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Yeah, this entire competition is a zero-sum game honestly.
This competition is a race to the bottom. New Jersey proposed $5 Billion in tax incentives. That doesn't make Chris Christie look smart at all. It does the exact opposite, it makes him look even more pathetic than he already is. His state needs that level of commitment (both financially and in effort) for other things like public schools, transit, infrastructural upgrades, basic services for those that live there. Not Amazon's HQ2.
I'll get a lot of pushback for this, I'm sure, but the cities that really win this competition in my opinion will be the cities (and states frankly) that don't get Amazon's HQ2.
Very possible. Theoretically, a large growth in jobs should mean increased cash flow, positive impacts to schools (parents that can legally provide tend to parent more effectively on average), and infrastructure investment, but there's no doubt that this will be corporate welfare on steroids. And the impacts for many of the people that already live in the chosen city will not be pleasant.
The longer term impacts are more uncertain. Amazon's business has scaled quite well for the most part, but over the last year, I've noticed a HUGE drop in quality of delivery and customer service. I've been using Amazon for a long time in several states. However, their attempt to adjust their approach to delivery services by bringing in more third parties and becoming their own delivery service is sub-par at best. Having a monolithic company in your city puts a lot of eggs in one basket. Who knows where the company is in 10 years...
Toronto has the largest waterfront redevelopment in the Americas going on right now which includes huge swaths for new office buildings as well as new college campuses. The location will have a RER, GO commuter rail, streetcar, and subway mass station and so can be easily accessed by transit from the entire GTA
Yeah, this entire competition is a zero-sum game honestly.
This competition is a race to the bottom. New Jersey proposed $5 Billion in tax incentives. That doesn't make Chris Christie look smart at all. It does the exact opposite, it makes him look even more pathetic than he already is. His state needs that level of commitment (both financially and in effort) for other things like public schools, transit, infrastructural upgrades, basic services for those that live there. Not Amazon's HQ2.
I'll get a lot of pushback for this, I'm sure, but the cities that really win this competition in my opinion will be the cities (and states frankly) that don't get Amazon's HQ2.
It is corporate welfare, but the promise is something more than trickle down. It’s a tangible promise of thousands of middle-class jobs, and the middle-class move the economy. Getting Amazon will have negative impacts on any city with a tight housing market, but cities like Atlanta and Chicago could absorb the company rather easily, and smaller legacy cities would be reborn.
Anybody else curious as to why a "Technology company" needs so many workers, all this real estate? Not mention they were in the red for a loooong while just started to make a profit (and barely relative to revenue)?
I will say that their AWS is a strong point (very surprised Google is not strong in this, I think they missed the boat) as well as the fact that they are becoming diversified but the retail side could be knocked off its perch, I've always said their website looks disorganized and it's search function is terrible and I've seen much better put together e-commerce sites but it's probably purposely done that way to keep you on their forever.
The customer service is good though, especially how they handle their mistakes.
if my city gats it, I just hope they don't just transfer all the dorky people and divisions over here just to get them away from corporate, like every other business does
Amazon has specifically stated it wants a city with a GOOD transit system. That automatically wipes out Austin, Detroit, Kansas City, Indy, Cincinnati, Columbus, Raleigh, Milwaukee, Nashville, & Memphis.
I don't think Amazon wants a southern city as it's conservative politics and attitudes do not fit in well with the image it is trying to project. That wipes out Atlanta, Houston, Charlotte, and Dallas. I also don't think they want a city in a Pacific or Mountain time-zone which wipes out Phoenix, LA, SF, Sacramento, San Diego, Las Vegas, Portland, Denver, Vancouver,Calgary, and Edmonton.
It also wants a city where these highly skilled workers would want to move to and just as importantly want to stay. These are workers who can get a job anywhere, anytime they want so quality of life is a very big issue........they want the urban centre to have urbanity. They need a city that workers really WANT to move to and not HAVE to move to. This knocks off Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Buffalo, and St.Louis.
NYC has all those things but I don't think Amazon wants NYC. Ottawa doesn't have the tech universities needed but Montreal certainly does and has a fantastic urban life, transit system, and low CoL but I think Amazon knows that getting unilingual English speakers to move to a French city will be a hard sell and Trudeau International is not a very well connected airport. Minny has an outside chance but it is very isolated and might be a problem getting workers.
To my way of thinking we are down to only a few contenders.............Boston, Toronto, Washington, Philly, and Chicago. All of these cities have outstanding universities, good airports, are liberal minded, have good transit systems, and a well educated population.
Washington has a unique problem I that it has almost no developable land in the city itself. Chicago and Philly have very bad reputations for urban violence, urban decay, and poor inner city schools. Conversely Boston, Washington, and Toronto have a higher CoL but there is a reason for that..........they are growing cities because they are cities people really WANT to move to and those that are there WANT to stay.
Amazon could reap the benefits of Washington while taking advantage of the lower cost of living in Baltimore area, the south Baltimore location picked for HQ2 is actually quite safe and "upscale", Baltimore's counties have some of the best school system and are some the wealthiest in the country. Howard County is number 2 or 3 in the nation. Also between Baltimore and Washington, Baltimore has the better university system, even better than Seattle (as is the case with most of the cities in the north east and Atlanta).
Anybody else curious as to why a "Technology company" needs so many workers, all this real estate? Not mention they were in the red for a loooong while just started to make a profit (and barely relative to revenue)?
I will say that their AWS is a strong point (very surprised Google is not strong in this, I think they missed the boat) as well as the fact that they are becoming diversified but the retail side could be knocked off its perch, I've always said their website looks disorganized and it's search function is terrible and I've seen much better put together e-commerce sites but it's probably purposely done that way to keep you on their forever.
The customer service is good though, especially how they handle their mistakes.
Elephant in the room?
It's declining IMO. Their call centers are becoming worse as is their shipping.
Anybody else curious as to why a "Technology company" needs so many workers, all this real estate? Not mention they were in the red for a loooong while just started to make a profit (and barely relative to revenue)?
I will say that their AWS is a strong point (very surprised Google is not strong in this, I think they missed the boat) as well as the fact that they are becoming diversified but the retail side could be knocked off its perch, I've always said their website looks disorganized and it's search function is terrible and I've seen much better put together e-commerce sites but it's probably purposely done that way to keep you on their forever.
The customer service is good though, especially how they handle their mistakes.
Elephant in the room?
They were always making a operating profit. Their losses came from growth (e.g. Building distribution centers, logistical networks, call centers etc) but if you subtract all those 1 time costs they've been making profits for years.
They were always making a operating profit. Their losses came from growth (e.g. Building distribution centers, logistical networks, call centers etc) but if you subtract all those 1 time costs they've been making profits for years.
This. Amazon has historically invested all of their operating profits in growth. It’s Not great for stockholders, but Bezos doesn’t seem concerned with that.
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