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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."
All cities are dependent on complex support services to function, it is incredibly bad strategy to displace the workers who maintain it. Spatial relationships matter, that is what makes cities work. Pushing out the support layer means the city falls apart until budgets rise to cover increased costs from dis-agglomeration and scattering of labor increasing their costs in a vicious circle. The cop-out of blaming local government only works when the companies responsible for the bubble and especially their employees actually pay full and complete taxes, otherwise they only increase the demand on local services without paying for increasing capacity. That means less is available for everyone, if distribution were even. In practice distribution is not remotely even, so this directly means less for everyone else (the older residents), while the new rich few horde everything they can.
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.
Remember kids; any time you argue against general prosperity and growth you come off looking kind of dumb.
Ditto making simplistic statements on complex matters.
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?
Arguably much better. Walmart pays bottom rung wages, while Amazon jobs tech pay really well. In my own field of videogame development, they've sucked up a huge amount of local talent with their new game studio, largely by paying better wages. This ends up driving UP wages elsewhere as well, if companies want to keep their best talent. Boosted wages means local families have more to spend, and that's a boon for the local economies and tax revenue, which relies on sales taxes.
You can look at other parallel situations in the area. Microsoft was a *massive* economic boon to the small city of Redmond. That arguably had a much more significant effect on a much smaller economy, and it's done quite well. Redmond has a lot of really nice local shops, boutiques, and public places in the area. Yes, housing prices tend to rise, but that's a single negative amongst a huge number of positive effects.
Bitching about prosperity. Talk about first-world problems.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
hen you must be Canadian or British. Our mortgages stay the same as equity rises.
When you make your mortgage payment, you're also paying your property tax. The bank collects it from your payments and holds it in escrow until the property taxes are due. Because banks really hate it when the city forecloses on the property for back property taxes (and they like receiving interest-free loans).
So that poster's mortgage payment likely went up due to the higher property tax payment. While calling the payment "my mortgage" is not pedantically correct, people generally drop "payment" when talking about such issues.
You realize that means absolutely nothing, unless you are prepared to move out into a cheaper area?
If your house doubled in price, that likely means that you'll have to pay double (or more) for your next house, too. You gain nothing.
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...