hautmarche I'm in Washington Heights. My closest bookstore (for new books) is about 120 blocks away. It's a B&N, which rarely has what i am looking for. I do sometimes make the trip to McNally Jackson, but the service there can be pretty rude.
5
@Tamarine Hautmarche
Sadly, there are no more bookstores anywhere near where I am. No grocery stores other than giant chains. Main Street is just about shut down.
Life is getting grimmer.
6
@Tamarine Hautmarche There is no bookstore in the Bronx, where I live, since Barnes and Noble left last year. A tiny bookstore will open in an area so far away it's easier to order online. I buy at the B and N on 5th Avenue when I can, but its selection is limited. And B and N is hardly a mom-and-pop shop!
2
Dear NYC,
Amazon isn't bringing you 50,000 high-paying jobs. They're bringing 50,000 people with high-paying jobs to where you currently live.
This won't help your community. It will replace your community.
Sincerely,
Seattle
132
Dear Seattle,
Our city invites all people from all over the world with the promise of opportunity for those who work hard.
We invite them.
As Mr Carter & Ms Cook so eloquently expressed; we are the “Concrete jungle where dreams are made of”. There truly is nothing you can't do.
Love,
NYC
5
@Eve S.
The Amazon slaves -- if the term 'sweatshop' hadn't already been thought up, they would be credited for its invention -- don't really make very much money, do they? How will they afford living in these two extremely expensive places?
1
@ADH3 The "slaves" won't fill these HQs. They will be highly skilled workers, with salaries to match.
1
So glad that Amazon is finding another place to go other than Seattle. You want a company that invests in your town- not just one that uses it for it's own sake. Amazon is a selfish company interested only in it's profits. Amazon's self interest extends to it's employees and their attitudes towards Seattle.
The attitude that Seattle exists only for them- that the people who were here before Amazon don't really matter is prevalent and obnoxious. That if you are not 30 something and computer oriented - you are not- important.
Amazon makes Boeing and Microsoft look really good. They contribute to the greater Seattle community. This year, Microsoft hosted the National Special Olympics. Boeing is a major sponsor to many civic projects.
Too bad Amazon didn't choose to enrich a part of the country like Detroit or Baltimore that could use some redevelopment- everyone could come out a winner- but that's not Amazon's way or mission.
A wasted opportunity- now Queens can try to figure out where to put the displaced older people, the poor, the homeless, and all the others that were there before Amazon came to town.
Good Luck! You're going to need it!
71
@vwcdolphins
Trump's hostility towards Bezos is legendary. That said, it will be interesting to see how the Trump real estate emire stands to gain from Bezos extending his tentacles to Trump's stomping grounds.....
2
@AE
Actually, I don't think Trump will make a single dime off of Amazon or anyone affiliated with Amazon. Have you seen what Trump condos look like? They are covered in gold and marble. They are tacky, gaudy, and overtly 80s-themed. Pretty much the exact opposite aesthetic of what young Amazon techies would be interested in. I think the irony here is Bezos making big splashes in Trump's former and current stomping grounds--Queens where he grew up and the DC area where he currently resides. Bezos is making his presence known to Trump and Trump is helpless to do anything about it.
Ironically, Amazon has killed more jobs than it created. Main Street has been devastated, as dollars now leave communities to feed this monopoly. And that drives down wages (not to mention the social benefits of buying local). One of every two dollars spent online now goes to Amazon. With the purchase of Whole Foods, Amazon has now positioned itself to take over the grocery sector. Tax breaks and subsidies for a monopoly is never a good idea. It doesn't need them, and (duh) they accelerate its market dominance, diminishing the competition essential to a healthy market. Andrew and Bill are providing taxpayer dollars to this behemoth, and claiming victory — because they beat out other towns? There's only one winner in this contest. And it ain't us.
68
@Joseph True, Amazon has killed more jobs than it has created, but realize that so much of tech has done this (remember taxis, printers, photographers, drafters, mathematicians, manufacturing. Too many more to mention - and soon to be truck drivers...). I remember when SW engineers and lawyers would defend tech, saying that revolutionized industries and displaced workers had to adapt, until they suffered under the internet's information age that made qualified engineers and lawyers schooled in NY or Illinois law in developing nations.
But let's also realize that tech is just an arm of industry, that industry is supposed to drive to efficiency and cost reduction, that tech is just a modern tool for innovation, automation, and job elimination.
There aren't enough jobs for all the people in the world and never will be. It's both a good thing and a bad thing. The bad: what country or even what zip code you are born in determines the quality of your opportunities and your life so much more than your intelligence or raw talent. The good: so many things are faster, easier, and some of us get more and more immediate gratification. But it won't end well for most of the world unless we figure it out.
7
I share your concern, but guess what? If Amazon hadn’t been born, Alibaba would have swallowed the same Main streets - perhaps a few years later. Let’s celebrate the fact that creative destruction is bringing 50,000 new American jobs. The next round may not be so sanguine (robots don’t whine). And Ye Olde Main Street is as dead as coal mining. Forward, people!
2
Amazon didn't replace Main Street, Walmart did that. Amazon will now cut in to Walmart.
3
It has been proven that these huge tax give aways do nothing for the cities that give them. Does amazon expect free buildings like the sports franchises?
18
During the 2000s, the (relatively new at that time, I think, at least in high tech) technique of a reverse auction was increasingly deployed by high tech behemoths. In a reverse auction, suppliers could see the total value of their anonymous competitors and where each ranked. The behemoth could and would change rules or requirements late in the game to leverage what they learned from one supplier with the other suppliers, without giving away the meat of the advantage (so the behemoth wouldn't feel it was violating confidentiality). It became a race to the bottom on price with suppliers struggling to maintain quality instead of the prior 2-3 decades of the quoting customer driving to a win-win in supplier contracts. This drove two unintended results: suppliers would push the cost pressure back up the eco-system chain, the right idea, but they would hide it from the customer by constructing it as kickbacks; consolidation, for the obvious reasons.
This is essentially what Amazon just did. They needed to be in one of a few places in order to be successful - SF/SV, TX, or the winners, but they created the mirage of competition to make those areas compete ($1.7B!!). And then they changed the rules at the last minute for their own benefit (easier to hire half the resources from each of two existing high tech areas rather than one).
I'll cross my fingers that the cities/regions benefit, but in the surface, it smells like a stadium deal to me...
26
I would have been thrilled if Amazon had chosen an underdog city like Philly, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Cincinnati, or Baltimore, but I understand why they solely considered their own interests and went with the DC area and NYC due to those cities' depths of workforce talent.
That being said, I do see it as socially problematic how certain superstar cities are leaving other cities way behind. There's something wrong with America where many cities in the Midwest are literally crumbling, while in NYC, DC, Boston, SF are growing so rapidly that the housing market can't keep up long term residents are priced out.
Given that Arlington, VA is one of the winners in the Amazon sweepstakes, I think the case to decentralize the federal bureaucracy is stronger than ever. Why can't the Department of Labor be in Detroit? Why can't the Department of Transportation be in St. Louis? Why can't the EPA be in Cleveland?
These cities have the public transit infrastructures to support large white-collar workforces, but what they lack is the workers to use those infrastructures.
51
@In NJ
Were N Va and Long Island City chosen because they are close to Bezos' homes?
1
@In NJ
My nephew and his wife grew up in Florida. They went to school at Tulane in New Orleans. They got their doctorates in different places, he in physics and engineering in Georgia, she in the medical field in Philadelphia. They each started with nothing, went to undergrad on scholarship, and graduate work on loans and side jobs.
The could get great jobs anywhere. Where do they live? On the East Side of NY. Why? Because they can. NYC has far more to offer to successful, highly educated young people than does Columbus or Kansas City or Pittsburgh.
That is just the way it is. Each person has his or her own life to live, and it is up to them to make their choices.
3
Of course! Because one of the richest men in the world can’t afford to buy a home in a different city, right?
1
I have been involved in economic development and competitiveness issues for 3 decades (and am a Senior Fellow at the US Council on Competitiveness and former California Secretary of Trade & Commerce). I was leery about the Amazon competition. Beyond outlining its requirements, it did to make commitments to the place(s) it chose. These places -- many suffering the economic disruption of a changing economy -- saw 50,000 jobs, which sadly makes this announcement a "bait and switch." Did Amazon give cities the chance to amend their proposals to address half the jobs and investment they originally committed?
I agree that Amazon truly had the chance to transform a community -- such as Baltimore, near one of their chosen sites. They had a chance to be a real civic leader. A chance to transform a community at littlerisk given the workforce profile in the greater Baltimore area.
As Secretary, I opposed "deals" with a single company in favor of systemic reforms that would enable us to compete more effectively. Under Gov. Pete Wilson in the 1990s, it's exactly what we did -- no deals, systemic reforms that enabled us to assemble Red Teams to write competitive proposals. One example: a single CA company - Intel - invested $2 billion in California and created 4,000 jobs.
A win-win is when the company can be competitive and the place is enhanced. I am a loyal Amazon customer but disappointed in the way they conducted this competition and the choice(s) they made. We can all do better.
34
It's not Amazon's job to revive cities. That job belongs to municipal government, and to do that it needs money. Which is why to hand such tax breaks to high-tech companies is unconscionable. The entire spectacle of cities begging for Amazon's presence was an embarrassement.
(Twitter was similarly given huge tax breaks, in the hope that the company's presence in downtown San Francisco would help retail. It did not, since like most tech companies Twitter provides most retail services to their employees, inside the building. Tax them! )
91
@S North quick correction. Twitter and other companies moving into mid market SF has had a huge impact and been a part of the overall development plan. Lots is still not great in SF, but the in-progress revival of mid market would have been near impossble without the tech firms moving in. I have lived here since the late ‘90s and am keenly aware.
Btw - the SF mayor herself did not support the homeless inititiative/tax - not the controls or processes to handle it. I haven’t done the math to compare sf vs. different cities, but I believe we already spend in the top 25% on a per capita basis and have little to show for it.
$1 billion seems paltry compared to the huge financial, psychological and intellectual return over many decades that comes with hosting one of the world’s most valuable and admired companies.
@Err..a bit of truth
I used to live in mid-Market before tech moved in and it was GRIM. It can still be problematic but it's getting better.
The "homeless-industrial complex" of SF--"nonprofits" who have never shown any accountability or results to the taxpayers who generously fund them--scored a win with the recent "inititative," a useless virtue signaling move noisily supported by that bloviator CEO of Salesforce. All very foolish. SF spends a ton of money on the homeless with no results but we are made to guilty if we don't vote for even more money to be thrown down the drain.
Amazon, which has caused smaller businesses to go belly-up, is OK but Walmart is not allowed to open in The City for fear that smaller establishments will be put out. Figure that.
67
@MIKEinNYC Maybe Amazon has better palm-greasers than Wal-Mart?
1
@MIKEinNYC New York City would probably be quite happy to have Walmart open a HQ2 campus in the city (analogous to the Amazon development). New Walmart stores have an immediate negative impact on existing stores in that area. A new corporate headquarter, on the other hand, is a boon for local stores, restaurants, etc. Amazon's undoubtedly has caused thousands of small businesses to go belly-up; that impact is just spread ll over the country.
@MIKEinNYC
Um, let's see. Amazon is seen as liberal as its Seattle home. Walmart, Arkansas, well you get the idea.
I am from Baltimore and I love the city. But honestly, put yourself in an Amazon employee's shoes. Why would they move to the city? Is the city safe for my kids? No. Are the public schools better than Seattle for my kids? No. Can my spouse find jobs in the area outside of Amazon? No. Amazon didn't want an HQ that will be shunned by its employees in the initial years and for that, as much as this pains me, I think Amazon did the smart thing for its employees and for its own growth.
43
@Sam88
But then, why the BS RFP?
6
@drussell I just read the RFP and don't see the problem. They definitely asked for "incentives," but also were very clear that the location chosen would have to have lots of advantages -- good schools, cultural institutions, be places where highly-educated well-paid tech employees would want to live. I don't see any suggestion that they wanted to remake failing cities like Baltimore.
16
@Sam88
And really BAD architecture, to boot! Festering pustules in Seattle ready to burst forth paper towels and general "stuff". Can't wait to see what goes up in NYC, NOVA and Nashville.
4