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So let me make sure I understand you. You're giddy about big tech disrupting traditional banking and displacing commercial banks because of their greed and unethical behavior, but somehow you think big tech firms that will become more integrated with all sorts of sectors over time won't have the capacity to behave in even worse ways? Essentially all you're advocating is a change in actors, replacing bad ones with potentially worse ones. There's no way you can supposedly loathe greedy banks as you do and sit in gleeful anticipation of the day when a big tech firm like Amazon just completely takes over everything. The threat posed is much different than banking deregulation:
Instead, it’s that Bezos has designed his company for a far more radical goal than merely dominating markets; he’s built Amazon to replace them. His vision is for Amazon to become the underlying infrastructure that commerce runs on...
By controlling these essential pieces of infrastructure, Amazon can privilege its own products and services as they move through these pipelines, siphoning off the most lucrative currents of consumer demand for itself. And it can set the terms by which other companies have access to these pipelines, while also levying, through the fees it charges, a tax on their trade. In other words, it’s moving us away from a democratic political economy, in which commerce takes place in open markets governed by public rules, and toward a future in which the exchange of goods occurs in a private arena governed by Amazon. It’s a setup that inevitably transfers wealth to the few—and with it, the power over such crucial questions as which books and ideas get published and promoted, who may ply a trade and on what terms, and whether given communities will succeed or fail.
I think it's inevitable that Amazon will either be broken up by the government or Bezos will spin AWS off. Long-term, it's quite possible that tech will have to be regulated as a public utility. In any case, there's no way the government would just sit back and let a handful of tech companies control an extremely disproportionate share of the economy via ownership of vast majority of the digital infrastructure and one company in particular that has that going plus utter dominance over traditional industries. That would necessitate a total restructuring of the national and even global economy. Otherwise, the Umbrella Corporation might not just remain a fictional entity.
Let me be clear, I don't like Jeff Bezos, or even Amazon, for that matter. This is what I just posed on another thread, regarding the banking disruption:
No body thinks that Amazon or any other tech company will dominate the financial industry. As far as being disruptive, they already are! I have read many financial articles which discuss this topic, and the existing banking system is ripe for disruption. This DOES NOT mean that traditional banks will disappear, far from it. But it will inject much-needed competition which will have the result of lowering prices. Banking is a commodity business.
The government (in The USA and Europe) are trying to contain "Big Tech" because of past and ongoing abuses of collection and dissemination of confidential user data; Facebook is the poster boy in this regard. In addition, Europe is attempting to levy a 3% "internet commerce tax" which the US is rightly so pushing back on. Amazon already dominates the e-commerce space; owns a logistics network which includes its own airline fleet, trucking fleet and delivery trucks; is in the grocery business; and is also in the credit card and commercial & consumer lending space. Already a disrupter !
I think that Bezos is a prick, but he clearly is a visionary. He can think what he wants, but as long as he breaks no laws, including anti trust laws, I don't see what the government can do. If it's not Amazon, it will be another tech company, but Amazon seems to be much farther ahead in consolidating their e-commerce platform. Amazon is a private company - nobody is forced to buy online products from them, buy groceries from them, or borrow money from them. As long as there are other options, the consumer is free to make their own decisions.
People have been talking about breaking up big (too big to fail) banks for years, yet that was never done. Same with Microsoft, Google etc.
To be clear, big tech will never dominate or control the banking sector; they wouldn't be allowed to do so even if they wanted. In my case, disruption would increase banking competition and lower pricing for consumers, which some view as a good thing.
I didn't see this as a case of "Charlotte envy" at all; everybody the reporters spoke to were reasonable in their responses and apparently it was a story up there due to how heavily Charlotte was being advertised (which makes sense). If anything, the point of the whole thing was to maybe get Raleigh leaders to think along similar lines.
Now the Amazon thing? Yeah that was definitely an example of stoking the flames so to speak and although I know Charlotte is more sensitive when it comes to its image, it was a bit disappointing to Charlotte beat itself up way more than it should over not making the finalist list when the entire exercise turned out to be a huge exercise in vanity on Amazon's part.
A billboard promoting tourism is nothing more than what it seems. That city is promoting tourism in nearby populated areas.
Asheville advertises heavily in Atlanta, and so does Chattanooga in the summer.
Raleigh folks support Charlotte because it's within the state's borders. They aren't envious though, except for the youngsters who love tall buildings.
A billboard promoting tourism is nothing more than what it seems. That city is promoting tourism in nearby populated areas.
Asheville advertises heavily in Atlanta, and so does Chattanooga in the summer.
Raleigh folks support Charlotte because it's within the state's borders. They aren't envious though, except for the youngsters who love tall buildings.
I am surprised that "billboards" exist today. Even the fancy LED type. They are dinosaurs of bygone era. I believe that some people in Raleigh were shocked to see a giant sign on stilts talking about another city. Anyway most Raleigh folks are interested in cities like Charleston, Asheville and Savannah. None of those cities have giant signs, on stilts, mounted in prominent locations in the city.
No, Raleigh doesn't support any city because it's within the state borders, especially Charlotte. Thems fightin' words.
A billboard promoting tourism is nothing more than what it seems. That city is promoting tourism in nearby populated areas.
Asheville advertises heavily in Atlanta, and so does Chattanooga in the summer.
Raleigh folks support Charlotte because it's within the state's borders. They aren't envious though, except for the youngsters who love tall buildings.
I think it’s the older folks who place stock in skylines . New age millennials and hipster types are all about space conservation , shared working spaces , minimalism, going green , etc .
This is South End. Its density is rapidly approaching 10,000 people per square mile. It stretches nearly 3 miles south of downtown Charlotte. Please post a picture of Raleigh's non-downtown equivalent. Thanks
And who says this image is a good thing?
Raleigh is about raising families in a safe neighborhood. It's about an all-around low stress, affordable, small city where the family has enough money left over for beach trips, mountain weekends, or a drive to D.C or NYC for the weekend.
I doubt even SF residents would fawn over this image as something to be desired.
I think it's great that Charlotte could one day be the most walkable city in the Southeast, but it's not the end all to end all, especially in a city with land in all 4 directions.
Raleigh is about raising families in a safe neighborhood. It's about an all-around low stress, affordable, small city where the family has enough money left over for beach trips, mountain weekends, or a drive to D.C or NYC for the weekend.
I doubt even SF residents would fawn over this image as something to be desired.
I think it's great that Charlotte could one day be the most walkable city in the Southeast, but it's not the end all to end all, especially in a city with land in all 4 directions.
SF would love that!
Instead, they have long slow streetcars. Any city would love at least a light rail with ROWs. But geography isn’t on their side
That's not how Atlanta described central Charlotte nearly 5 years ago. You will NEVER see NC's capital city write anything like this about Charlotte. You just won't. Why? Because Raleigh's "Charlotte-envy" is THAT real! (And the latest choice by MLS only made things worse).
Charlotte is increasingly thought of as a rival or peer to Atlanta because of its skyline. People remember skylines and associate them with large cities.
Most people in Atlanta don't realize that Charlotte's metro population is only 2.8 million, part of that is because its skyline looks like a metro 3 times as large.
Atlantans were perplexed by Raleigh being a HQ2 finalist because Raleigh is/looks small by itself and they didn't think the Triangle was what was being considered, not just Raleigh. (the Triangle being split into 2 MSAs didn't help either.)
But newspaper articles highlighting a city in the travel section or business section is mostly a journalist fulfilling his quota. You can't extrapolate a entire population as having a view towards a city by one journalist's story.
I can see Raleigh's newspaper running a story about Charlotte like this simply because the people in Raleigh view Charlotte, when they do think about it, as NC's urban-looking tall city, and one is enough for NC.
I honestly believe that 80% of Raleigh residents do not have any aspirations to feel like, or become a big city, nor look like Charlotte.
You have to remember that Raleigh is on so many best of lists, that residents don't really get past all the accolades already bestowed upon the Triangle, and it's growing at more-or-less the same clip as Charlotte.
So I disagree that there is any "charlotte envy" except my by 20-somethings on here who love the thought of living in a big city.
It's wonderful that NC has distinctly different populated areas.
I need to go spend 6 months in Charlotte to see what living there does to people's opinions and perspectives to make it seem like everywhere else is jealous of Charlotte's progress.
Raleigh's belated development activity mostly on a smaller scale is as expected by it's wait-and-see approach to development to adopt what's successful and wait for the fads to fizzle out.
North Carolineans are about no-nonsense, quality decision-making which means slow, measured growth focusing on quality. "To Be, Rather Than to Seem."
Atlantans were perplexed by Raleigh being a HQ2 finalist because Raleigh is/looks small by itself and they didn't think the Triangle was what was being considered, not just Raleigh. (the Triangle being split into 2 MSAs didn't help either.)
I honestly believe that 80% of Raleigh residents do not have any aspirations to feel like, or become a big city, nor look like Charlotte.
You have to remember that Raleigh is on so many best of lists, that residents don't really get past all the accolades already bestowed upon the Triangle, and it's growing at more-or-less the same clip as Charlotte.
I agree with some of what you said but disagree with other items. If the "Atlantans" were perplexed by Raleigh's HQ2 finalist status it's because many have no idea that this area is a strong tech and life sciences hub. Turns out, it was all a dog-and-pony show by Amazon, but the finalist selection was a huge (free) advertisement for this area. Being two MSA's is irrelevant since this area is referred to as "Raleigh-Durham" by most outsiders.
Regarding growth aspirations by Raleigh residents, I absolutely think that most people do support strong growth (smart growth), particularly in the CBDs. The demographics are pulling large, out- of- state developers into Raleigh and Durham from such places as Los Angeles, Baltimore, Boston, Washington, DC, Atlanta, Ohio etc. The new development projects are much larger, denser and taller than traditionally has been the case. Local developers like Kane are making a huge impact in developments like North Hills, Smoky Hollow (Downtown North) and the proposed Down South project. The newly-elected city council is much more "pro growth". You may not like a strong growth position, but I believe that most people want to see it, particularly in the CBD.
Light rail is dead here, but Raleigh has already started the design / buildout of the first leg of BRT, which will become our primary "mass transit" mode. As I previously mentioned, other cities that currently have light rail are also jumping into BRT because of the enormous expense and time required to construct additional rail; Los Angeles, Denver and Atlanta are three examples (yes I said Atlanta).
The surprising thing to me is this: Raleigh was still "reviving" its downtown between 2006-2008 by removing the pedestrian mall and building a new convention center. Then in 2009, the huge financial crisis hit, which put the brakes on development for a while. Momentum didn't pick up until around four or five years ago, and things are now on fire, development wise. This includes Raleigh-Cary, Durham and the Research Triangle Park.
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