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It Started With a Jolt: How New York Became a Tech Town

nytimes.com

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Re: It Started With a Jolt: How New York Became a Tech Town

#101

Post by msrpotus »

CPLX wrote: post #5

New York is the most important city in the history of world civilization, this shouldn’t come as a shock to anyone. Everything genuinely important in this country ends up run from New York City eventually. People forget the Rockefellers made their money in Cleveland. But that aside NYC has always had a serious tech community since the electric grid was invented in lower Manhattan, or the transistor in suburban New Je…

I love New York but I’m pretty sure if you consider the history of the world, London, Rome, Istanbul/Constantinople, and Jerusalem (maybe Beijing/Peking too) are almost certainly more important.

Re: It Started With a Jolt: How New York Became a Tech Town

#102

Post by [deleted] »

EnderMB wrote: post #38

I've been wanting to move to NYC for years. I love big cities, and since I was a kid I loved NYC. I went on holiday there a few years ago, and it only reinforced the idea of living there. In practice, finding tech jobs as a Brit has been horrendous. I've applied for countless roles, including roles at all FAANG companies, startups crying out for people with my experience, and established medium-sized companies hiring…

[deleted]

Re: It Started With a Jolt: How New York Became a Tech Town

#103

Post by fjp »

TuringNYC wrote: post #79
cribbles wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This assumes the higher-paying jobs would have gone to the district's representatives, instead of to out-of-town yuppies. I am open to being contracted on this, but my assumption is that Amazon's HQ2 would not have primarily created jobs for underserved Queens residents. My own experience in NYC's tech scene is that a plurality of tech workers come from outside the city, and I am skeptical that their presence neverth…

I'm pretty surprised to hear about the district-level focus here. I was born and raised in NYC and have always heard of the city as a single entity. NYC has a massive number of people who come from every district into Manhattan for jobs and leave at the end of the day. Having a district-level focus seems like a poor resolution -- should queens residents then conversely be restricted from working in Manhattan? It seem…

It's about people getting priced out of their homes, their neighborhoods. Just from the news of Amazon, people in adjacent neighborhoods were told by landlords their rents would be increased significantly upon lease renewal.

People grow up in their neighborhoods and are connected to them and proud of them. Their are ways to bring up a neighborhood without pricing its residents out of living there.

The main issue that progressives took with all of this is that Amazon pays $0 in federal tax, demanded $3 billion in local tax breaks, and offered very little enforceable things in return.

We can't just let huge companies run around asking major cities to bend over for them and offer up their money and their souls for almost nothing in return.

Re: It Started With a Jolt: How New York Became a Tech Town

#104

Post by TuringNYC »

leereeves wrote: post #99
TuringNYC wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're absolutely right, but I dont see what is wrong with that. When you build high-density luxury towers, it creates capacity and fewer people "push out" into bordering areas. Contrast this with the Bay Area where the lack of high-density luxury towers causes people to push miles out and buy homes. Would the Bay Area have a housing problem if there were ~20 more luxury high rises Palo Alto? Seems to be that would g…

I think that's probably true, and the Bay Area needs more high density housing, but lessening the impact is not eliminating the impact. So perhaps it's less harmful for the current residents of Queens, but it's still negative. Why should they not oppose that?

If we're trying to oppose all gentrification, we'd also have to

- stop all jobs growth in Manhattan (10min subway ride to LIC)

- and/or we'd have to put a cap on salaries (what happens to doctors? minimum wage? how do they pay med school loans?)

- and/or ensure LIC residents dont commute to well-paying jobs in Manhattan

- and/or ensure only low paying jobs are created in LIC (how many mechanics jobs and other non corporate jobs can LIC support? Why havent they already been created?)

All of the above seem silly. At some point, you'd almost be breaking off LIC into a self-sufficient fiefdom in itself. The assumption would be that all the benefits that came from banding together as a city and creating a modern society were net negative to the residents of LIC. This seems quaint but doesn't feel right to me.

Re: It Started With a Jolt: How New York Became a Tech Town

#105

Post by Ologn »

chiefalchemist wrote: post #35

Google? DoubleClick? Perhaps the more accurate headline would be: New York Became a Tech Town (Because SV Ran Out of Space and People)? Not a criticism, simply an honest observation. But what industry doesn't have outposts in NYC? Why would we expect tech to be any different? Where is the story here? Where is the news?

DoubleClick was founded in New York.

Re: It Started With a Jolt: How New York Became a Tech Town

#106

Post by takeout »

TuringNYC wrote: post #11

I realize the anti-Amazon movement was a limited (but loud) group of individuals, but if their level of influence has lasting power, NYC tech is in trouble. Consider NYTimes' own article on the amazon exit. Half the people angry at Amazon were commenting that Amazon wasn't going to pay living wages (thinking that corporate HQ2 jobs are fulfillment jobs.) The other half were angry that Amazon was going to pay too much…

This is such a ridiculously bad take. NYers were against Amazon for the same reason Seattle residents were against Amazon taking over SLU. Nobody wanted 15k gentrifying jobs in LIC, half a mile from the Queensbridge Projects. Nobody wanted 15k transplant yuppies who don't want to contribute to culture at all. Nobody wanted Greenpoint, Astoria, and Williamsburg to turn (even more into) a gross similacrum of the Mission, where all the black and brown people get kicked out in favor of boring ass FAANG employees who only leave their 3k a month railroads to go to Soulcycle.

NYC is still a tech town. But it's not _only_ a tech town. You don't have to only be one thing in order to succeed.

Re: It Started With a Jolt: How New York Became a Tech Town

#107

Post by vonmoltke »

fjp wrote: post #103
TuringNYC wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty surprised to hear about the district-level focus here. I was born and raised in NYC and have always heard of the city as a single entity. NYC has a massive number of people who come from every district into Manhattan for jobs and leave at the end of the day. Having a district-level focus seems like a poor resolution -- should queens residents then conversely be restricted from working in Manhattan? It seem…

It's about people getting priced out of their homes, their neighborhoods. Just from the news of Amazon, people in adjacent neighborhoods were told by landlords their rents would be increased significantly upon lease renewal. People grow up in their neighborhoods and are connected to them and proud of them. Their are ways to bring up a neighborhood without pricing its residents out of living there. The main issue that…

> Amazon pays $0 in federal tax

Citation to actual financial statements needed. Their most recent 10-K indicates they paid $1.2B in total taxes.

> demanded $3 billion in local tax breaks

No, they didn't. At least $2.5B of that is on the table for any company that wants to build and office for 25,000 people in LIC.

> offered very little enforceable things in return

Not sure what you mean here. The majority of the tax breaks are directly tied to headcount or construction. No hiring/construction == no credits.

Re: It Started With a Jolt: How New York Became a Tech Town

#109

Post by wefarrell »

kissickas wrote: post #65
wefarrell wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Politicians (AOC included) represent their current constituents. Not future potential constituents who might move into their district, but people who live there now. The key issue here is rising rent, and this is something Local politicians (AOC in particular) campaign on. A significant portion of people here would see their rents go up without seeing any additional benefits. How would you expect an elected official,…

I am not an all a fan of how Amazon went about this farcical "search" and haven't deeply researched the deal NYC gave them. That said, addressing rising rents by limiting the number of high-paying jobs in a city seems like one of the worst possible ways to approach the problem.

The median income of NY's 14th district is 52K. My mother in law makes about that working in a hotel in Manhattan and is an immigrant who has lived in the same apartment in this district for 20 years. In what way would Amazon moving in possibly be good for someone in her situation?

I also live in this district but work in tech and have a market rate salary. Amazon moving in would be good for people like me, but the average resident of this district is much closer my MIL.

Re: It Started With a Jolt: How New York Became a Tech Town

#110

Post by leereeves »

TuringNYC wrote: post #104
leereeves wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's probably true, and the Bay Area needs more high density housing, but lessening the impact is not eliminating the impact. So perhaps it's less harmful for the current residents of Queens, but it's still negative. Why should they not oppose that?

If we're trying to oppose all gentrification, we'd also have to - stop all jobs growth in Manhattan (10min subway ride to LIC) - and/or we'd have to put a cap on salaries (what happens to doctors? minimum wage? how do they pay med school loans?) - and/or ensure LIC residents dont commute to well-paying jobs in Manhattan - and/or ensure only low paying jobs are created in LIC (how many mechanics jobs and other non cor…

> The assumption would be that all the benefits that came from banding together as a city and creating a modern society were net negative to the residents of LIC.

I suspect we could find many people who do think life was better before tech and finance took over. Not only in LIC, but in blue, pink, and even some white collar neighborhoods around the country.

Whether their opinion feels right to us here on Hacker News is only relevant to the extent that our political influence outweighs theirs (if it does).

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