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Seattle City Council Members Visit New York To Warn About Amazon HQ2 (bloomberg.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Two politicians from Amazon's hometown traveled across the country to New York to deliver a cautionary message about the company's expansion in the city. Members of the Seattle City Council, Lisa Herbold and Teresa Mosqueda, are urging elected officials in New York to pass legislation now that will address potential housing and transportation issues that will inevitably follow in the wake of Amazon's decision to build a major new campus in Queens. Both are speaking Monday at an event hosted by the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, which has been backing efforts to organize workers at an Amazon fulfillment center in Staten Island.
Amazon announced in November a major expansion in Long Island City, New York, and Crystal City, Virginia. In New York, Amazon would spend about $2.5 billion to create an 8.5 million square foot campus on the East River waterfront facing Manhattan from Long Island City. In return, the internet giant is set to receive almost $3 billion worth of state and city incentives. While Amazon could generate more than $27.5 billion in additional tax revenue for the city over 25 years, local politicians and community activists have already come out against the deal. Opponents fear the high salaries promised by Amazon and influx of as many as 40,000 employees eventually will push out residents in one of the city's fastest growing neighborhoods, and lead to even more congestion in the already overburdened subway system.
Amazon announced in November a major expansion in Long Island City, New York, and Crystal City, Virginia. In New York, Amazon would spend about $2.5 billion to create an 8.5 million square foot campus on the East River waterfront facing Manhattan from Long Island City. In return, the internet giant is set to receive almost $3 billion worth of state and city incentives. While Amazon could generate more than $27.5 billion in additional tax revenue for the city over 25 years, local politicians and community activists have already come out against the deal. Opponents fear the high salaries promised by Amazon and influx of as many as 40,000 employees eventually will push out residents in one of the city's fastest growing neighborhoods, and lead to even more congestion in the already overburdened subway system.
but will they even notice 40 000 additional workers in such a big city?
about how bad Starbucks coffee is too.
Rescind any tax credits, and put even higher amounts of rent control in place to minimize "issues"
Or make Amazon dump 1 or 2 billion into fixing mass transit
Driving out their largest businesses. That is what happens when you elect socialists. How about you slavers just fuck off. You cannot manage the infrastructure and you want more money to prove your incompetence. Leftists and socialists are the Donald Trump of politics. Insane liars who care only for power.
Amazon won't be around in 25 Years.
NYC is already in the "stupid" line.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
Yeah, I don't think they'll get New York to listen to the best ways to drive away jobs.
It'll be a race with Chicago who can go bankrupt first.
With NYC's common sense gun safety laws (possess a gun, sit 18-24 months at Rikers before you go to trial), the city is the safest place to be in the entire US. Why wouldn't people want to work there? It may cost a bit, but you can always find something on a subway route and walk a few blocks to where you need to be. It is no wonder why Amazon located there, as NYC is a city that matters.
If you take away the Electoral College, candidates only need to campaign in NYC and LA. Everywhere else in the US is irrelevant.
Why are poor citizens living where they can't afford to live? If you can't make the rent in NYC, move to Syracuse or Buffalo or Scranton. Or Ghomerville Ak! An individual has no legal/moral right to live amongst his betters in some arbitrary Fernberg. Tuff tit.
NYC metro area is over 13,000 square miles (including suburbs). And most people live in huge skyscrapers that increase livable square footage. They have a total population over 24 million people. GDP p[er capita is over 84,000.
Seattle covers 142 sq miles. Most people live in buildings without elevators. The metro area covers 8,186 square miles, with most . Their total population is around 3.7 million.
Yes, Amazon is a big deal, single-handedly raising the wealth in a city that AFTER the job increase is only 1/7 the population. The upper class in Seattle is dominated by Amazon.
We will barely see them in NYC.
The idea that Amazon's 25,000 jobs will be more than a drop in the bucket for the Big Apple is a freaking joke.
It's like the captain of a 100 ft dinner cruise warning the captain of a cruise ship that those news passengers sure do eat a lot of food, and they better stock up on the steak.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
On something that could have easily been done via email?
Any politician who does this kind of free vacation shit should be shot.
Seattle city council is not in a position to give anyone advice about anything, outside of how to spread an opioid epidemic in their city.
if they don't handle this correctly, NY,NY could end up with one of the highest costs of living in the country.
Completely agree. We should also note that even before Amazon HQ2, Long Island City was far down the path of gentrification with rapidly rising white collar offices and luxury apartments. HQ2 merely cements a trend that has long been in progress and gives opponents of gentrification a clear, single target they can focus their wrath on in a last ditch attempt to slow the trend.
"This isn’t about being anti-growth or anti-corporation. It’s about corporate accountability and shared responsibility," Mosqueda said in an interview with Bloomberg ahead of the event. "These companies do well because of our workforce and infrastructure, and they’ll continue to do well if they invest in that infrastructure."
So a town that Amazon is fleeing, excuse me, "avoiding" is telling their competition that the best way to invite new businesses is to wrap them in a cozy web of yet more new rules, policies, procedures, laws and regulations? Do they ever wonder why Amazon might be looking for new places to grow?
Mosqueda said New York must act now with new taxes to generate revenue that will be needed for affordable housing. She also cautioned against letting... gestures pass as being adequate to address complex and costly problems of housing and transportation.
So a city of less than one million, that is doing a notoriously bad job of managing their social problems, is busy telling a city of over eight million how to use socialism to manage the problem of having too many jobs?
Sounds like a job for Elon and the Boring Company!
Ok. I live in Washington and I've watched the city of Seattle crap on itself (no really) over the years till they have the problems they've created. But what the heck is two CITY council members flying across the country on the cities dime doing in New York? YOU'RE A CITY COUNCIL MEMEBER! THAT'S IT! Try working on your own disaster of a city you've created (not Amazon or Microsoft or anyone else) and here is a clue: USE THE PHONE TO GIVE NEW YORK YOUR OPINION! Save the tax payer money instead of taking a New York vacation.
Maybe there actually scared because Seattle is only a couple pony town (Boeing, Microsoft, Amazon) and if they push Amazon will be out all that tax money people spend...... Naw, they're not that smart.
New York, feel free and absorb Amazon HQ2 and start sucking jobs from Seattle. It won't be hard when the Seattle city council thinks you're the causes of all the problems in Seattle. Wait, isn't the city council supposed to keep the city working right? Right.
Shouldn't they be encouraging New York in hopes of as many Amazon jobs as possible getting transferred there instead of scaring the city off and keeping more of them in Seattle?
Have gnu, will travel.
These 2 are a joke. They are the reasons Seattle is a horrible place, not Amazon. They've repeatedly raised taxes that are the true reasons people are losing their houses. Seattle has bogus car tab calculations that doubled car tabs and any time someone challenges it, politicians fight against it. Seattle spends more money on the homeless than ANY other city in the US. 100,000 is the average money spent each year per homeless person. 1 billion in the last 10 years but the problem gets worse because the've encourage drug addicts to come to Seattle. Seattle looks like a garbage dump when you drive thru it. Addicts throw feces and urine on passer bys with no retaliation. There are syringes everywhere. Kids playing on fields have to be cleaned of syringes before they play. Amazon is not the problem, these 2 are and the others on the Seattle City Council are. Blatant liars who don't care about anything but taking money and blaming everyone else......
There are plenty of cities in the USA that have lower crime than NYC. https://www.businessinsider.co...
NYC didn't even make that list.
My city has average violent crime rate of 1.86 per 1,000 residents.
NYC has a violent crime rate of 5.734 per 1,000 residents. Safe, my ass.
BTW, my city has a law that requires all heads of households to have a firearm and ammo. It isn't enforced and there are trivial exceptions, but it is the law. Having strict firearm controls doesn't correlate to less gun violence in the USA. Counter intuitive, but true.
I guess large companies love to call their work places campuses to make it feel as if their employees never left college and will be paid like student assistants. I suggest an even better and even shorter name, CAMP, as in work camp and concentration camp. They can even put up just tents and not expensive concrete buildings.
Sounds like something a jealous ex would do. Rather than expand their HQ in Seattle they choose to go elsewhere. Seattle better watch out or they will be the ex HQ of Amazon
$3b in tax breaks to incentivise a $2.5b campus?
Draw your own conclusions.
This perpetual motion machine Lisa made is a joke, it just keeps getting faster and faster. - Homer
Unaffordable housing
Congested, broken down roads
Terrible subway service with 100+ year old equipment
Major tax giveaways to (at times) the richest man alive
activists who hate successful businesses and the resulting prosperity
Your comment is written like someone who doesn't understand just how big NYC and the metro area really is.
New York City has gained an average of 64,000 people per year from 2010 -- 2017.
Furthermore, NYC has the best commuter rail access in the country and 20,000,000 people live in the NYC metro area. 0.2% of that population is Amazon's 40k. I'm not arguing against loosening zoning restrictions, but the idea that you can't find room for another 40,000 people in 13,000 square miles is pretty absurd.
Support a few technologists in Washington.
... to get New Yorkers to embrace HQ2 than for Seattle counclepeople to come and tell NYC not to let Amazon in the door.
> in the already overburdened subway system.
Maybe they should build more roads, or expand their subway system, or something...