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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

#421

Post by walrus01 »

puzzle wrote: post #190
walrus01 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worth noting that Google owns all of 111 8th in NYC. They're slowly not renewing leases for existing tenants and taking over the whole building. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/111_Eighth_Avenue 111 8th is a major internet traffic exchange point. It's also gargantuan, it's 2.9 million square feet and occupies a whole city block. One of the interesting things about 111 8th is that it was designed for much higher than no…

Some of the largest colo tenants like Internap already left years ago: https://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2013/07/29/inte... At Google's densities, they would never run a datacenter in Manhattan. POPs, sure, like their peering with https://www.peeringdb.com/fac/16 , but that's it.

Internap has never really been relevant as a large scale colo/datacenter provider, if you look at the square footage of their facilities compared to major competition like Equinix and Digital Realty Trust.

They're more of a managed services provider.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#422

Post by yourbandsucks »

ng12 wrote: post #285
bobthepanda wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another fare and another point of failure in what is probably already a long commute? Sounds unappealing. LIC will never become a second Midtown because its transport connections are so poor.

I won't argue that it's appealing but it is the norm if you live in the burbs. Not many people work right next to Penn/Grand Central/Atlantic Terminal/etc. Transferring to the subway is very common, and LIC is one of the best-connected neighborhoods by subway (NRW7EFG).

Out of all those, only the E runs through Penn Station, and only the 7 runs through Grand Central. Nowhere near as nice as being table to take any ACE train or any 456 train to get where you're going.

And god help you the days there are mets games if you're taking the 7.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#423

Post by Pimpus »

dang wrote: post #290
CydeWeys wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect Alex can't envision living anywhere except in the suburbs.

No personal swipes in HN comments, please. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

> No personal swipes

Yeah, this isn't Tinder!

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#424

Post by wgerard »

RPLong wrote: post #223

I guess I didn't realize how many commentators here were New Yorkers. XD Everyone's moving to more comfortable places with lower costs of living. NYC is not an attractive place for job candidates unless those candidates are already in NYC. Even companies with a strong presence in NYC are expanding in places like Nashville, Omaha, Dallas, Denver, etc. rather than in NYC. At some point, New Yorkers ought to ask themsel…

> At some point, New Yorkers ought to ask themselves why everyone wants to move to these nice midwestern cities.

Not sure why you chose the midwest as a qualifier here - out of all the cities you listed, only Omaha would be considered a midwestern city.

Out of the 15 fastest growing cities according to the Census, almost none of them are in the midwest [1] (Only one really: Columbus). Admittedly it's over a short time span.

Also: #5 is LA, a city I don't think anyone would consider to be low cost of living.

The real story is that the south (+ Texas, depending on what you consider Texas) seems to be growing rapidly, not the midwest.

1: https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2018/estimate...

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#425

Post by twblalock »

YeahSureWhyNot wrote: post #273
lccarrasco wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All new employees would've paid income and sales taxes.

all people who would qualify to work at Amazon getting 150k per year are already working somewhere making something close to that. this was not going to change employment rate or boost income taxes. this was going to drive housing prices, especially rent thru the roof though.

> all people who would qualify to work at Amazon getting 150k per year are already working somewhere making something close to that. this was not going to change employment rate or boost income taxes. this was going to drive housing prices, especially rent thru the roof though.

Those people might not currently be in NYC, and they might have moved to NYC to work for Amazon. NYC would have received more income tax revenue if high earners moved there from somewhere else.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#426

Post by tanilama »

zelias wrote: post #55

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

Yeah, professional protesters are a thing. It is not even NIMBY any more, it is anti whatever development. Especially in a ultra-leftist city like NYC, where in their mainstream political disclosure, business reads as sin.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#427

Post by hbosch »

apendleton wrote: post #274
lccarrasco wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All new employees would've paid income and sales taxes.

At least one of the following would have to be true for that to follow: new people would have to move to NYC specifically for Amazon (or to fill vacancies created by people leaving other companies to work at Amazon), or otherwise-unemployed people would have to become employed because of Amazon, or the people taking Amazon jobs would have to be paid more than they otherwise would. None of these would be guaranteed, t…

> new people would have to move to NYC specifically for Amazon (or to fill vacancies created by people leaving other companies to work at Amazon)

This has certainly been true for Seattle, fwiw.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#428

Post by JauntTrooper »

bilbo0s wrote: post #162
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 "…

I don't even think they're really gonna scale up in Nashville. At least not in any meaningful way. 10 years from now, both Amazon and Google will have right around 25 thousand workers each in NYC. The reality is that NYC is not Wisconsin, they don't need to give out money. EDIT: I'd even go a step further, and predict that both Amazon and Google will also have ludicrously large presences in the DC-NOVA area in 10 yea…

I don’t know, cities rise and fall at lot more quickly than it feels like at the time.

New York City was on the verge of bankruptcy in 1975, less than 50 years ago.

Detroit’s population started declining as early as the 1950s as companies moved to the suburbs.

New York has a world-class, diverse economy, and I expect it to continue to be a central engine of the American and world economy for our lifetimes, but it does require good stewardship to nurture the economy.

We may be on the cusp of a reversal of the great urban migration of the last several decades, with populations moving into suburban satellite cities as remote work gains acceptance, driverless cars allow for easier commutes, logistics companies and drones allow for easy delivery of goods to your doorstep, and urban housing prices continue to relentlessly outpace wage growth.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#429

Post by bilbo0s »

bryan2 wrote: post #373
bilbo0s wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't even think they're really gonna scale up in Nashville. At least not in any meaningful way. 10 years from now, both Amazon and Google will have right around 25 thousand workers each in NYC. The reality is that NYC is not Wisconsin, they don't need to give out money. EDIT: I'd even go a step further, and predict that both Amazon and Google will also have ludicrously large presences in the DC-NOVA area in 10 yea…

I work in middle Tn and the Amazon job postings have already started. I really have no interest in them though. Primarily remote work is the best.

They've already started in NYC and DC-NOVA as well.

I'm just saying that the smart money is clearly on DC-NOVA in the long term with NYC as the next big winner there.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#430

Post by loeg »

bluecalm wrote: post #147
tmh79 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the issue for me is that the main benefit of the tax breaks is capitalized by owners of AMZN stock, mainly Bezos, the wealthiest man in the world. AMZN is going to grow somewhere, they should pay taxes where they grow.

It's not mainly Bezos. It's mainly investment/index funds - entities that that hold people's saving and retirement accounts.

The point stands — it's taking money out of the pockets of NYC residents, and delivering it to AMZN shareholders.
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