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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

#281

Post by electricslpnsld »

bobthepanda wrote: post #243
ng12 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you talking about? LIC has lots of schools and parks. It's a very residential neighborhood. > Whereas if you work in LIC it's not like you can really commute into the city from New Jersey or Stamford. Why not? Take the Path to the E or the metro north to the 7.

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.

> because its transport connections are so poor.

In what sense? I used to work in LIC and it was pretty easy to get to. Lots of lines go though Queensboro Plaza.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#282

Post by siidooloo »

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…

New York City has no current shortage of jobs or growth. Incentives aren’t needed. If they wanted to offer incentives for companies to move to Buffalo, it might be worth it. But NYC will be fine without it.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#283

Post by JohnFen »

jhall1468 wrote: post #235
specialp wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it was primarily a deal to ease the regulatory burden of building such a big thing, I'd be all for it. Admittedly NY has an issue now with too many layers of bureaucracy. But this isn't entirely what it is about. It was also about large tax concessions when plenty of large companies are hiring tech in NYC without any of them. A skilled employee in NYC does not last very long at all on the job market. The 25k emplo…

Ugh... any company moving into NY can get these same large tax concessions. Amazon got nothing special outside of reduced regulatory burden. Why is this not understood? This same subsidy is now going to go to 15 companies who all probably pay less on average than Amazon. There are skilled workforces outside of NY, believe it or not. And they aren't going to go through the regulatory burdens to expand NY to a major ca…

> since this point is being missed by so many people

I'm not so sure that people are actually missing this point.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#284

Post by YeahSureWhyNot »

jhall1468 wrote: post #173
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

Google doubled their occupancy to 7k. Amazon was promising 25k jobs. I'm stunned out how so many people in this thread are pretending thats equivalent.

empty promise is useless. did they sign a contract saying if they hire 1 person less than 25k and their average salary is 1 dollar less than 150k by certain time then they will refund all tax breaks? when bezos signs that contract then I would believe this.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#285

Post by ng12 »

bobthepanda wrote: post #243
ng12 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you talking about? LIC has lots of schools and parks. It's a very residential neighborhood. > Whereas if you work in LIC it's not like you can really commute into the city from New Jersey or Stamford. Why not? Take the Path to the E or the metro north to the 7.

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).

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#286

Post by mc32 »

skh wrote: post #271
mc32 wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn’t citizens united essentially try to overturn a previous BCRA reform which disallowed a non commercial entity from publishing a political film? Basically they were trying to “answer” (a la rap battle) Moore’s 9/11 film, but got knocked down by BCRA regulation because it was considered “electioneering” while Moore’s were okay because they were published by a “bona fide filmmaker”. I think it gets complicated but…

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.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#287

Post by wwarner »

This is really tragic and foolish. The taxes generated will far far outweigh the tax incentives offered. The local city politicians reversed their positions because they didn't get to bring up their pet projects in the negotiation phase. There is absolutely no reason why the city couldn't use new revenue to protect low income residents from dislocation. It's not a corporate scam -- this is real economic progress for a city with a 43% poverty rate.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#288

Post by coryfklein »

SCAQTony wrote: post #208

Hey, remember those Amazon insiders that bought property on the cheap? "...Amazon employees are apparently eager to get a head start on the New York City real estate game. Condo sales in Long Island City are soaring following the announcement that the Queens, New York, [a] neighborhood will host part of Amazon's HQ2, The Wall Street Journal reports. According to The Journal, one brokerage firm sold 150 units in four…

That was my first thought on seeing the headline as well.

However I think those buyers will still do just fine. I doubt very many people have lost money by investing in NYC real estate.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#289

Post by bilbo0s »

hguant wrote: post #260
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…

Living in the DC-NOVA area, Amazon coming here seemed rather inevitable. There's a confluence of infrastructure, cheap office/datacenter space, and a stealthily growing engineering talent pool that Boeing, Lockheed, Raytheon and the general smorgasbord of government contractors have built up over the years. Additionally,it wouldn't surprise me if Amazon has seen the obscene amounts of money Microsoft is making pitchi…

Yep.

Agree with all that, I suspect DC-NOVA will be a whole lot bigger than 25k workers now for Amazon.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#290

Post by dang »

CydeWeys wrote: post #159
ng12 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you talking about? LIC has lots of schools and parks. It's a very residential neighborhood. > Whereas if you work in LIC it's not like you can really commute into the city from New Jersey or Stamford. Why not? Take the Path to the E or the metro north to the 7.

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

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