Amazon HQ2 selected - and not Boston

[F-Line to Dudley]

Curious what people here think was the louder, more consequential "No" - Boston to the Olympics bid, or NYC to Amazon?

Catching IOC herpes more often than not leaves host cities under decades of crippling debt impacting essential services, most negatively impacts the area's poorest citizens who get the Games bankrolled on their backs, and generally requires groveling before more cartoonishly evil corruption to do any business. Fooling around with predatory tax cheats may strain services they leech off of, but generally only leaves behind the disappointment of a net-positive not delivered instead of outright pestilence.


In conclusion:

 

[whittle]

Curious what people here think was the louder, more consequential "No" - Boston to the Olympics bid, or NYC to Amazon?

Interestingly, NYC had a strong majority in favor of Amazon, while Boston leaned towards opposing the Olympics. But Boston Olympics did not really have any prominent opposition in local politics, while opposition to Amazon in NYC was lead by a powerful State Senator and one of the most well known members of Congress.

 

[odurandina]

It would be great to ultimately see maybe 4~5M sq ft from Amazon. Amazon will soon realize the folly of Nashville and begin to quietly eat up more and more of the Boston labsphere.

 

[tobyjug]

... and one of the most well known members of Congress.

And one of the least experienced as well. Still, who can say one way or another whether the lost jobs would affect her particular district, or that the lost long term tax revenue would have helped pay for her ambitious social programs. Being old and tired, I'm probably more inclined toward "get whatever you can and with both fists", and suspicious of flashy idealism. (The "party of Lincoln" sure seems fixated on her.)

Perhaps her loss will be our gain, even if incrementally.

 

[odurandina]

CHESTO MEANS BUSINESS
GE, Amazon HQ shifts could increase the scrutiny for public incentives

https://www.bostonglobe.com/busines...-incentives/MmvJORpxTrYfqoWnEYe8MI/story.html

Two of the most prominent headquarters deals of this century took major turns Thursday, twists that will influence the ways in which many state and city leaders handle public incentives for years to come.

First, the New York headline: Amazon bailed on its HQ2 plans for Queens amid an uproar over a roughly $3 billion package promised by state and city officials. The Seattle-based retail giant will go ahead with the other half of HQ2 in the D.C. area, put more jobs in Nashville, and expand other outposts. (Boston is among the cities that could be poised to land more Amazon jobs.)

Then, the Boston bombshell: General Electric made public its decision to sell its future headquarters property in Fort Point, and scale back its plans for the site. Instead of 800 jobs, there will be around 250. No shiny, 12-story waterfront tower — at least not for GE. Instead, we get a more modest headquarters on the Channel: The industrial company will lease space in two brick buildings, and move in this summer from temporary offices nearby.
contd

 

[stellarfun]

It would be great to ultimately see maybe 4~5M sq ft from Amazon. Amazon will soon realize the folly of Nashville and begin to quietly eat up more and more of the Boston labsphere.

Different strokes for different folks. The types of jobs that Amazon will be putting in Nashville are different from the type of jobs Amazon would put in Boston / Cambridge.

Amazon employees by state 4Q 2016, Massachusetts can't even make the top 10.
https://www.geekwire.com/2017/unite...ractive-graphic-shows-tech-giant-growing-now/

For current job openings, Seattle has about 9400 openings.
https://www.amazon.jobs/en/locations/seattle-wa

Of these Seattle openings,
Research science 122
>>> Alexa 12

For Greater Boston, Amazon has 442 job openings
https://www.amazon.jobs/en/search?b...location=false&country=&city=&region=&county=

Of the 442 openings 3/4 of the openings are in these job categories
Software development 185
Solutions architect 49
Project management technical 55
Research science 35
>>> Alexa 24
Machine learning science 16
Robotics 13

Greater Nashville currently has few openings
https://www.amazon.jobs/en/search?b...location=false&country=&city=&region=&county=
Of the Nashville openings,
Solutions architect 12
Software development 9
________________
Job openings (___) by job category by principal location
Machine learning science (342)
Seattle 184
Palo Alto 17
Cambridge 16
NYC 14
India 12
Berlin 12

Research science (278)
Seattle 121
Cambridge MA 30
Berlin 10
Palo Alto 9
Israel 9

Sales advertising account management (1389)
Seattle 160
NYC 106
London 84
Tokyo 65
Munich 55

Marketing / PR (733)
Seattle 304
London 58
Tokyo 45
Santa Monica 29
India 26

Audio video photography production (65)
Seattle 15
London 10
Santa Monica 4

Business Merchant Development
Seattle 139
San Francisco 76
NYC 65
London 54
India 42

Of the Alexa openings in Boston, a significant number involve creating non-English, natural language capabilities for Alexa, e.g., Arabic. If Boston were to be the center for Alexa natural language for languages other than English, that potentially means hiring a whole host of people that you won't readily find in TN.

 

[34f34f]

Much of the opposition was driven by the incentives ("corporate welfare") that New York was giving to Amazon. Sure, there are (strong) concerns about gentrification etc., but without the incentives, those criticisms wouldn't have carried very far.

This is is really a repudiation of secretive corporate welfare (in the same vein as sports stadium incentives that don't really work) and Amazon's legal but shitty tactics.

It doesn't have to be this way. In San Jose, Google has been very open about their plans for a new urban campus to revitalize the area around Diridon Station, and they aren't asking for any incentives. In fact, in New York City, Google is adding 7,000 workers in a new campus with no incentives.

My takeaway? People are open to big tech companies, but only if they come to contribute to the region, not to take from it.

 

[JumboBuc]

It doesn't have to be this way. In San Jose, Google has been very open about their plans for a new urban campus to revitalize the area around Diridon Station, and they aren't asking for any incentives. In fact, in New York City, Google is adding 7,000 workers in a new campus with no incentives.

My takeaway? People are open to big tech companies, but only if they come to contribute to the region, not to take from it.

Google has also been super low-key about their NYC expansion. I bet most New Yorkers don’t even know it’s happening. Amazon had been the complete opposite, and more publicity = more criticism.

If Amazon has just worked through the usual channels and opened a new office in New York (even quietly negotiating some incentives out of the spotlight) nobody would have cared and it all would have all gone smoothly. Instead they spent over a year trying to make it a national story and are now facing the backlash that they planted.

If you’re a company that wants to expand you should just go ahead and do it. In a thriving city in an economy like this, you can’t also expect everyone to praise you for it.

 

[Equilibria]

Much of the opposition was driven by the incentives ("corporate welfare") that New York was giving to Amazon. Sure, there are (strong) concerns about gentrification etc., but without the incentives, those criticisms wouldn't have carried very far.

I'd go with "supposedly about", not "driven by". This was cultural conflict, plain and simple. Non-white people in Queens saw Amazon as wanting privileged employees from privileged classes who would drive them out of their homes and make tons of money at jobs no one there now would be qualified for. The subsidy was a convenient excuse.

Amazon also had awful timing, choosing Queens right as the AOC lightning hit.

 

[Rover]

Amazon also picked the one place where they have the least amount of leverage. Anywhere else and 25K jobs is a huge impact. In NYC its a drop in the bucket. I wasn't surprised they chose NYC because it would be the easiest place to get a new office up and running. Talent pool & infrastructure are already in place. But oddly enough it also became the place with the easiest ability to tell Amazon to get lost.

 

[JumboBuc]

I'd go with "supposedly about", not "driven by". This was cultural conflict, plain and simple. Non-white people in Queens saw Amazon as wanting privileged employees from privileged classes who would drive them out of their homes and make tons of money at jobs no one there now would be qualified for. The subsidy was a convenient excuse.

Amazon also had awful timing, choosing Queens right as the AOC lightning hit.

Sorry, but this is 100% wrong. The polling (and crosstabs) on Amazon's HQ expansion show the exact opposite of what you are implying.

Latinos in New York supported Amazon's expansion 81% to 17%. African Americans supported it 70% to 25%. Whites were the least in favor, at 51% to 40%. All in all, the New York public supported it 56% to 36% and New York City supported it 58% to 35%.

The political pushback that blocked Amazon was not representative of the population at large, and it was particularly not representative of the view of people of color in New York.

 

[whittle]

I'd go with "supposedly about", not "driven by". This was cultural conflict, plain and simple. Non-white people in Queens saw Amazon as wanting privileged employees from privileged classes who would drive them out of their homes and make tons of money at jobs no one there now would be qualified for. The subsidy was a convenient excuse.

Amazon also had awful timing, choosing Queens right as the AOC lightning hit.

Also the state senator also leading the opposition is know for not getting along with Cuomo and was reportedly particularly miffed that he wasn't consulted for a project in his district. And, it was him getting an appointment that would let him kill the project that drove Amazon to back out.

 

[Brad Plaid]

And one of the least experienced as well. Still, who can say one way or another whether the lost jobs would affect her particular district, or that the lost long term tax revenue would have helped pay for her ambitious social programs. Being old and tired, I'm probably more inclined toward "get whatever you can and with both fists", and suspicious of flashy idealism. (The "party of Lincoln" sure seems fixated on her.)

Perhaps her loss will be our gain, even if incrementally.

Ocasio-Cortez is a child legislator with the intellectual sophistication of a 12 year old. All ideology no ideas.

 

[Ruairi]

Ocasio-Cortez is a child legislator with the intellectual sophistication of a 12 year old. All ideology no ideas.

pfwwwarrr, that's some hard hitting senior intellectual commentary there Brad.

 

[BosDevelop]

Ocasio-Cortez is a child legislator with the intellectual sophistication of a 12 year old. All ideology no ideas.

Check out the big brain on Brad!


Sorry, on a Pulp Fiction kick, carry on.

 

[KentXie]

Ocasio-Cortez is a child legislator with the intellectual sophistication of a 12 year old. All ideology no ideas.

Coming from a 5 year old misogynist, I don't know if this comments mean much.

Actually I know this comment doesn't mean much.

Brad really swinging hard to be the 2nd person to be banned from Archboston.org this year

 

[stick n move]

Google has also been super low-key about their NYC expansion. I bet most New Yorkers don’t even know it’s happening. Amazon had been the complete opposite, and more publicity = more criticism.

If Amazon has just worked through the usual channels and opened a new office in New York (even quietly negotiating some incentives out of the spotlight) nobody would have cared and it all would have all gone smoothly. Instead they spent over a year trying to make it a national story and are now facing the backlash that they planted.

If you’re a company that wants to expand you should just go ahead and do it. In a thriving city in an economy like this, you can’t also expect everyone to praise you for it.

Thats true. If they didnt make it a hunger games style competition and keep breaking stories about which cities were eliminated from their competition and who was still in the running, who made it to the final 4, which of those 4 have the best chance...etc and just leased some office space in queens or built a small office building it would have been a drop in the bucket in nyc. Instead they wanted all the attention... and they got it.

 

[shmessy]

Curious what people here think was the louder, more consequential "No" - Boston to the Olympics bid, or NYC to Amazon?

New York saying no to Amazon, by a long shot.

It's not even a real question.

Amazon had already picked NY. The Olympics never chose Boston. Boston was still in a competition with 4 or 5 other international cities and was considered a definite underdog.

 

[jklo]

Anywhere else and 25K jobs is a huge impact.

I think now that's why they wanted NY - Amazon could have gone anywhere but they wanted NYC because the 25K impact would have been much less and also because of the reach of the mass transit (which I greatly underestimated their desire for). But yes AOC scared them off.

Boston is going to benefit big time from this. I don't know what Amazon will do with the imported foreign workers now, but the College Kids... Boston seems like the obvious choice. DC I'm assuming will stick with their defense ambitions.

 

[odurandina]

Ocasio-Cortez' arguments about a new energy grid can't be dismissed out of hand. She has some good ideas, and she has some very not good ideas. The required study from experts to crunch numbers, and carve out a realistic plan has yet to be done. Jimmy Carter had a plan that was very similar to the Pickens Plan to get this country on a independent, clean footing.

You love electric cars? Well it takes a lot of energy in a much expanded electrical infrastructure to run them. You also need a great deal of manufacturing to mine and manufacture the critical materials, and then build the fleet of vehicles. Anyone ever seen the electric bill at a car plant?

Natural gas, Petro & coal must be recognized not as the devil incarnate, but rather the critical bridge to building the massive energy infrastructure required--that must not be squandered (re; what we're now doing). The grownups need to urge people to stay calm, reject extremist dogma--and instead search for a realistic solutions.

Imagine how you would build a huge range of improved nuke's, windfarms, massive solar collectors, and new generation of transmission lines without a healthy supply of energy to move the machines, and fuel the manufacturing that will make it a reality.

We can build a new generation of Nukes that are safe, munch Thorium and waste stockpiles, are failure safe in the context of meltdown, solar, wind, geothermal, and tidal power (there's enough tidal energy in the Bay of Fundy to run a significant part the country) can certainly put a huge dent in our crisis of fossil fuel consumption.