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Is the Amazon-Led Economic Boom Wrecking Seattle?
reifman writes: Seattleites are struggling with massive traffic, rising housing costs and declining diversity. Amazon's building and acquiring enough office space to triple its local headcount by 2020. Facebook, Google and many other tech companies are now expanding here as well — it's the San Franciscoization of Seattle. Downtown is filled with 75 cranes — some blocks look like mining towns. Amazon's hired so many white males that King County is now the whitest in the nation and hate crimes against gays have shot up in a formerly LGBTQ neighborhood. Politicians can't agree on reforming impact fees and taxes to address these issues."
An interesting piece of recent advice from a long time Amazonian to the company's interns: avoid full-time employment there.
Amazon is great for Seattle. Property values are going up, and formerly seedy neighborhoods are getting developed and gentrified.
The media narrative about hate crimes and lack of diversity is just pandering to people who are upset by rising rents and evolving neighborhoods. Seattle's "whiteness" is not a issue unless lower crime rates and less nuisance behavior is somehow problematic. I'm not being racist, just calling a spade a spade here.
If it's a bar fight and one of the participants happens to be gay or trans-gender, then it becomes a hate crime. Boo hoo. This is just a convenient way to breed an "us versus them" mentality between groups that will always feel marginalized or oppressed somehow vs people climbing the economic ladder.
The only REAL problem is the traffic, and it is caused by too many cars on the road, and Seattle voters consistently voting against their own best interests.
The only anti-gay that crosses tech is from conservative male Indians, everyone else in tech embraces LGBTQ and generally IS it. Amazon and Microsoft are and have always been pretty accepting. I'll say Amazon has made poor decisions, I hate the South Lake Union area and refuse to go there (Hey lets build a big company right in the 'central park' of Seattle). The housing in Queen Anne and Capital Hill has been overpriced for over a decade, so nothing really new there. Queen Anne looks like a shitty old Boston neighborhood with no parking and Capital Hill is a dirty overrated Portland neighborhood. Please, everyone move there...
As for development, this is exactly the opposite of SF, the reason why SF is fucked is because of the NIMBYs like who wrote this article. Building denser is the only solution to more populace. Oh noes, no pretty skyline.
Traffic in and out of Seattle sucks more from bad geology/geography than anything. Its population density is incredibly low compared to other metros. I do think Amazon's choice of location is insane, and since they move all of their real logistics elsewhere, I guess they agree. Google has a bunch of offices around the area much like Microsoft smartly does and plans on expanding on east side, so I am not sure why they matter. Facebook is small and Oculus is east side too (until they still birth).
white males are the soul of evil
Wait. That can't be right. White males ain't got no soul.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
The article does not say that too many people of one color cause crime; you said that. What the article does say, is that Amazon is hiring a primarily white male workforce at salaries far in excess of the average for the area. This correlates with, but it is not proven that it causes, a number of things stated in the article. The gender imbalance, may mean that there are a large number of men without female counterparts or potential mates. The implication in the article is that this is driving prostitution as these men seek sex they are hard-pressed to find in a relationship because there are not enough woman. The income imbalance means that Amazon employees can pay a premium for living space close to Amazon, and because they are the highest paid workers in the area, it is displacing other residents, many of whom happen to be the existing diverse people that current live there. The increased affluence of the area surrounding Amazon, it is implied, is leading to increased crime because wealthy new communities are a target for theft.
The article doesn't prove any of this. The white males that Amazon is hiring may have brought their wives with them, in which case, Amazon's hiring would not create a gender balance within Seattle. Regardless, it doesn't say that less racial diversity = crime. That's a dumb statement you made; not the article.
No no. We have souls, they're just not ours, uh, originally.
"Amazon's hired so many white males that King County is now the whitest in the nation"
OK. So what? if King County was 80% black there would be no complaint about a "lack of diversity". if King County was 80% asian there would be no complaint about a "lack of diversity".
Diversity is simply the latest code word for anti-white male.
You're obviously American, so I can make some allowances for your deficient education, but those "non diverse" Nordic countries are more diverse than you.
Ahhhh....more pig ignorant American cannon fodder. Gotta love 'em and their naivety.
That is laughable. Finland and Sweden are fairly diverse by European standards, but the entire European continent is not very diverse. A quick look at France, Germany, and Italy show they have over 90% of their population in their respective ethnicity. The United States largest ethnicity is German, with about 17%.
From Populstat.info:
Norway -> 96.4% Norwegian, 0.5% Laplander, 0.3% Finnish, 2.8% Other
Sweden -> 89.3% Swedish, 3% Finnish & Laplander, 0.8% Yugoslavian, 0.6% Iranian, 6.3% Other
Finland -> 93% Finnish, 6% Swedish, 0.1% Laplander, 1% Other
Iceland -> 98% Icelanders (Norweigian, Celts), 0.5% Swedish, 0.4% Danish
Denmark -> 97% Danish, 3% Other
United States -> 75% White (So much varied ethnicity the site doesn't try to list them all), 12% Black, 10% Hispanic, 3.3% Asian, 0.7% Native American
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
You tell that healthcare costs are down. After the ACA, my healthcare premiums DOUBLED. Fucking... Doubled.
Hello over there, Americans! While you bicker about whether the ACA increased premiums or brought healthcare costs down (or both or neither), the rest of the developed world enjoys per capita overall spending that is a fraction of yours, and with much better overall health outcomes. Maybe you could simply agree that a truly "socialized" system of medicine would be a great improvement on either the pre- or post-ACA American healthcare system and drop the partisan crap?
Hey mate, spare a sig?