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Amazon Has Swallowed Downtown Seattle

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Re: Amazon Has Swallowed Downtown Seattle

#61

To be honest, the section of the city Amazon has "swallowed" was grass and weed filled parking lots 5 years ago as well as broken down buildings. While the construction has been a drag for drivers in that area, the city looks and feels so much better, IMO, due to their investments. Now, has Amazon invested enough in infrastructure to help the swelling population they are partly to blame for increasing (not to mention…

This, many times over. Yes, Seattle's South Lake Union now looks a lot like downtown San Jose. It's a completely different world from 10 years ago, though, and so much better. We missed out on a chance to have a giant urban park ("Seattle Commons": http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&... ), but credit to Paul Allen for executing an unbelievable plan B. [Bloomberg's article focuses more on Amaz…

[deleted]

Re: Amazon Has Swallowed Downtown Seattle

#62

To be honest, the section of the city Amazon has "swallowed" was grass and weed filled parking lots 5 years ago as well as broken down buildings. While the construction has been a drag for drivers in that area, the city looks and feels so much better, IMO, due to their investments. Now, has Amazon invested enough in infrastructure to help the swelling population they are partly to blame for increasing (not to mention…

That's how I feel about Amazon, too. It cracks me up some of the things the author laments losing. No broken bottles? No cigarette trash? I like having at least one area of the city somewhat clean.

It's the dreaded gentrification. If your neighborhood isn't kept in its run down and decrepit state the land values might go up and push out people who can no longer afford to pay rent.

Re: Amazon Has Swallowed Downtown Seattle

#63
post #3

> Amazon's is the most ambitious gambit of them all. When its spheres and three surrounding towers are completed, the company will have 10 million square feet of office space in Seattle, more than 15 percent of the city's inventory, on a campus that occupies more than 10 square blocks. 15% of a city's commercial inventory seems like a lot. Any comparable levels to companies in other cities? Is this typical for one co…

I live in Seattle and and I'm not surprised by the 15% figure. But that will change. The majority of Seattle is not developed yet and there's a lot of new construction going on. Give it a few years for all the current development to finish and your going to see significantly more apartment and office buildings. So the 15% figure will start to go down.

Re: Amazon Has Swallowed Downtown Seattle

#64
post #2

"one of the best recruiting tools Amazon has is if people come interview on a nice day, and people are sitting outside having lunch from a food truck." Have they been to Seattle during the months of November to June?

People live in Alaska, Seattle is not the worst, someone moving from Alaska might like Seattle.

People live in Detroit, Job is scarce. Moving to Seattle to get a job especially if it pays well might be the best move instead of being unemployed.

People live in East Louis and South Chicago, Moving to Seattle to escape the violence because you want to raise your kids in a better place is not bad.

I'm not from Seattle, but I just want to say there are many valid reasons to move to Seattle. I say this because every time Seattle comes up, this discussion of the weather comes up, I don't see that when folks talk about London tho.

Re: Amazon Has Swallowed Downtown Seattle

#65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This, many times over. Yes, Seattle's South Lake Union now looks a lot like downtown San Jose. It's a completely different world from 10 years ago, though, and so much better. We missed out on a chance to have a giant urban park ("Seattle Commons": http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&... ), but credit to Paul Allen for executing an unbelievable plan B. [Bloomberg's article focuses more on Amaz…

Sorry for my ignorance, but what's Paul Allen's "plan B"?

To prove that the Seattle Commons park could actually be built, Paul Allen acquired, or acquired rights to, a ton of land in South Lake Union. When voters rejected the property tax levy, he sat on it (as http://www.vulcanrealestate.com/). Between 2005-2012, he built what became Amazon's headquarters (http://www.seattletimes.com/business/amazon-to-make-giant-mo...) and a lot of Amazon's growth.

Re: Amazon Has Swallowed Downtown Seattle

#67
Interesting that this article has a clear bias that Amazon is making Seattle better, starting from

> Inevitably, the company's growing presence is making it a scapegoat for common urban woes such as traffic jams and rising rents

> New, luxury, one-bedroom apartments packed with amenities that appeal to young urban tech workers fetch upwards of $4,000 a month, putting them out of reach of the Starbucks barista.

This makes it sound like only luxury apartments are becoming expensive and baristas are upset because they feel entitled to that privilege. Rent at all levels is raising dramatically, 12% per year on Capitol Hill where I live. http://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2014/09/seattle-rents-risi...

A lot of my friends work odd jobs as book editors, community managers, etc. and they are being priced out of the area. This is a real issue that warrants attention, unless you want everyone to move out of your neighborhoods except the well-to-do.

> To some long-time Seattleites, the new South Lake Union feels sterile, like an open-air mall. Wide sidewalks are devoid of cigarette butts and shattered beer bottles. Street people banging bongos and strumming acoustic guitars with mangy dogs in tow, a common sight in Seattle’s retail and financial districts, are conspicuously absent.

So the complainers are lamenting the lack of "beer bottles and cigarette butts," nobody "banging bongos" on the streets? Apparently failing to notice the "wide sidewalks?" What's wrong with them?

South Lake Union feel sterile because it's jammed between Denny, Mercer, I-5, and 99, four major throughways. Nobody has tried to urbanize that area for a reason. More power to Amazon for building it up though, and I hope it gains a neighborhood feel over time. I'm a bit skeptical; it feels to overwhelming, noisy, and overly corporate, cut off from the rest of the city.

> Meanwhile, the Space Needle's owners have complained that all the towers being thrown up by Amazon and developers hoping to house its workers are crowding out views of the aging tourist attraction.

I guess it's important that our iconic Space Needle is "aging." Yeah, nobody wants to see old stuff!

Re: Amazon Has Swallowed Downtown Seattle

#68

To be honest, the section of the city Amazon has "swallowed" was grass and weed filled parking lots 5 years ago as well as broken down buildings. While the construction has been a drag for drivers in that area, the city looks and feels so much better, IMO, due to their investments. Now, has Amazon invested enough in infrastructure to help the swelling population they are partly to blame for increasing (not to mention…

I've actually stopped shopping at Amazon. I'll pay and extra $10 for high ticket items to avoid that retailer. I'm sure many of the higher ups there don't have any ill-will, but they have unintentionally (or maybe intentionally; I dunno) become America's new Wal-Mart. That's a bad thing. Consumerist culture erodes long term sustainability. Laptop/cellphone replacement cycles need to be 10 years, not 2. Old electronic…

There are plenty of valid concerns and complaints about Amazon (I'll list some of mine below), but I don't see why you're blaming them for electronics recycling and lifetimes, or "Walmartification". Amazon has done a pretty good job of being an all-in-one place to shop online and having very low prices overall.

For cellphone replacement cycles, I have absolutely no idea where you get the idea that Amazon has anything to do with this. AFAIK, most Americans still "buy" cellphones at cellphone stores run by the big 4. You can blame them for the 2-year subsidization scheme. And phones are lasting longer now. I have a 3-year-old Galaxy S4 that works great. For a while, there were huge changes in the hardware, but it's plateauing now.

For laptop replacement cycles, again I have no idea why you'd blame Amazon in particular, but here especially, people simply are not replacing laptops in 2 years like they did 10+ years ago. It's a real "problem" for the PC industry in fact, because people are keeping their PCs around a lot longer than they used to. I've got a few laptops ranging from probably 4-6 years old, and lots of people have desktops quite a bit older than that. New computers just aren't any faster than old ones, they only consume a little less power.

Consumerism is something you can only really blame society in general for. And these days, with this crummy economy, I think it's probably less than it used to be: with rents so high nationwide, and salaries stagnant, and underemployment rampant, people aren't spending as much on trinkets and junk as they used to. Some things still are popular to spend on, like phones (but not computers), but overall I would imagine there's less "consumerism" right now than there was back in 1999 because we are not in a booming economy. When people have extra money to spend, they spend more; when things are tight, they don't.

As for valid (IMO) complaints about Amazon, here's my list:

1) they jerk their prices around a LOT. I have stuff in my "save for later" cart that keeps jumping up and down by huge factors (one pen in particular keeps jumping between $5-something and $9.99). Many things seem to start out at a low price, and then when I put them in my cart but don't buy them right away, they just keep going up and up and up. It really feels like a ploy to extract more money.

2) their prices are frequently not that low anymore. I always try to shop around for stuff, and will frequently (but not always) find better deals at smaller sellers.

3) a lot of stuff they sell is junk shipped from China, and it's not immediately obvious that it's being shipped from out of the country.

For a lot of small knick-knacks that I need (for instance, I needed a new windshield washer nozzle recently), I'm finding that Ebay is actually the best place to go, strangely enough. Independent online stores (even ones owned by companies selling on Ebay) usually cost about the same, maybe slightly less, but then have high shipping charges which isn't helpful if you're only buying one thing, and it's really easy to punch in a part number and find something on Ebay. You can find it on Amazon too, but it usually seems to be a much worse deal, though I'm not sure why. I wonder if Ebay has lower fees for large-volume sellers than Amazon. The main thing Amazon is really, really good for is the reviews. And even these are suspect these days because for certain classes of items, many of the reviews are shill reviews, or at least suspect, because someone was given the item at a reduced price in exchange for writing a review.

Re: Amazon Has Swallowed Downtown Seattle

#69
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

70's in Seattle in January is a lie, misremembering, or massive fluke. Not normal. January is high of 40's. Source: 20 year Seattle resident who loves it anyway.

16 year resident here, and I'm trying to think of a week where it snowed and hit 70 within a seven day period. I'm not saying GP is lying, not at all, but perhaps might have selectively remembered their time in Seattle in January. Perhaps the sun peeked out and it just seemed like it was 70 in contrast. :-)

Maybe they're thinking of Denver? Doesn't sound like the PNW I know. Although occasionally you do get some nice days in February. Not 70F nice, though.

Re: Amazon Has Swallowed Downtown Seattle

#70
The irony is that Seattle as a city is already extremely connected with nature. From their office they should be able to see Puget sound, Ranier and the cascades, not to mention lake union. There is a nice park a 15 minute walk away from their offices, and the city it's self has a surprising amount of trees. The hikes around Seattle are amazing and plenty within an hour drive. I work in downtown Seattle and have coworkers that have a ferry on their commute.

That all being said, I find the project fascinating and it fits in very well with the space needle, the balls should be glimpsable from the (useless) monorail.

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