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Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

nytimes.com

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Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#51

Post by CPLX »

tomtimtall wrote: post #19
hello_friendos wrote: post #2

Good, Amazon shouldn't be getting any subsidies just for having their offices in a city.

They’ll still get subsidies, just somewhere. The system being what it is, you can’t fault them for finding the fair market price of setting up their campus at you location. It’s a mutually beneficial deal, but now Mew York gains nothing at all. That said the system could be changed and laws written to prevent subsidies all together. Then competition for large workforces would be based on other factors.

New York does gain something, the much more vibrant and robust collection of businesses that will occupy that area instead and pay their fair share of taxes.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#52

Post by tomstockmail »

whatok wrote: post #22

https://blog.aboutamazon.com/company-news/update-on-plans-fo...

"We do not intend to reopen the HQ2 search at this time."

I wonder if this is to let some of the news cool, work behind the scenes with some of the previous offers, then surprise announcement down the road.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#53

Post by larrydag »

tribune wrote: post #36

1. $3B in "incentives" sounds like a lot, but would this have been a good investment? i.e. would the city and State have gotten a reasonable return in the long run? 2. New York already has a lot to offer in terms of labor market, real estate for employees, and access to capital markets. Did Amazon really need incentives to want to be in NYC? 3. No huge loss for either party. NYC doesn't need Amazon, and Amazon can ma…

Concerning 1. I believe that is often overlooked. It would not be hard (I suspect) to figure out the future effective tax revenue a municipality would receive.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#54

Post by melling »

melling wrote: post #34
forkandwait wrote: post #14

Of all the places, why did NYC offer Amazon subsidies? NYC actually has too many good jobs for the amount of space... I am also proud of my cantankerous fellow New Yorkers who fought this.

You won!

Was I too snarky?

How about a little more? The planet is sad because 25,000 people won't be taking the subway to work.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#55

Post by zelias »

If Amazon had just quietly announced plans to expand to LIC without the "HQ2 Search" dog and pony show they almost certainly would still be here.

Google buys entire city blocks and nobody bats an eye. Turns out that publicly shaking down cities across the US tends to draw out the opposition.

More publicity = more scrutiny = more angry opponents of your business decision

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#56

Post by WaltPurvis »

taude wrote: post #43
akhilcacharya wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doubling their office there still pales in comparison to the headcount projected for LIC. 7K max vs. 25k targeted for Amazon. Amazon already has a presence in NYC.

Would be interesting to know how many employees Amazon currently has in NY. I wouldn't be surprised to find out it's already in the thousands.

Uh, the statement itself says: "There are currently over 5,000 Amazon employees in Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Staten Island, and we plan to continue growing these teams."

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#57

Post by aaronbrethorst »

endofcapital wrote: post #46

The big tech giants seem to be A/B testing different ways of opposing and working with the government. Sooner or later these tests are going to start showing they have more power than the government, and they will start ignoring laws because they are irrelevant to increasing whatever metric is important this quarter. This may have already happened, it's really hard to say.

it has already happened. it's not hard to say. https://www.propublica.org/article/how-the-irs-was-gutted

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#58

Post by Alex3917 »

aaronbrethorst wrote: post #6

Google didn't need any dog and pony show or significant forms of corporate welfare (that we know of) to announce a doubling of their presence in New York. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/12/17/google-...

Google's expansion doesn't require its employees to live in a part of the city that lacks adequate schools and parks. Whereas if you work in LIC it's not like you can really commute into the city from New Jersey or Stamford.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#59

Post by legitster »

A bit disappointed. The narrative really turned on Amazon during this process. But I feel like every organization shops around for deals - Amazon was the first company to do it transparently and openly tell cities what they have or are missing. There was a real opportunity to bring tech industry to heartland cities.

In the end all they proved was this kind of stuff should just stay in the backroom. And good paying tech jobs stay on the coasts.

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