Amazon HQ2 thread

[BrownTown]

Unrelated: why do people consider Amazon a tech company? I know they have the web services and such, but the core business (and the VAST majority of the employees) is just online WallMart. There's nothing really innovative about them. TBH I don't think I've used Anazon since I was in college and bought a few textbooks there.

[TexasPlaya]

Originally Posted by BrownTown

Unrelated: why do people consider Amazon a tech company? I know they have the web services and such, but the core business (and the VAST majority of the employees) is just online WallMart. There's nothing really innovative about them. TBH I don't think I've used Anazon since I was in college and bought a few textbooks there.

The web services is the money maker.

[BrownTown]

Originally Posted by TexasPlaya

The web services is the money maker.

Sure, but if we're talking about the HQ the question is how many employees there will be doing web services type of work and how many will be doing the same sort of logistics work WallMart does in Bentonville (obviously not a tech hub). I just don't see HQ2 as a tech hub the same way Apple or Google headquarters are.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by BrownTown

I just think it's very economically inefficient to have this level of inequality. The top few cities get all the good jobs and everywhere else gets the scraps. The country would be far better served if everywhere could benefit from economic growth instead of just a handful of cities.

But the U.S. doesn't really have the massive economic concentration you see in other countries. Our wealth is quite dispersed. Yes, NYC and the like have tremendous wealth, but it isn't half the national economy in one region like you see in France, UK, Japan, Korea, Russia, Argentina.

Somewhere like France, you leave the Paris region, and everywhere else seems stagnant and 30 years behind. U.S. wealth has been dispersing since the Great Depression till very recently. Really only Germany (and maybe Italy?) has more decentralized wealth.

[The North One]

Originally Posted by BrownTown

If you believe the 50,000 number then probably not. I personally find that number pretty unlikely though (especially in the near term).

It's going to be like 20+ years from now to get anywhere near these vaguely promised numbers. And nobody knows what the hell can happen in that time frame.

[The North One]

Originally Posted by BrownTown

Unrelated: why do people consider Amazon a tech company? I know they have the web services and such, but the core business (and the VAST majority of the employees) is just online WallMart. There's nothing really innovative about them. TBH I don't think I've used Anazon since I was in college and bought a few textbooks there.

The same reason people think Google is a tech company even though 80% of their business is just ad revenue. They propagate a tech image.

[k1052]

Originally Posted by skyscraperpage17

I'd venture to say most cities would rather have Seattle's problems (growing pains) than the problem Rust Belt cities have (shrinking pains).

The fact that even a Rust Belt transplant in Seattle admitted as much in an article I posted earlier backs up my assumption.

My point was that this process is going to foster a poor relationship with the community which will result in push back of the kind we see in the Bay Area and Seattle. NoVa/DC and NYC aren't really lacking for economic development and the transportation/housing problems exceed what Seattle is experiencing. Drawing a ton of attention to this is going to hurt Amazon long term if they truly want to grow in those places.

[k1052]

Originally Posted by BrownTown

Sure, but if we're talking about the HQ the question is how many employees there will be doing web services type of work and how many will be doing the same sort of logistics work WallMart does in Bentonville (obviously not a tech hub). I just don't see HQ2 as a tech hub the same way Apple or Google headquarters are.

AWS is pretty huge and growing. They also have retail tech.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by k1052

My point was that this process is going to foster a poor relationship with the community which will result in push back of the kind we see in the Bay Area and Seattle.

These metros are much larger than Seattle, and the economic impacts are much smaller. Half the employees in 7x the metro size will not be a big deal. NYC already has congestion, high housing costs, mass-gentrification and the like, and I doubt there will be a major difference.

[BrownTown]

Originally Posted by Crawford

These metros are much larger than Seattle, and the economic impacts are much smaller. Half the employees in 7x the metro size will not be a big deal. NYC already has congestion, high housing costs, mass-gentrification and the like, and I doubt there will be a major difference.

I agree that NYC as a whole will be minimally affected, but the area around LIC will be and it's already experiencing growing pains.

[skyscraperpage17]

Originally Posted by k1052

My point was that this process is going to foster a poor relationship with the community which will result in push back of the kind we see in the Bay Area and Seattle. NoVa/DC and NYC aren't really lacking for economic development and the transportation/housing problems exceed what Seattle is experiencing. Drawing a ton of attention to this is going to hurt Amazon long term if they truly want to grow in those places.

Fair enough. That I agree with.

[chris08876]

Originally Posted by BrownTown

I agree that NYC as a whole will be minimally affected, but the area around LIC will be and it's already experiencing growing pains.

The city long term will be a crippling transit disaster at the rate its going. Transit will be the limiting reagent. The city can push past that, but it will cause big discomfort for residents.

Originally Posted by BrownTown

Sure:


Oil, gas and chemical plants might not be as glitzy as a new office tower, but they sure as hell do create a lot of jobs and have spinoff effects. Also there's the fact that they're the backbone of the entire economy. Where do you think all the plastics come from that Amazon sells, where do you think all the energy comes from to deliver that stuff to your from door?

I doubt these new plants create as high of paying jobs as "HQ2", but they probably create higher paying jobs than your median Amazon jobs since most Amazon workers are low paid warehouse workers, not tech people. Also they're good blue collar jobs which are especially needed these days.
.

This is true. A bulk of amazons labor force is via temporary employees which start at $15/hr or depending on experience, $17-18. Certain titles, such as machine leads or supervisors, you'll see in the $18-20. Your general jobs like picker/sorter will start at 15.

The warehouse/logistics/3pl side of things.

The white-collar jobs pay much higher, but thats expected.

Also yeah, petro plants provide tons of jobs. And a lot of them pay very well too. Oil is just one source of raw material for plastic. Energy resources like natural gas play a big role too.

Energy is just as important. Kinda why I don't get why some say it needs to go away. Without oil, it would be a very, very different world. Not just for vehicles, but for your everyday common products.

[mrnyc]

the daily news chimes in with muted impact:

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics...fitch-20181107-story.html?outputType=amp

[chris08876]

Originally Posted by BrownTown

And I certainly don't find it likely that the local population is going to be filling many good jobs and they clearly don't have the skills needed to work such jobs and quite frankly a lot of them are the sort that have no intention of ever working a job at all.

Yeah, bottom of the barrel candidates. A lot of the CBD jobs are filled via commuters from the suburbs.

Its a shame, but also the reality. Newark has some good neighborhoods, but it also has a lot of crappy ones too. I don't believe in being PC, so I'll say it, that the ghettos of Newark give it its bad rep. The schools are terrible, the local population in those neighborhoods are terrible, and corruption is terrible. The youth is even more backwards. Even with the push for scholarships, and programs to get the youth up and running, they don't take advantage of it.

The Sharpe James era really did a number on the city.

Newark is one city where a little gentrification injection is greatly needed.

[mrnyc]

Originally Posted by chris08876

The city long term will be a crippling transit disaster at the rate its going. Transit will be the limiting reagent. The city can push past that, but it will cause big discomfort for residents.

looks like we are going to get that waterfront light rail after all.

it will rise up from the dead and blaz will claim he was always going to make it so.

[k1052]

Originally Posted by Crawford

These metros are much larger than Seattle, and the economic impacts are much smaller. Half the employees in 7x the metro size will not be a big deal. NYC already has congestion, high housing costs, mass-gentrification and the like, and I doubt there will be a major difference.

The real impact on those items is arguably small but the impact on people's perceptions may not be. Becoming the poster child for a metro's issues is a questionable move.

[chris08876]

I just hope the state gets involved more. Rail, and roads need to be upgraded. That BQE and Belt Parkway are parking lots. I know on SSP we advocate for rail, but let's not forget about the roads. The BQE expansion will take decades, and be built in segments. The thing is, I can't even imagine the traffic that this will cause, on an already gridlocked road.

Meanwhile, Penn Station is starting to resemble The Haj after 5pm during a workweek.

It will only get worse, until something is done.

Ughgh, I wish I were more confident, but the MTA or NYDOT is not a source of confidence to begin with.

[BrownTown]

Originally Posted by chris08876

Ughgh, I wish I were more confident, but the MTA or NYDOT is not a source of confidence to begin with.

If New York wants to keep paying 10x the normal cost for infrastructure then they'll never be able to accommodate this sort of expansion (not just talking about Amazon).

[chris08876]

^^^^^

Expansion will be pushed, but pain will occur for folks taking transit.

I'll also say that with Amazon for example, while we are talking white-collar jobs, the housing nearby needs to add more affordable housing. While its LIC, housing is still very expensive. Not just to buy, but for rentals. Even a 100k job won't really be well off. Folks still have to budget.

The city needs more subsidies for development. To encourage allocation of more affordable units as a ratio of the total units (market rate/affordable).

Affordable housing can include folks in the range of 90-110k household income, it just needs more volume in the area.

While I think Amazons future employees will be fine, I'm looking at the whole picture. Business requires talent, and while NY is a very desirable place, where folks will spend 50%> of income on rent or housing, its a thin-line between retention and leaving elsewhere.

High costs haven't caused a population decline, but I always wonder what it could of been if prices were 15-20% lower as a whole.

But with that said, the zoning is a big issue.

On a side note, NY might want to consider upgrading its bus fleet to include 2-levels. I think the city is reaching the point where double decker buses make sense (not just for tourists). Also expansion of its articulated bus fleet.

[chris08876]

Can't wait for this to happen. I guess it would be cheaper than building new rail.

But this NY. The metoo movement will skyrocket.

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Americans are too angry for this to go well. It could work, but fights would ensue.