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NYT Op-Ed Argues Amazon 'Took Seattle's Soul' (bendbulletin.com)
New York Times columnist Timothy Egan was part of the paper's Pulitzer Prize-winning team in 2001. Now he's written an op-ed arguing Amazon "took Seattle's soul." An anonymous reader writes:
Since Amazon arrived "we've been overwhelmed by a future we never had any say over," Egan writes, with a message for cities competing to be the site of Amazon's next headquarters. Amazon now owns as much office space as Seattle's next 40 biggest employers combined, according to an analysis by the Seattle Times, "a mind-boggling 19 percent of all prime office space in the city, the most for any employer in a major U.S. city...more than twice as large as any other company in any other big U.S. city."
Egan notes Amazon is offering 50,000 high-paying jobs and $5 billion worth of investments, "a once-in-a-century, destiny-shaping event," but "You think you can shape Amazon? Not a chance. It will shape you... What comes with the title of being the fastest growing big city in the country, with having the nation's hottest real estate market, is that the city no longer works for some people. For many others, the pace of change, not to mention the traffic, has been disorienting... [M]edian home prices have doubled in five years, to $700,000. This is not a good thing in a place where teachers and cops used to be able to afford a house with a water view... As a Seattle native, I miss the old city, the lack of pretense, and dinner parties that didn't turn into discussions of real estate porn.
Wages have risen faster in Amazon's Seattle than anywhere else in America, and while Amazon changed the city's character, it also poured $38 billion into the city's economy. (Besides Amazon's own 40,000 employees, it also attracted another 50,000 new jobs.) "To the next Amazon lottery winner I would say, enjoy the boom," Egan concludes, "but be careful what you wish for."
Egan notes Amazon is offering 50,000 high-paying jobs and $5 billion worth of investments, "a once-in-a-century, destiny-shaping event," but "You think you can shape Amazon? Not a chance. It will shape you... What comes with the title of being the fastest growing big city in the country, with having the nation's hottest real estate market, is that the city no longer works for some people. For many others, the pace of change, not to mention the traffic, has been disorienting... [M]edian home prices have doubled in five years, to $700,000. This is not a good thing in a place where teachers and cops used to be able to afford a house with a water view... As a Seattle native, I miss the old city, the lack of pretense, and dinner parties that didn't turn into discussions of real estate porn.
Wages have risen faster in Amazon's Seattle than anywhere else in America, and while Amazon changed the city's character, it also poured $38 billion into the city's economy. (Besides Amazon's own 40,000 employees, it also attracted another 50,000 new jobs.) "To the next Amazon lottery winner I would say, enjoy the boom," Egan concludes, "but be careful what you wish for."
Its not just the Bro-grammers, the standard programmers who were neurotic anxious kids themselves are the main bullies in IT. They prefer to blame everyone and everything except themselves for their personal failures, and failure to understand the real world. They isolate themselves in commute buses and avoid interacting with "normal" city residents, instead creating a single "inner party" enclave in which they now belong fulfilling deep seated needs, and love throwing everyone they can out. Even to the destruction of the city, region, and nation that they live in. Fuck the geeks who never grew out of being childish idiots.
Although Amazon has stated that they plan to establish a "2nd" HQ that is to be equal to their first, I have to wonder if the motivation is to set up an alternative location that could eventually surpass Seattle and become the primary HQ. It's apparent that there is growing resentment over Amazon's impact on the city, and maybe Amazon is planning ahead for a day when the local political environment is too hostile to support its continued growth.
If that happens, the locals anti-Amazon crowd may end up pondering the wisdom of being careful what you wish for.
Amazon and Microsoft contribute to making Seattle a MISERABLE place to live. The world, not just Seattle, needs better city management. (Posting this again, with improvements.)
... CenturyLink (CTL) customers trying to access particular sites from 9 p.m. to 10 p.m. will have unbearably slow speeds."
Amazon: Worse than Wal-Mart: Amazon's sick brutality and secret history of ruthlessly intimidating workers (February 23, 2014)
Amazon: Inside Amazon: Wrestling Big Ideas in a Bruising Workplace (August 15, 2015) Quote: "The company is conducting an experiment in how far it can push white-collar workers..."
Amazon: Amazon Under Fire Over Alleged Worker Abuse in Germany (February 19, 2013)
Microsoft: Microsoft Is Filled With Abusive Managers And Overworked Employees, Says Tell-All Book (May 23, 2012) The Microsoft headquarters is in Redmond, part of the Seattle metropolitan area.
Seattle: Together with Amazon, Microsoft, and inadequate city management, Seattle is an extremely miserable place:
Traffic: Seattle one of the worst U.S. cities for traffic congestion, tied with NYC (March 31, 2015) Quote: "An additional 23 minutes a day spent in traffic may not sound like much, but when it adds up over a year it becomes 89 hours." (Whoever wrote that must be accustomed to Seattle misery. An additional 23 minutes a day spent in traffic sounds HORRIBLE.)
Slow internet: Many areas of Seattle have poor internet connections. See the article, These places have the slowest Internet in the country. (June 25, 2015) Quote: "... Seattle
Important questions for city managers and residents of Amazon's new city: 1) Do you want to invite a company to your city that has a history of abusiveness? 2) Could the managers of Amazon's new city manage Amazon's growth, or would it be almost completely out of their control?
It's apparent that there is growing resentment over Amazon's impact on the city, and maybe Amazon is planning ahead for a day when the local political environment is too hostile to support its continued growth.
The net effect of Amazon leaving Seattle would be like the auto industry leaving Detroit. There would be a mass exodus of hipsters, and in a sense the Amazon Bubble would pop leaving a significant number of losers.
And I'm all for it.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
you just need to lower their quality of life substantially. You can get away with it to by getting each group (teachers, cops, cooks, mechanics) to blame the other group. It's been done this way for thousands of years with minimal side effects (you pay your cops bribes but it's still cheaper than a middle class salary). The system works... for the very wealthy. But the working class has fell for it since there was a working class.
Oh, this is what government is for, btw. You build a powerful government as a tool to balance the power otherwise held by the very wealthy. Sure, if you're not careful it gets abused, but the same thing can be said for any tool (fire, guns, cars).
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Arguably much better. Walmart pays bottom rung wages
Seriously, stop with the bullshit on that one. Walmart pays over the minimum wage always has whether the state min. wage is $5 and they pay $7.50, or the province wage is $10.50 and they pay $13 they've always done that. Keep in mind that working at a big-box store was never meant to be a career, but rather something to help you along the path. Much like the current hipster whining that they can't survive with their gender studies degrees and working at starbucks.
Om, nomnomnom...
This isn't what causes homelessness; it is the fact that far too many live paycheck to paycheck, and can't survive "bad things" happening to them. It can quickly spiral out of control. Add in mental illness and addictive behavior and it only gets worse.
There are of course people that do choose to be homeless, but it is not a major percentage on a collective scale. (Places like the Haight used to be disproportionately this type of person, not sure about today-- but it is a local phenomenon.)
You got lucky.
Others worked even more than you and still remained poor.
People tend to attribute success to their own efforts, and failure to "bad circumstance" or everybody else but themselves. But in fact both are wrong, it's both the same: part luck and chance, part hard work, part society and circumstance and everybody else.
So you worked hard *and* got lucky. (As did I.) Great, enjoy, and kudos to you, but that's no reason to be a schmug. Not everyone who's poor is so because they're lazy. Some worked even more than you, some nearly (or fully) killed themselves working, but lacked your luck. So they stayed poor, or worse: became ill, then poor, then remained ill, and will therefore remain poor regardless of what they do.
Be kind. That could have been you. (Or could become you, when your luck runs out.)