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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

#71

Post by michaelt »

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 --…

  My shock is the dual narrative on "tech pays too much --
  down with tech" "tech pays too little -- down with tech."
  This reeks of false excuses
If my office was 35 Fahrenheit in the mornings and 100 Fahrenheit in the afternoon, would I be justified in complaining it was both too hot and too cold?

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

#72

Post by cribbles »

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.

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 nevertheless "lifts all boats" via Seamless orders and bar tabs.

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

#73

Post by frgtpsswrdlame »

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.

I don't think that's the only way NYC politicians want to address rising rents. The question is, if a bunch of techies moving into an area is going to make life harder for the poor people that already live there, why would they want you?

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

#74

Post by moate »

jakelazaroff wrote: post #64
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…

Anecdotal, but I'm a tech worker in NYC who was firmly against Amazon coming to LIC. I know many other people who were too. NYC tech isn't in trouble — people just want it to be A) ethical companies that B) support local communities and C) don't rely on corporate welfare. I also don't really understand why AOC is being scapegoated for this — this wasn't her district and she's not a state or city politician anyway.

>>I also don't really understand why AOC is being scapegoated for this

Because she's being billed as a socialist boogieman by the media? She's extremely visible and vocal on the national stage that this whole HQ2 debacle has played out on. People in Seattle and DC don't know NYC's lower level politicians by name, and this is being billed as a national story because so many spurned cities and their populations have a viewing interest.

Had this been done differently, it would be a much smaller story covered by some segments of the tech media and local NYC publications with limited national coverage. In that reality, it likely would have been local community organizers and district pols being named in articles and scapegoated.

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

#75

Post by [deleted] »

School-Cotton wrote: post #32
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.

That was one reason for the backlash, but it wasn't "mostly" about that. I guarantee that people like AOC would have been against Amazon HQ2, subsidy or not. Edit to explain further: much of the backlash was about concerns like gentrification, or the inability of local infrastructure to handle 25k new residents.

[deleted]

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

#76

Post by okmokmz »

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…

> New York is the most important city in the history of world civilization, this shouldn’t come as a shock to anyone.

I wouldn't even consider New York to be the most important city in the history of the US, much less world civilization

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

#77

Post by TuringNYC »

leereeves wrote: post #68
kissickas wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not limiting the number of high-paying tech jobs in the Bay Area has been terrible for blue collar workers who don't own any land. People have been driven from their (former) homes by higher paid tech workers. I think it's easy to understand why people in Queens would fight against a similar fate.

>> Not limiting the number of high-paying tech jobs in the Bay Area has been terrible for blue collar workers who don't own any land.

I'd say limiting high-density housing is really what has brought down the Bay Area. In contrast, New York has mostly embraced high-density housing. Take a look at LIC: https://www.6sqft.com/queens-new-skyline-a-rundown-of-the-30...

When you build upwards, the sky is the limit, literally.

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

#78

Post by amyjess »

johnmarcus wrote: post #10
code4tee wrote: post #3

The NYC tech sector is indeed growing quite strong and is also quite grounded in the realities of business because of the diversity of NYC’s overall economy. Few cities in the world have the economic diversity that New York does. That drives the mindset to be noticeably different, mostly in a good way. At several meet ups recently the moderator wasn’t shy about warning Silicon Valley companies “I’d advise you to be c…

Which is why it will never really be Silicon Valley. No risk, no reward. NY is too expensive for anyone to sit around and take risks, likewise, it will never see the real reward.

New York doesn't want to be Silicon Valley, though.

New York is an Alpha++ world city. When New York looks to compete with other cities, it competes with other Alpha++ and Alpha+ cities. New York doesn't even think about SV. It thinks about London, Hong Kong, Paris, Tokyo, etc.

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

#79

Post by TuringNYC »

cribbles wrote: post #72
kissickas wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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 seems pretty regressive since poorer districts would get poorer.

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

#80

Post by wbl »

AznHisoka wrote: post #31
johnmarcus wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is why it will never really be Silicon Valley. No risk, no reward. NY is too expensive for anyone to sit around and take risks, likewise, it will never see the real reward.

What is this “real reward”? Housing is cheaper in NY (though certainly not inexpensive). Last I checked, we still have theaters, museums, clubs, etc too. Ok weather is a problem.

NYC has far better museums then SF.
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