Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

321–330 of 1001 posts

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#321

Post by dang »

drugme wrote: post #194
CydeWeys wrote: post #5

A shame. As an employee of a Big N company in NYC, this would have provided upward pressure on my salary (even if personally I wouldn't want to go work for Amazon). But I didn't like the big tax breaks, and as a taxpayer of the city I'm glad my money won't go towards subsidizing the expansion of one of the world's most valuable companies. It's too bad Amazon wasn't willing to pay their fair share.

As shame. As an employee of a Big N company in NYC, this would have provided upward pressure on my salary. The fact that that's all you can think about ... is exactly why people are starting to lose their love for Big Tech in general.

Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#322

Post by skh »

mc32 wrote: post #286
skh wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From Wikipedia: In the case, the conservative non-profit organization Citizens United sought to air a film critical of Hillary Clinton and to advertise the film during television broadcasts shortly before the 2008 Democratic primary election in which Clinton was running for U.S. President. The federal law, however, prohibited any corporation (or labor union) from making an "electioneering communication" (defined as a…

Yes, but had it been published by a “bona fide filmmaker” they would have been okay. The repercussions may be wider than anticipated or liked, but the decision to not allow them to advertise and show it because it wasn’t by an established entity seems spurious.

It had nothing to do with whether or not it was by a bona fide film maker. It was the timing of the ad and the fact that the movie was going to be broadcast. Movies in theaters were not covered by the law. Your premise is incorrect. The decision could have been narrow in scope. It wasn't. This is what people like me decry.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeGlzEavpTM

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#323

Post by josephorjoe »

djsumdog wrote: post #138
supernova87a wrote: post #121

As much as the anti-gentrification politicians would claim a small victory, this is a loss for NYC and the future development / resilience of its economic base. Cities will keep on losing this kind of battle until some form of government or policy arises to counter the power of corporations (which are de facto increasingly taking the role of governments). Under our current regulations and incentives, I'm actually gla…

Isn't this exactly the opposite? Amazon would have destroyed the general economy in NYC like they did in Seattle. This is the city ignoring the big corporation and listening to their people. NYC doesn't need Amazon. It needs to fix it's rail system.

Whatever may or may not have happened, NYC's general economy is way too big for 25k jobs to significantly alter it (let alone "destroy" it).

Amazon would not even have been one of the top 20 employers in the city and finance would still be the most important economic sector by far.

It would have been a big deal for LIC, but not for NYC.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#324

Post by zdragnar »

metildaa wrote: post #269
zdragnar wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I saw somewhere that the turnout for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's election was somewhere around 4%. The voter turnout for most American elections is really quite low, and I wouldn't be surprised if there were distinct differences in turnout between income percentiles. Perhaps that might go some way towards explaining it. Edit: I did a bit of research below, and 4% definitely does not seem accurate. I have no idea where…

This seems suspiciously low, do you have a citation for that?

I found a reference that the primary turnout was around 11%: http://www.gothamgazette.com/state/7774-a-closer-look-at-vot...

> With 98 percent of precincts reporting as of Wednesday, the State Board of Elections shows 27,826 registered Democrats cast votes in Tuesday’s primary in New York’s 14th District. With 235,745 registered Democrats as of April, according to the BOE, this comes out to a turnout of around 11.8 percent.

NYT shows roughly 150,000 votes in the 14th precinct for the actual election: https://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/new-york-house-dis...

The population of the district is around 712,000 https://ballotpedia.org/New_York%27s_14th_Congressional_Dist...

So, the actual percentage is indeed higher than 4%. Even still, it's quite low.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#325

Post by sjjshvuiajhz »

djsumdog wrote: post #138
supernova87a wrote: post #121

As much as the anti-gentrification politicians would claim a small victory, this is a loss for NYC and the future development / resilience of its economic base. Cities will keep on losing this kind of battle until some form of government or policy arises to counter the power of corporations (which are de facto increasingly taking the role of governments). Under our current regulations and incentives, I'm actually gla…

Isn't this exactly the opposite? Amazon would have destroyed the general economy in NYC like they did in Seattle. This is the city ignoring the big corporation and listening to their people. NYC doesn't need Amazon. It needs to fix it's rail system.

Huh? Seattle has one of the best-performing economies of any major city in the US.

And how does building a bunch of offices in LIC hurt the rail system? If anything Amazon would be a new major constituent that would benefit from improved rail service.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#326

Post by CydeWeys »

SilasX wrote: post #319
CydeWeys wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet there's a huge number of businesses that do have presences in NYC because the tax revenue funds all sorts of things that make NYC attractive to businesses that can't be gotten elsewhere. A lot of what makes NYC great (like the 24/7 public transit system, the best in the country) costs serious money to operate. You need to get that money from tax revenue. And businesses aren't actually easily-movable, not at a…

>And yet there's a huge number of businesses that do have presences in NYC because the tax revenue funds all sorts of things that make NYC attractive to businesses that can't be gotten elsewhere. Most of which were present there because they set up a long time ago. The current environment makes it so that you pretty much have to get a discount to make it worth starting there, per the famous reddit comment: https://ww…

If that's true, then fix it for all businesses, not just for Amazon. Amazon deserves the white glove treatment the least.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#327

Post by bogomipz »

jhall1468 wrote: post #164
specialp wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. The 25k number was just to make a splash and notice they aren't doing that again. Because there aren't really any other areas that could give them 25k skilled employees. They will scale up in Nashville which is expected since it is a growing area, and they will still be in NY due to the talent. The "HQ2" show was primarily to extract large concessions which almost worked. My initial reaction as a NY'er was "…

There's absolutely no way they are scaling up NY to the same degree they would have with the subsidies. There's no reason to. The value proposition is gone, so now Amazon will slow-roll growth in NY like they will any other office. The fact that you (and many others) consider this a win is an attempt to revise history. This tax deal was all about Amazon expanding very quickly. That deal is gone. But feel free to pat…

>"The value proposition is gone, so now Amazon will slow-roll growth in NY like they will any other office."

So the "value proposition" had nothing to do with access to a talent pool of qualified candidates to fill those 25K jobs? Because that would be odds with the reasons Google, FB et al have set up shop in NYC.

>"This tax deal was all about Amazon expanding very quickly."

Yet there was never any specifics of when Amazon would arrive at that mythical 25K job number. The closest you can find to any time qualification is the phrase "within a decade." I guess you have a very different idea of "quickly."

>"The fact that you (and many others) consider this a win is an attempt to revise history."

No the "win" here is not giving out corporate subsidies, more especially to a company that absolutely does not need it. NYC will be just fine without Amazon. There is no shortage of tech jobs in NYC these days. It been that way for over 10 years now.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#328

Post by raiyu »

avolcano wrote: post #225
raiyu wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I rather the money go to bringing tech jobs to NYC and making it a true technology hub then leave it in the hands of the city to spend billions on useless subway lines that are 3x the construction cost of anywhere else in the world: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-...

Ah yes, "useless" subway lines that carry [checks notes] 5.6 million trips a day. I'd rather have money go towards our public transit system, no matter how fucked up it is at the moment, than spend another cent on bringing tech jobs that will come here no matter what. NYC's been a "true technology hub" for a long time, regardless of one giant company deciding to abstain from coming here.

Referring to the second avenue extension.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#329

Post by dekhn »

dang wrote: post #302
jhall1468 wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's absolutely no way they are scaling up NY to the same degree they would have with the subsidies. There's no reason to. The value proposition is gone, so now Amazon will slow-roll growth in NY like they will any other office. The fact that you (and many others) consider this a win is an attempt to revise history. This tax deal was all about Amazon expanding very quickly. That deal is gone. But feel free to pat…

Please don't get personally acidic in your comments to HN, regardless of how frustrated you feel with other posts. It corrodes discussion badly, and we're trying to stave off that decline here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I think you misinterpreted his statement. "Cut off your nose to spite your face" is referring to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cutting_off_the_nose_to_spite_...

In this context, they're referring to the actions of NY (not the comment they're replying to), and TBH, there's nothing personally acidic; it's just a saying.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#330

Post by cletus »

So this was (IMHO) a shit show from go to whoa. The dog and pony show was a transparent shakedown where Amazon would still probably go where they were always going to go.

The whole splitting HQ2 I think showed this. Like it's not even an "HQ" in any sense of the word. It's just an expansion.

Also with talk of "25k jobs"... what jobs? Are we talking software engineers or warehouse workers? There's a difference.

I don't know the inner workings of this but it seems like Cuomo was the driver here with de Blasio on board. This was a missed opportunity. NYC needs several things from NYS that are politically unpalatable upstate. Top of that list is:

- Property tax reform; and

- Congestion pricing.

NYS grossly favours SFHs for property taxes. For example, a $3m brownstone in Park Slope I saw had ~$700/month in property taxes. A similarly priced apartment would have more like $1500-2000/month taxes. A $100m apartment would be taxed at ~$15k/month.

NYC has on several occasions tried to introduce congestion pricing on people driving in or into Manhattan (something I 100% support) but the efforts have failed as this is the jurisdiction of NYS and NYS has no interest in this (so far).

Why not frame this issue as NYC supporting these efforts to fix issues with NYC like these? The deal may have gotten much more traction were this the case.

So I understand the need for government intervention in large projects, say if Amazon were to build 8m sq ft of office space. Regulatory approval can be nigh on impossible.

That much office space is hard to find in NYC. I think Amazon missed the boat with Hudson Yards (probably the last place this would've been possible in Manhattan).

I agree with other commenters that the net effect of this is about zero. Amazon is trying to have a PR moment. They'll still expand in NYC as it suits their needs. They'll still get tax breaks like any large corporation in NYS/NYC would.

This really is just a corporate tantrum.

Post reply on HN