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NYC Tech Sector Growing Faster Than City Can Keep Up
BioTitan writes "New York City's plans to build its tech sector have turned out like a party gone wrong — someone inviting 100 people expecting 10 to show up, but finding that not only did everyone come, but they also brought their friends. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg wants to build NYC into the second Silicon Valley. Dedicated spaces complete with 3-D printers, workshops, and computers with design software are being built — with the Brooklyn Navy Yard leading the way — yet there is far from enough space to meet demand. Tucker Reed, president of the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership, said, 'Despite the presence of a considerable number of commercial buildings in downtown Brooklyn, longer term leases have tied up much of the current space over the next five years.'"
It's like Facebook, for cats!
Seriously, it would have been less blatant if you just told Bloomberg that the whole recession hoax was just created to push wages down and that there isn't really a lack of money waiting for investment. Now look what you've done.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Unless your tech company is providing services which require a physical presence, what's the appeal of NYC? Real estate prices alone are a very compelling reason to locate elsewhere.
No cutting edge tech person wants to work in Brooklyn when they can work in Manhattan.
Manhattan is where we send the rubes that don't know any better. Ed Norton got it right when he told a reporter where he lived: the garden spot of the world, Brooklyn USA!
stupid?
In a day and age fairly decent telecommuting options are available, it appears that the IT industry is heading in exactly the opposite direction, towards physical concentration into technological hubs in a misguided attempt to recreate Silicon Valley.
Am I the only one who finds this ridiculous?
...would set up shop in a locality that is designed to increase your cash burn rate by orders of magnitude?
What does that say about the management?
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
I may not be fortunate enough to own a big tech company myself, but if I did? NYC would probably be one of the LAST places on my list where I'd consider an expansion or a move.
Real estate is insane, obviously ... but you're also dealing with the transportation headaches. Where I work now, we already have some big problems with that, and we don't have NYC's density. (Everyone's pushed and prodded to use public transportation since cars are impractical with high daily parking costs, traffic jams, etc.) But with public transportation, you're really limited in what you can carry. Any kind of office outing requires renting an expensive bus to shuttle everyone to or from the event, too. And if the subway has a problem, you may as well shut the place down until they get things fixed. Additionally, your employees who might otherwise be happy to work late or odd hours to finish some project are constrained by the hours the bus or metro runs. So you lose some potential productivity there too.
You also have to figure that in many ways, the tech market there is saturated. It's not like all the Wall Street traders don't have any contacts to work with to provide their network bandwidth or computer maintenance. If you move out to NYC, it sounds to me like a tough, uphill battle if you want to establish yourself as a contender?
If the physical presence makes no difference (software development, for example) -- then you want the CHEAPEST place you can build an office and still be able to hire good talent. I think what many companies would find if they actually thought "outside the box" a bit, is that there's a LOT of great computer talent in the small, rural communities. Kids growing up there don't have as much to do, so many gravitate towards the home computer and the internet, and spend a lot of time with it. The technical minded who don't envision themselves working the family farm like their parents did constitute a good hiring pool that's neglected.
You know what's amazing? DUMBO real estate prices match or exceed SOHO and midtown? Who would have ever thought that?
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
While some of these points are not without merits: (0) what exactly are you proposing to carry that public transit would interfere with? big fat server racks? (1) "constrained by the hours the metro runs" it runs ALL NIGHT - thank you - they're quite proud of it, though it makes maintenance obnoxious - and moreover for historical reasons there are like 3 ALMOST COMPLETELY INDEPENDENT subway SYSTEMS (not just lines, systems, IRT BMT IND) so if one is down there's probably a backup(2) office outing: just tell everyone to hop on the subway, 80%+ of them will have an unlimited pass anyway, and the rest you can let expense it if you really want (3) I'm not sure that the hiring pool dynamics work exactly like you imagine; the big tech hubs support businesses of the sort where you say "I am in a high-margin business and I can make a lot of money per employee; I can afford to pay them lots and I am constrained by my ability to find and attract large numbers of skilled people and to grow the business much bigger". If your business isn't like that it's another matter and sure, go for cheap programmers, have fun, I won't be working there :D
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
What about that crowd over at Etsy? I mean, I their tech leadership isn't Google-level, but statsd and loupe ain't nothing.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
But with public transportation, you're really limited in what you can carry. Any kind of office outing requires renting an expensive bus to shuttle everyone to or from the event, too. And if the subway has a problem, you may as well shut the place down until they get things fixed. Additionally, your employees who might otherwise be happy to work late or odd hours to finish some project are constrained by the hours the bus or metro runs. So you lose some potential productivity there too.
Or you could have to drive, only to find that some idiot cut off some other idiot and caused a massive accident that has the expressway backed up for miles, and you have to wait around for hours until they clear the accident. Constrained by the hours the bus or metro runs? Do you have any idea how many public transportation options there are in NYC? There are 24 subway lines that run all night. There's the Metro North, Long Island Railroad, New Jersey PATH trains, New Jersey Light Rail, and Amtrak if you don't like the subway. There are scores and scores of bus lines, dozens of express buses from Staten Island and the like, and those are just the MTA buses; and they run all night. There's Greyhound, Trailways, and about 30 other lines that go into Port Authority on 42nd. There are ferries and water taxis. There are yellow cabs, car services, gypsy cabs, and peddle-cabs. There's a freaking gondola if you live on Roosevelt Island. Or you could rent a bike with CitiBike or ride your own around the extensive network of protected bike lanes.
In short, transportation without owning a car is not even remotely a problem in this town. It's also why you want to locate your startup here instead of somewhere else where the options are limited.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
Another poster pointed out that access to a robust talent pool is a key reason why you'd want to locate a startup in NYC. There is another reason, too. It's not just the tech talent pool that factors into the success of your venture, it's the talent pool in other, closely related industries like design. In New York there's a lot of cross-over that leads to surprising and creative solutions. In every discipline you have the best professionals in the world pushing the envelope, and that both drives and inspires you beyond what you'd be capable of in a sparser, thinner environment. New York has an energy that I have never felt in any other world city, not in Paris, not in Tokyo, not in Shanghai.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
I worked for SIAC at Metro Tech on Jay Street. Everyday the workers wondered if they'd get shot or shanked. On top of the fact that the buses full of convicts from the local prison would be hooting at everyone as the drove by. Of course in Brooklyn this is considered a "garden".
As to the recession, what part of it was a hoax? The banks and investment firms failing? The incredibly bad decisions or ridiculous leverage? The substantial drop in house prices? The poorly thought out policy decisions that dug the hole deeper?
My take is that wages were going down even if that recession never happened. It's supply and demand. There's too much supply of labor and not enough demand for it.
that there isn't really a lack of money waiting for investment
It's waiting for opportunities like Bloomberg's or to avoid some of the crazy uncertainty of the past few years (for example, some of the costs of hiring people). That's my take.
What's the appeal? -- you need to RTFA
You need to read the fine article. The locations in Brooklyn are subsidized, both through actual rent subsidy, and temporary tax exemptions being extended to tech companies: NYC wants these businesses moving in, and they want it in a rather large way, since they don't see bodegas, taxi companies, or a lot of other non-tech businesses as being a growth industry for increasing the tax base.
Without a huge investment in a redevelopment effort to knock down buildings and grow things up, about the only thing they can do is try to increase tax revenue by incentivizing higher income businesses to locate in the area -- and right now, that means tech companies.
The article specifically complains about these types of companies being preferentially subsidized.
About the only things worse that NYC could be doing to itself right now, besides reducing the caffeine intake for software engineers by limiting cup sizes, I mean, would be to be extending these subsidies to the Wall Street folks instead, or passing something like California's Prop 13, and having it apply to non-residential, non-parking structure commercial properties, as it does in California right now (thank you, Kaiser Family Trust -- NOT). There's a reason that San Francisco has built up huge numbers of un-rented high value per square foot commercial properties, and is knocking down older buildings an parking structures everywhere they think they can get away with it.
wants to work or live in NYC?
Me.
There seems to be a trend now of eliminating telecommuting. Yahoo infamously banned all telecommuting when Marisa Meyer took over as CEO. I was a telecommuter at my last company, and they were bought out by a much larger company that seemed to be quietly pushing out all the telecommuters and not hiring any new ones. Companies like the ability to have teams in disparate geographical locations, but they want all the workers in boring cubicles in corporate offices, where managers can watch over them.
I doubt it was engineered. These rats tend to have good instincts for when to flee sinking ships.
Mod this shit up.
There's also quality of life factors to consider: big cities are great for the young and accomodating ("Sure I can work through the weekend."), but as for the rest of us schlubs, there are other things to keep in mind, like family, and life outside the office...
So, in one breath you're stating there are quality of life factors, and yet you imply that the young and/or single can and will work day and night, tolling away.
Single, married, divorced, kids, pets, I don't care what your situation is, I grow tired of the "young and accommodating" being assumed as slave labor. And the sad reality of that is they truly feel they have to kill themselves working 80 hours a week just to impress someone.
The part going on now where in one breath they tell us the recession is causing unemployment and wage freezes and everyone is working oh-so hard to get that fixed and in the next we hear about Wall Street rallies, now highs being reached and record corporate profits. OH, and we need more H1-Bs because there's not enough people looking for a job here.
never heard of the Brooklyn Navy Yard before. didn't know New York City had a navy base. i've heard of the Battery fort but not the Navy Yard.
The Brooklyn Navy Yard was actually a naval shipyard rather than a regular base.
NJ has better connections to the rest of NYC than SI does. The SI Express buses to Manhattan all drive through NJ and take the Lincoln Tunnel to midtown since its faster than taking the Gowanus through.....Brooklyn.
Yep. Its really great.
Love the west coast too, but I hate being in cars.
Why is it bad to give them real estate subsidies? Real estate taxes are not the primary revenue generator of city income.
I'm not sure you realize how important it is that NYC diversify its economy. 20% of our tax base comes from wall street. Not simply the corporate taxes, but the salaries and bonuses. When they take a hit, the city can face some very real financial trouble. The goal of these tax breaks are not to attract one or two big companies, but to foster a community of startups by reducing capital requirements.
The best part is that its working. The economy in NYC has been very strong relative to the rest of the country, but recently its felt incredibly vibrant. Much of this is the product of a growing community of test startups.
Some people have a really limited idea of what the tech community consists of. Everyone forgets about companies like Bloomberg.
Consider this. Do you think that the financial services industry, headquartered in NYC, controlling some $14 TRILLION dollars in assets has been sitting on its ass ignoring technological innovation for the last 15 years? If they have, can you think of a better place or industry to start a new company?
If not, do you think you may have missed it because you were too distracted by the shinny consumer electronics and social networks to notice what the big boys were doing?