Amazon HDQ2---if DFW, then where? (Garland, West: professionals, centers, manufacturing)

[justsomeguy]

I was on board with the Amazon train but now I just don't know.

Unless you're someone with one of the high paying Amazon jobs, or in a peripheral industry that can profit from their presence, I'm not sure if you'll see much benefit. And you'll have to deal with the cons (traffic, infrastructure, etc.)

I'm sure ultimately it's a win, but something in my gut makes me leery of the whole thing.

I would almost rather see 10 companies with 2,500 jobs come (diversification) then 1 with 25,000 jobs.

[BLDSoon]

Originally Posted by biafra4life

Absolutely.
DFW is just too big for it to become a one company town. Do you think people in Fort Worth or Rockwall are bothered in the slightest bit by Toyota being in Plano? I would say the impact is negligible if it even exists. Yet the beauty of the strength of the metroplex is that even the people who are impacted, in Plano and Frisco, still have lots of other options for employment if Amazon should pull out a couple of years later. Amazon would certainly be a big fish in the DFW pond, but hardly the only one.

Y’all are speaking out of both sides of your mouths.

You’re saying Amazon would cause a major economic boom in the highly unlikely event that they relocate here and will have a huge impact on the economy but should the opposite happen (e.g they downsize, relocate, close the site for w/e reason) then the impact wound be negligible?

You can’t have it both ways. Either it would be a big factor in the economy or it wouldn’t. That goes both ways.

[biafra4life]

Originally Posted by BLDSoon

Y’all are speaking out of both sides of your mouths.

You’re saying Amazon would cause a major economic boom in the highly unlikely event that they relocate here and will have a huge impact on the economy but should the opposite happen (e.g they downsize, relocate, close the site for w/e reason) then the impact wound be negligible?

You can’t have it both ways. Either it would be a big factor in the economy or it wouldn’t. That goes both ways.

I think what I’m trying to say (and doing a poor job of) is that the strength of the dfw economy is such that adding Amazon would clearly be a benefit, but if Amazon were to pack up and leave a couple of years later, the negative impact wouldn’t totally destroy the area in the way that say Walmart corporate hq leaving Bentonville Arkansas would

[Soccernerd]

Originally Posted by biafra4life

I think what I’m trying to say (and doing a poor job of) is that the strength of the dfw economy is such that adding Amazon would clearly be a benefit, but if Amazon were to pack up and leave a couple of years later, the negative impact wouldn’t totally destroy the area in the way that say Walmart corporate hq leaving Bentonville Arkansas would

If Amazon's theoretical DFW operation shuttered, think of all of the real estate would be empty (Remember that one of the former World Trade Center towers could hold that many workers or that it’d be the size of Sam Houston State University's campus.).

[Capitalprophets]

Dallas is out of the option. Not happening as much as we may want to.

[BigDGeek]

Originally Posted by justsomeguy

I was on board with the Amazon train but now I just don't know.

Unless you're someone with one of the high paying Amazon jobs, or in a peripheral industry that can profit from their presence, I'm not sure if you'll see much benefit. And you'll have to deal with the cons (traffic, infrastructure, etc.)

I'm sure ultimately it's a win, but something in my gut makes me leery of the whole thing.

I would almost rather see 10 companies with 2,500 jobs come (diversification) then 1 with 25,000 jobs.

Voice of reason. I agree 100%.


Ask people in Seattle how great it's been for them to have Amazon taking over the area.

[biafra4life]

Originally Posted by BigDGeek

Voice of reason. I agree 100%.


Ask people in Seattle how great it's been for them to have Amazon taking over the area.

Hmm well according to Wikipedia, Amazon isn’t the biggest employer in Seattle. That would be Boeing. They also have Microsoft, Starbucks and Nordstrom’s locates there.
So in other words, Amazon has added to the strength of the Seattle economy without taking it over.
We all know the DFW economy is just as big, if not bigger than Seattle’s, and equally diversified. Amazon would have fit in just fine here.

For whatever reason, you have some irrational hatred of Amazon and no attempt to reason this out with you will work so I’ll leave it alone.

[rantanamo]

DFW's economy is quite a bit larger than Seattle's.

[BigDGeek]

Originally Posted by biafra4life

Hmm well according to Wikipedia, Amazon isn’t the biggest employer in Seattle. That would be Boeing. They also have Microsoft, Starbucks and Nordstrom’s locates there.
So in other words, Amazon has added to the strength of the Seattle economy without taking it over.
We all know the DFW economy is just as big, if not bigger than Seattle’s, and equally diversified. Amazon would have fit in just fine here.

For whatever reason, you have some irrational hatred of Amazon and no attempt to reason this out with you will work so I’ll leave it alone.

Wrong. I've been an Amazon customer for 20+ years (even says so on my Amazon customer profile) and I buy from them periodically.


What I hate is forking over billions in subsidies to one of the world's largest companies headed by the richest man on Earth so they can import meek substandard workers chained to a visa instead of hiring locally. I have no desire to pay extra in or for anything so that Amazon can fly workers in from Bangalore or Hyderabad. Nope. If I thought for one second that they'd actually hire locals, then I'd change my mind. But you and I both know that's not going to happen.


Duh, Amazon isn't the only company doing this. And duh, Amazon isn't the only company headquartered in the Seattle area. But the subject of this thread is (you guessed it) Amazon. We can talk about Microsoft, Boeing, and Nordstrom's in another thread...AFAIK, none of them are talking about opening a second HQ anywhere else in the US with the "creation" of 25k jobs for the low low price of billions in subsidies...so not sure what the discussion would be about.


(BTW, Boeing may have a long, rich history in Seattle and large manufacturing/testing operations still based there...but its corporate HQ is now located in Chicago.)


I have family and friends in the Seattle area and if you ask them "what made Seattle unlivable," they'll all give you the same one-word response: "Amazon." Not that Seattle kicked ass before...it was an ugly city in an ugly climate with terrible traffic and awful urban planning. Now it's an EXPENSIVE, GRIDLOCKED ugly city in an ugly climate with awful urban planning.

[biafra4life]

Originally Posted by BigDGeek

Wrong. I've been an Amazon customer for 20+ years (even says so on my Amazon customer profile) and I buy from them periodically.


What I hate is forking over billions in subsidies to one of the world's largest companies headed by the richest man on Earth so they can import meek substandard workers chained to a visa instead of hiring locally. I have no desire to pay extra in or for anything so that Amazon can fly workers in from Bangalore or Hyderabad. Nope. If I thought for one second that they'd actually hire locals, then I'd change my mind. But you and I both know that's not going to happen.


Duh, Amazon isn't the only company doing this. And duh, Amazon isn't the only company headquartered in the Seattle area. But the subject of this thread is (you guessed it) Amazon. We can talk about Microsoft, Boeing, and Nordstrom's in another thread...AFAIK, none of them are talking about opening a second HQ anywhere else in the US with the "creation" of 25k jobs for the low low price of billions in subsidies...so not sure what the discussion would be about.


(BTW, Boeing may have a long, rich history in Seattle and large manufacturing/testing operations still based there...but its corporate HQ is now located in Chicago.)


I have family and friends in the Seattle area and if you ask them "what made Seattle unlivable," they'll all give you the same one-word response: "Amazon." Not that Seattle kicked ass before...it was an ugly city in an ugly climate with terrible traffic and awful urban planning. Now it's an EXPENSIVE, GRIDLOCKED ugly city in an ugly climate with awful urban planning.

You really think that Amazon would not hire any locals for the 25K jobs?
While I don't dispute that there WILL be a healthy contingent brought in from India/China, I don't think it would be the majority. Even if you want to say that the IT portion would be all Indian (which understandably you are most concerned about), I don't think that would be the case in all other parts of the company. Amazon is not an IT company ala Microsoft so I don't think IT would be the dominant portion of this company. I've yet to hear of a major company's finance or legal or supply chain departments being dominated by Indian H1bs. But there is a first time for everything I suppose.


By the way, I stumbled across this article and immediately thought of you. If you haven't already, I think you need to run out and purchase several MAGA hats now lol


https://finance.yahoo.com/news/worker-visas-doubt-trump-immigration-150219937.html


I don't want to derail the thread so I'll leave that aspect of the discussion there.


As for Seattle, I'll defer to your friends/family since I don't live there. However I will say that I've always heard that the biggest reason for the runup in house prices in Washington/Oregon was the flood of fleeing Californians...hmmm sounds familiar.