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

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

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 203 posts

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

#121

Post by untog »

avbanks wrote: post #112
lmm wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See what happens to the lots Amazon was going to build on. If they're sitting empty in a year or two, sure. If another company (or dozens of smaller companies) snaps them up and builds similar amounts of offices to what Amazon was planning, nah. I'm betting on the latter.

Well you might be wrong, the land will now be redeveloped for condos 1,000 total. " Patchett did toss out a scrap of news about what’s next for Long Island City. He said city land that had been slated for the tech giant’s corporate towers will instead become a mix of homes and businesses. That, after all, had been the original plan before New York decided to drop it and go a-courtin’ for the company. The new-old proj…

Given the state of housing in NYC that sounds like a far more desirable outcome than Amazon taking up all that space.

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

#122

Post by drugme »

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…

Which one is it?

The fact that some people may have been misinformed about one aspect of the issue (the number of fulfillment jobs) does not -- in any way -- diminish the perfectly legitimate concerns that others had about rising rents and displacement.

What if someone commuted from NJ?

The concern is not about commuters from the metro region.

But rather for the expect large numbers of transplants from many thousands of miles of way -- in exchange for massive subsidies positioned as "necessary" for the benefit of local job creation.

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

#123

Post by [deleted] »

TuringNYC wrote: post #20
nkozyra wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> NYC tech is in trouble. I don't see much support for your argument here. As I see it, the stance is NYC is a strong enough tech city to be able to say no to Amazon; to not need to bend to their every whim to bring them here.

I would agree that we didn't need to bend to their every whim. We could probably have given them no incentives or token incentives and still won the HQ2 deal. There was a time to do that -- when we were making the proposal, not after it was already agreed to by both sides. But that isn't the my argument -- my argument is that the entire rhetoric is nonsensical. My shock is the dual narrative on "tech pays too much --…

[deleted]

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

#124

Post by blang »

takeout wrote: post #106
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 Missio…

The diversity of Seattle has increased with the number of Amazon employees:

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/data/seattle-is-le...

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

#126

Post by CPLX »

vonmoltke wrote: post #107
fjp wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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.

Right. Leaving $500MM in cold hard taxpayer dollars to build a building for the richest guy in the world so he could promptly compete with local businesses. Which, to be clear, was not something a lot of those taxpayers were happy about.

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

#127

Post by CPLX »

vonmoltke wrote: post #94
code4tee wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The backlash was mostly about the tax breaks and government subsidies that would have been given. The argument was that New York is New York and doesn’t need to bribe companies to put big offices here.

> The backlash was mostly about the tax breaks and government subsidies that would have been given. The argument was that New York is New York and doesn’t need to bribe companies to put big offices here. If that is the case, where are the calls to end the Industrial & Commercial Abatement Program[1], the Relocation and Employment Assistance Program[2], and the Excelsior Jobs Program[3]? That is where the vast majorit…

This argument is obvious nonsense.

There was no outcry to prevent Amazon from using general programs that were open to all applicants, the problem was with the special extras they negotiated.

There's no reason to think that Amazon would have been facing opposition if they'd just announced a new project in LIC and applied for the normal programs.

They didn't do that.

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

#128

Post by CPLX »

avbanks wrote: post #112
lmm wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See what happens to the lots Amazon was going to build on. If they're sitting empty in a year or two, sure. If another company (or dozens of smaller companies) snaps them up and builds similar amounts of offices to what Amazon was planning, nah. I'm betting on the latter.

Well you might be wrong, the land will now be redeveloped for condos 1,000 total. " Patchett did toss out a scrap of news about what’s next for Long Island City. He said city land that had been slated for the tech giant’s corporate towers will instead become a mix of homes and businesses. That, after all, had been the original plan before New York decided to drop it and go a-courtin’ for the company. The new-old proj…

> a thousand residential units—two hundred and fifty of which will be affordable. The neighborhood will also gain 100,000 square feet of light manufacturing and industrial space, ground floor retail, a cultural center, a 600-seat middle school, and a one-acre park.

Those things sound like a much better addition to the area than one Amazon.

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

#129

Post by cdelsolar »

takeout wrote: post #106
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 Missio…

how are the yuppies not contributing to culture? we invented avocado toast.

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

#130

Post by pastor_elm »

gammateam wrote: post #48
nickelcitymario wrote: post #30

One of the biggest lessons I've taken from New York's approach is not to try and be the next Silicon Valley (as every community is trying to be). You can't beat the Valley at its own game. That's foolish. Instead, look to what industries your community has long been successful in, and develop the tech to disrupt those industries before the Valley does. NYC's example was to focus tech on advertising, finance, and medi…

Your whole post missed the important part about what can get funded and where. NYC is coming up, but the graveyard of quirky disruptors would still only be pursued in Silicon Valley. These non revenue generating companies acting as developer daycare need to be flipped from one portfolio to the next until you have a deal size big enough to matter, swap out the board and executive team and shop it to the public markets…

Huh? Tell that to companies like Blue Apron, Etsy, and We Work which are about as destined for failure as any Silicon Valley daycare company.
Post reply on HN