10 ms·

There Are No Houses for Amazonians

91 points by SQL2219 9y ago

pascalxus 9y ago
CA is the last place they should consider, and that goes for any company that considers the cost of labor.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  Unless, you know, they also consider other factors beyond the cost of labor, which most companies do.
Overtonwindow 9y ago
It may be true that no city fits what Amazon wants, but I think Atlanta comes very close. It has plenty of housing, low cost of living, major airports, universities, a large population, and a decent rapid transit that could be expanded given a catalyst like Amazon. I think Amazon should opt for a low cost, big city, and let that city build around Amazon.
- ianai 9y ago
  Yep or Detroit. Detroit has lots of real estate with no use. I say this as someone from NM and would love them to go there.
  - blisterpeanuts 9y ago
    Detroit would be a tough sell to six-figure earners. Huge crime rate, terrible schools, dysfunctional bankrupt government, lack of local talent. Maybe an affluent suburban community outside Detroit, but those aren't going to be supportive of a huge new corporate HQ with all the traffic, construction, etc.
    - arenaninja 9y ago
      I come from neighborhoods that are close to Detroit standards... I would move there as long as properties don't come with tax liens (which I remember reading was an issue a couple of years ago)
  - jandrese 9y ago
    The problem with Detroit is they would have to import nearly every worker. Plus you need to convince all of those workers to move to Detroit. There may be some overlap between former autoworker and whatever it is Amazon wants, but there's still going to be a gap.
    - MSM 9y ago
      There are a lot of places around Detroit for people to live if they weren't comfortable in Detroit. There are some extremely nice suburbs that you can commute to/from in 30-45 minutes which is still somehow an acceptable commute time compared to most other large cities in the US. You also have to consider that you can live in a 3k sq/ft house with a nice yard for 200-300k. That's very appealing as a tech worker looking to get out of SV or other "hot" tech areas. As for importing workers, I think you'd be surprised how many tech companies are in the city already, I've seen a lot of people who suggest that Detroit is a top 10 city in the US in terms of work, one example is here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/joelkotkin/2017/03/16/technology-jobs-2017-san-francisco-charlotte-detroit https://www.forbes.com/sites/joelkotkin/2017/03/16/technolog...
      - ianai 9y ago
        I think it’s a fallacy to say it’s hard to move people given today’s tech and capabilities. Also given the over crowding of current tech centers. You also have to see it from Amazon’s stated goal. They said they want a viable second Headquarters. They want some place that could function if the other place went down. Detroit fits that.
    - smelterdemon 9y ago
      Detroit has one of the largest concentrations of engineers in the country. Granted I'm sure a significant percentage of those are specialized in fields Amazon isn't interested in, to say they'd have to import nearly every worker is a bit extreme. Amazon even has a small office in the city already.
      - Apocryphon 9y ago
  - micaksica 9y ago
    Do you mean the actual city of Detroit? There is little to no way Amazon is going to be able to import their workforce to live in the city of Detroit. A whole lot of the housing options there are extremely outdated or require extreme renovation, the city’s infrastructure is in crumbles, and blight is still a problem. Source: I have some friends that live in Detroit. Like, the actual city, not the Detroit Metro area.
    - crooked-v 9y ago
      Also, IIRC, a lot of the "cheap" property in Detroit has substantial back taxes any new owner has to pay on top of the hassle that comes with basically replacing a house from the foundation up.
      - alistairSH 9y ago
        That's a fixable problem - if Detroit wants Amazon, they can simply forgive/defer the taxes.
        ianai 9y ago
        That’s the first thing they wipe out if they want amazon. In fact they should wipe it out right now regardless.
    - dyeje 9y ago
      Housing is not the issue in Detroit. There's no major city with more room to grow housing / office space than Detroit. The only thing that would hold us back is infrastructure. We have virtually no public transportation, and the influx of all the Amazonians would take traffic to hellish levels. But to me, I see that as a positive. We need a wakeup call to finally overhaul our public transport. Source: I live in Detroit.
      - x0x0 9y ago
        As sfbay demonstrates, merely creating very high need for good public transport does not come close to guaranteeing said public transport will be created.
- creaghpatr 9y ago
  >It has plenty of housing, low cost of living, major airports, universities, a large population, and a decent rapid transit that could be expanded given a catalyst like Amazon. I live in Atlanta and all of these things are true except that last one. MARTA has neither the coverage or the competence to qualify as 'decent'. Even if they plopped the HQ right on top of Five Points (as is being proposed), most employees are still gonna drive, and encounter that world-class ATL rush hour traffic. That said, Atlanta is still definitely in play, and our department of economic development (which I used to work for) is one of the most effective in the country. They brought Hollywood to Atlanta already, Amazon shouldn't be that much harder. Culturally, I expect it would encounter a mixed reception.
  - ynniv 9y ago
    MARTA has neither the coverage or the competence to qualify as 'decent'. Compared to New York, Chicago, DC, Boston, or SF sure. Assuming Amazon isn't going to expand to a more expensive city, the only competing subway system is in Philadelphia. MARTA is unpopular, but cleaning it up and buying new trains is cheap compared to digging new tunnels through an existing city. No one points out that the Gulch site is currently a wasteland because we all know that if Amazon shows up, it won't be.
    - creaghpatr 9y ago
      The gulch is next to Phillips Arena and MB Arena- imagine the traffic during a weekday ATLUTD game and a hawks/concert. It's alot of wasted vertical space for now, but useful for temporary gatherings; we used it as a basecamp for a film shoot a couple weeks ago. I suppose they could rip out and replace Vine City with Amazon-friendly housing, but that would cause some issues.
      - ynniv 9y ago
        If Amazon moved to the Gulch, employees would probably live in O4W, Decatur, Midtown, or Buckhead, and take MARTA in.
    - Overtonwindow 9y ago
zip1234 9y ago
Where is the data from? How does Detroit not have enough housing to support such a company? I'm guessing a lot of cities can build enough housing. Detroit especially has lots of housing--maybe not new builds in certain areas, but they are tearing down blocks of houses right now and people can buy houses for 15k. I question the article's data.
- lithos 9y ago
  If you want housing that has had walls ripped off to get copper wire for selling to a scrap yard. Yes there is plenty of that. If you want to pay housing boom sized taxes on a house worth a fraction of that, there is plenty of that as well. Since you aren't allowed to reappraise a lot of property.
  - zip1234 9y ago
    A fair point. I'll agree that those properties are mostly not 'move-in' ready. However, the 4 year time period allows for redevelopment of properties. Also, my main point is that the author's data source is unclear. How do we know what was factored into the housing supply calculation?
Aardwolf 9y ago
Am I the only one who thought this would be about housing in the Amazon rainforest?
- seanmcdirmid 9y ago
  I was thinking about Greek Amazon woman warriors. The title really didn't make sense to me.
- kentosi 9y ago
  Nope. I actually was expecting to read about a lack of housing for displaced Amazonians due to deforestation.
  - marcosdumay 9y ago
    I was expecting something similar too. I'd just like to point that deforestation does not displace people.
    - lovich 9y ago
      I don't think that's true. I would certainly classified the tribes in the Amazon who get killed or pushed out of their homes by loggers and ranchers as displaced due to deforestation.
      - marcosdumay 9y ago
        If you are imagining a rain forest as something full of people, just forget it. For population density concerns, the main difference between a forest and a desert is that people can traverse the desert, so you will find way more of them there. When tribes and agriculture exist near each other, you will see economical interdependency, not one population pushing the other away.
- stefantheard 9y ago
  Another confused person reporting in. I read the title and was like "well, that's not completely surprising is it?"
vdnkh 9y ago
Interesting to see parts of NJ highlighted in the list. NJ used to have a huge tech sector, accommodating RCA, bell labs, AT&T, etc. but hasn't found strong footing in the software age. The old bell labs complex in holmdel (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Labs_Holmdel_Complex https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Labs_Holmdel_Complex), recently redeveloped, is undergoing a "tech renaissance" of sorts now, finding tenants such as Nvidia. At it's peak it employed over 6000 engineers on site. And it sits on a massive plot of land (complete with it's own substation, road salt facilities, wastewater treatment plant, AC plant, etc.), which is unfortunately now being developed into "luxury" homes. But maybe if Amazon started looking earlier than now when the facility was still dormant they would have found a suitable home here.
- Buttes 9y ago
  Hey yeah why not, I'd live in bits of Jersey. If I can work nearby in Jersey and be able hop on the PATH to The City on weekends, that doesn't sound half bad.
mikestew 9y ago
Completely unrelated to the topic at hand, but I've gain a new-found respect for Medium, having not seen this on the site before: "This embedded content is from a site that does not comply with the Do Not Track (DNT) setting now enabled on your browser. Please note, if you click through and view it anyway, you may be tracked by the website hosting the embed. Learn More about Medium's DNT policy" I think that's the first time I've seen visible evidence of the DNT setting actually doing something. Now whether or not that offsets the header/footer turds that litter their mobile site, I'm still deciding. :-)
- tedmiston 9y ago
  It's been there for years, maybe even since the beginning.
taw-an 9y ago
"That means that what Amazon is really looking for is something else: that special something." Massive tax breaks and giveaways. That's all this is about. It's a dog and pony show to see who will fork up the most to buy in to the delusion that it will pay off somehow.
- x0x0 9y ago
  Exactly. And what is particularly galling about Amazon is they essentially pay no taxes. Since 2008, Amazon has paid $1.8B in income tax while Walmart has paid $64B [1]. So they're basically leeches demanding public services while contributing virtually nothing. As someone whose name I've forgotten said, the fundamental question surrounding silicon valley / SV type companies is how do you run a country when a company with $0.5T market cap / Fortune #12 essentially pays no taxes. Who pays for roads/fire services/schools. [1] https://www.l2inc.com/daily-insights/no-mercy-no-malice/bread-crumbs https://www.l2inc.com/daily-insights/no-mercy-no-malice/brea...
  - PKop 9y ago
    Do the thousands of employees contribute economic benefit, as well as taxes, to Seattle or other cities? It's absurd to think that there is no tax money being injected into the city simply because the corporate tax collected is low. They are spending their profits! Some of it in Seattle, and in other places they have physical presence on wages, real estate, etc. Honestly you need to explain your premise that they contribute nothing... it's illogical. Where is the money going? Why are "taxes" the only way citizens of a community can prosper? Do wages not count? If they do count, would you like to argue that Amazon is not paying wages to thousands of employees? Do those employees pay taxes? Taxes aside, are the wages themselves beneficial? One final point: "tax breaks" in and of themselves seem silly to rail against, like a shareholder being upset at "discounts". Is your contention that a city giving any tax breaks will see less tax revenue as a result of Amazon coming into their city than if they didn't? Surely it's a question of how much no?
    - x0x0 9y ago
      Since our current system uses taxes from both employees and companies, it should be obvious that taxing employees alone doesn't cover our bills. Wages by themselves are not beneficial because cities and countries require money to build/maintain public works. The history of cities giving tax breaks to attract business and that resulting in a net positive outcome for the city is very very slim. See eg any economist (except those paid for by sports teams) that's covered this.
0x4f3759df 9y ago
Does anyone know of a site where you can bet on the outcome of this process?
- nathancahill 9y ago
  I bet that PredictIt would be willing to host it.
ynniv 9y ago
The premise is interesting, but some of the calculations aren't convincing. The first map of cities that "did produce 5,000 extra housing units beyond household formation" is particularly strange. Which city is more prepared for such an expansion, one that built zero units and lost 5,000 residents, or one that built 100,000 units and gained 100,000 residents? Without greater clarity into the data, many of these maps fall into "lies, damn lies, and statistics".
- Finnucane 9y ago
  Yeah, that struck me as odd too. Under normal circumstances, you wouldn't expect private developers to build that much excess inventory on spec with no expectation of being able to sell quickly.
- ynniv 9y ago
  In the 6 years from 2010 to 2016, metro Atlanta has added 94,000 "housing units". No one would even notice an extra 5%. Over the same period we also added 259,000 jobs, and 4% more isn't going to fundamentally change anything. https://www.huduser.gov/portal/publications/pdf/AtlantaGA-comp-16.pdf https://www.huduser.gov/portal/publications/pdf/AtlantaGA-co...
empath75 9y ago
Everything about this article is kind of dumb. Using this exact same argument, it would be impossible for any company to build any headquarters, and yet somehow the American economy still continues to grow. It's not like amazon is going to airlift in 50k people on day 1. Anyway, Northern Virginia is still the obvious place for second HQ, given metro access to DC, Dulles airport, the millions of datacenters, fios penetration and large numbers of local it workers.
- ianai 9y ago
  I really hope they go somewhere less “obvious”. There’s a lot of the US that really need a good local industry.
- UltimateFloofy 9y ago
  With AOL closing up shop in NOVA, theres a huge real estate gap that Amazon might be over to take over too on top of all the other speculative talk Northern VA already offers. I'm sure FFX County / Loudoun will place an appealing bid.
  - empath75 9y ago
    Aol isn’t closing up shop in nova.
- ergothus 9y ago
  I agree that the article fails to explain why a city can't increase it's housing creation when the market demands (sort of like most places already do, albeit with issues). BUT I think it's fair to point out that Amazon going anywhere where it represents a large change in the population will have a notable housing impact. Construction lags behind demand and the current markets in high tech areas have lots of problems with difficult local regulations, extreme rents, very limited availability, and general gentrification issues. Amazon will likely be a net positive for wherever they go, but it's a good idea to anticipate and try to reduce the inevitable negatives. I want to disagree with your NoVa conclusion, but I can't. It has location, population, infrastructure, though transportation is notoriously bad - almost always ranked worse for traffic than San Francisco and Seattle, usually beating Boston, and challenging LA depending on what you measure. (that's from memory and a few google searches to make sure I'm not crazy, take with salt) North Carolina would be the next natural match, but I don't see Amazon taking on that political mess.
pfedigan 9y ago
In my opinion, I don't think cities should be partnered completely with one company. We may be closer to a dystopian future than we think..
wavefunction 9y ago
The projections for Austin's population growth from two million inhabitants to four million by 2030 require an additional 167,000,000 housing units required. This seems to be a problem but not uncommon even beyond Amazon.
- jandrese 9y ago
  Every person moving in needs 83.5 homes?
  - syntheticnature 9y ago
    I'm thinking it was supposed to be 167,000 instead, which seems low unless there's slack space or projected construction (over 11 people/house).
- refurb 9y ago
  Why would they need ~83 new houses for each new inhabitant?
will_brown 9y ago
I think Miami makes a lot of sense, and housing has always been one of the top reasons. Notwithstanding what this article suggests (a little hard to follow), Miami housing numbers are as follows: About 12,300 new condos are expected to be completed in downtown between between 2014 and 2019; between 2004 and 2009, more than 21,000 units were delivered. And this is just downtown, “Miami” itself is a sprawling area with development continuing South and West where it’s suggested Amazon would set up shop. In fact some of the housing development has even been paused due to to much housing coming on the market and lack of demand (though the demand is actually there, local wages are not, reading between the lines foreign investment is drying up). Still the developers (deep pockets) want nothing more than to keep the good times rolling and bringing in Amazon would be instrumental.
- graeme 9y ago
  Miami strikes me as an atrocious long run bet for amazon. Rising sea levels + stronger + storms + porous ruck under Miami mean the city will be under increasing strain. And sooner than most people living there think.
- yahna 9y ago
  I can buy an overpriced condo in Seattle. rather have a place with a bit of space.
  - will_brown 9y ago
    I'm sure you can buy an over priced condo anywhere, but are there 30,000+ units available in those markets, which in my estimation is the point of the article vis-a-vis a housing market that can support 50,000 Amazonians. And I'm not going to knock Seattle, there is nothing wrong with cold, wet, dark and depressing...but there is something to be said about the year round Tropical weather Miami has to offer. Its why Miami has snowbirds and our number 1 industry is tourism (discounting Medicare/insurance fraud).
jlos 9y ago
>> Can any city provide a net increase in 5,000 housing units? Well, that’s a speculative question, but one thing we can do is ask if any city did produce 5,000 extra housing units beyond household formation over the last 5 years Calgary (Alberta, Canada, not Texas) added triple that in 2014[1]. Since the province's economy is commodity driven the major city centers are accustomed to boom and bust cycles and are used to adding housing quickly. Also of note, Calgary has rated quite high based on a number of other metrics given by Amazon[2] (though, to be fair its really hard to trust all bias is left behind in these analyses) [1] http://calgaryherald.com/life/homes/new-homes/calgarys-housing-market-experienced-great-growth-in-2014 http://calgaryherald.com/life/homes/new-homes/calgarys-housi... [2] http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/amazon-headquarters-calgary-tops-data-crunchers-analysis-jens-von-bergmann-1.4298204 http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/amazon-headquarters-ca...
- thinkling 9y ago
  The #1 problem with the article is that it restricts the analysis to the U.S.. With the current political climate around immigration, Amazon can't easily bring engineering talent from around the world to its headquarters. A site outside the US could solve that. The RFP said "North America".
  - sheepmullet 9y ago
    > With the current political climate around immigration, Amazon can't easily bring engineering talent from around the world to its headquarters. A crack down on H1B abuse will free up tens of thousands of spots for companies like Amazon to bring in real talent. You have companies like Tata getting 5x as many H1B visas as Amazon. And yet they pay their H1B staff on average ~$50k/year less than Amazon.
    - cbsmith 9y ago
      > A crack down on H1B abuse will free up tens of thousands of spots for companies like Amazon to bring in real talent. Yes, and unicorns would be nice, but let's stick to things that are actually likely to happen.
zeveb 9y ago
It'd be really awesome if the images in this article loaded without JavaScript.
bluedino 9y ago
I noticed something the article fails to mention. When I was in Chicago the other weekend there was so much talk about Amazon moving their headquarters there, with a number of possible sites including the Old Main Post Office. There is a building boom going on right now. Chicago has 54 high-rises in construction, many with residential living space. Some are smaller 50-unit buildings and the biggest, One Grant Park, has 792 units.
paulsutter 9y ago
The Boring Company has a solution for housing: tunnels with no traffic or stoplights. 200kph means you can live far from downtown and still be at work in 15 minutes. “Without tunnels we’ll be in traffic hell forever” -Elon Musk
- MrMorden 9y ago
  So what does Elon Musk know about boring that Martin Herrenknecht does not? I'd love to see some more affordable tunneling methods, but I'm not holding my breath.
- x0x0 9y ago
  I don't understand how that helps. You can't built very many 200mph tunnels, so housing at the ends will still have to be very dense or people will have to drive far to get to the stations. So this just shifts the housing density problem.
  - paulsutter 9y ago
    Shifting to a less hidebound / bureaucratic location is a great solution. Also: Elon’s goal is a more than 10x reduction in costs, and he’ll be able to charge related to the value of people’s time.
    - pavel_lishin 9y ago
      So, Suburbs 2.0?
    - x0x0 9y ago
      I think you're crazy to believe that if you go build a bunch of very dense housing anywhere, you won't shortly thereafter have a bunch of bureaucracy as a lot of people have to figure out how to live in close quarters. Again, as near as I can tell, the best possible outcome of ultra high speed tunnel transport is you move the dense housing problem (or the traffic problem) elsewhere. That's not actually a solution. I also think it only appears easier than eg fixing sfbay's housing problems.
johan_larson 9y ago
The requirements about the local labour pool and university system are nonsense. People can and will relocate to work for Amazon across the country and even across the world. My take is that the RFP is a long-list of wants, not the short-list of must-haves. They want lots of suitors knocking on their door, to make the bidding process competitive.
PKop 9y ago
Columbus, OH is going to get it. Growing city with very affordable housing, large university system (OSU), close to international airport, centrally located in the midwest.
- balls187 9y ago
  There are no direct flights between CMH and SEA. Seems like that wouldn't make sense for a company based in Sea. http://flycolumbus.com/airline-info/non-stop-destinations/ http://flycolumbus.com/airline-info/non-stop-destinations/
  - sjroot 9y ago
    I feel like this is a non-issue. If there is a demand for CMH-SEA flights then surely an airline will cater to it.
    - jandrese 9y ago
      Yeah, if you build it they will come. Although I'd think Amazon would be pretty good at telepresence.
  - PKop 9y ago
    I don't think it's likely that this would remain true if Amazon was there.
- Spivak 9y ago
  They also just built three new data centers in central Ohio and offered to partner with Ohio State. Columbus proper might be a good choice but I suspect they've got their eye on Dublin.
jpollock 9y ago
This makes a false assumption - that Amazon would be on top of existing job creation. Cities already have models that assume/hope for a certain amount of job creation (and loss), with some of that being provided by new entrants to the area. If existing businesses aren't meeting the model, they go out and find new sources. The jobs and housing numbers are separate (separate orgs, both flowing from the same model). So, consider this more of a mayor being a salesman meeting their annual quota with a single sale. It's risky, but it's not an issue if it happens - they have already planned for success. Now, if they aren't producing housing to meet their plan, that's an entirely different problem.
dredmorbius 9y ago
There's a precedent I'm aware of for a wholesale move. RAND Corporation did this in the 1950s, moving from the east coast to Santa Monica, putting entire families on trains to head west (young man, and grow up with the country...). Mentioned in Martin Campbell-Kelly's book: http://www.worldcat.org/title/from-airline-reservations-to-sonic-the-hedgehog-a-history-of-the-software-industry-history-of-computing/oclc/940545837&referer=brief_results http://www.worldcat.org/title/from-airline-reservations-to-s...
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
xchaotic 9y ago
Or they could simply embrace work from home. No matter what city they choose, I won't work for them.
- sjroot 9y ago
  They have absolutely no need to court you.

91 points by SQL2219 9y ago

pascalxus 9y ago

CA is the last place they should consider, and that goes for any company that considers the cost of labor.

dragonwriter 9y ago
Unless, you know, they also consider other factors beyond the cost of labor, which most companies do.

Overtonwindow 9y ago

It may be true that no city fits what Amazon wants, but I think Atlanta comes very close. It has plenty of housing, low cost of living, major airports, universities, a large population, and a decent rapid transit that could be expanded given a catalyst like Amazon. I think Amazon should opt for a low cost, big city, and let that city build around Amazon.

ianai 9y ago
Yep or Detroit. Detroit has lots of real estate with no use. I say this as someone from NM and would love them to go there.
- blisterpeanuts 9y ago
  Detroit would be a tough sell to six-figure earners. Huge crime rate, terrible schools, dysfunctional bankrupt government, lack of local talent. Maybe an affluent suburban community outside Detroit, but those aren't going to be supportive of a huge new corporate HQ with all the traffic, construction, etc.
  - arenaninja 9y ago
    I come from neighborhoods that are close to Detroit standards... I would move there as long as properties don't come with tax liens (which I remember reading was an issue a couple of years ago)
- jandrese 9y ago
  The problem with Detroit is they would have to import nearly every worker. Plus you need to convince all of those workers to move to Detroit. There may be some overlap between former autoworker and whatever it is Amazon wants, but there's still going to be a gap.
  - MSM 9y ago
    There are a lot of places around Detroit for people to live if they weren't comfortable in Detroit. There are some extremely nice suburbs that you can commute to/from in 30-45 minutes which is still somehow an acceptable commute time compared to most other large cities in the US. You also have to consider that you can live in a 3k sq/ft house with a nice yard for 200-300k. That's very appealing as a tech worker looking to get out of SV or other "hot" tech areas. As for importing workers, I think you'd be surprised how many tech companies are in the city already, I've seen a lot of people who suggest that Detroit is a top 10 city in the US in terms of work, one example is here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/joelkotkin/2017/03/16/technology-jobs-2017-san-francisco-charlotte-detroit https://www.forbes.com/sites/joelkotkin/2017/03/16/technolog...
    - ianai 9y ago
      I think it’s a fallacy to say it’s hard to move people given today’s tech and capabilities. Also given the over crowding of current tech centers. You also have to see it from Amazon’s stated goal. They said they want a viable second Headquarters. They want some place that could function if the other place went down. Detroit fits that.
  - smelterdemon 9y ago
    Detroit has one of the largest concentrations of engineers in the country. Granted I'm sure a significant percentage of those are specialized in fields Amazon isn't interested in, to say they'd have to import nearly every worker is a bit extreme. Amazon even has a small office in the city already.
    - Apocryphon 9y ago
- micaksica 9y ago
  Do you mean the actual city of Detroit? There is little to no way Amazon is going to be able to import their workforce to live in the city of Detroit. A whole lot of the housing options there are extremely outdated or require extreme renovation, the city’s infrastructure is in crumbles, and blight is still a problem. Source: I have some friends that live in Detroit. Like, the actual city, not the Detroit Metro area.
  - crooked-v 9y ago
    Also, IIRC, a lot of the "cheap" property in Detroit has substantial back taxes any new owner has to pay on top of the hassle that comes with basically replacing a house from the foundation up.
    - alistairSH 9y ago
      That's a fixable problem - if Detroit wants Amazon, they can simply forgive/defer the taxes.
      - ianai 9y ago
        That’s the first thing they wipe out if they want amazon. In fact they should wipe it out right now regardless.
  - dyeje 9y ago
    Housing is not the issue in Detroit. There's no major city with more room to grow housing / office space than Detroit. The only thing that would hold us back is infrastructure. We have virtually no public transportation, and the influx of all the Amazonians would take traffic to hellish levels. But to me, I see that as a positive. We need a wakeup call to finally overhaul our public transport. Source: I live in Detroit.
    - x0x0 9y ago
      As sfbay demonstrates, merely creating very high need for good public transport does not come close to guaranteeing said public transport will be created.
creaghpatr 9y ago
>It has plenty of housing, low cost of living, major airports, universities, a large population, and a decent rapid transit that could be expanded given a catalyst like Amazon. I live in Atlanta and all of these things are true except that last one. MARTA has neither the coverage or the competence to qualify as 'decent'. Even if they plopped the HQ right on top of Five Points (as is being proposed), most employees are still gonna drive, and encounter that world-class ATL rush hour traffic. That said, Atlanta is still definitely in play, and our department of economic development (which I used to work for) is one of the most effective in the country. They brought Hollywood to Atlanta already, Amazon shouldn't be that much harder. Culturally, I expect it would encounter a mixed reception.
- ynniv 9y ago
  MARTA has neither the coverage or the competence to qualify as 'decent'. Compared to New York, Chicago, DC, Boston, or SF sure. Assuming Amazon isn't going to expand to a more expensive city, the only competing subway system is in Philadelphia. MARTA is unpopular, but cleaning it up and buying new trains is cheap compared to digging new tunnels through an existing city. No one points out that the Gulch site is currently a wasteland because we all know that if Amazon shows up, it won't be.
  - creaghpatr 9y ago
    The gulch is next to Phillips Arena and MB Arena- imagine the traffic during a weekday ATLUTD game and a hawks/concert. It's alot of wasted vertical space for now, but useful for temporary gatherings; we used it as a basecamp for a film shoot a couple weeks ago. I suppose they could rip out and replace Vine City with Amazon-friendly housing, but that would cause some issues.
    - ynniv 9y ago
      If Amazon moved to the Gulch, employees would probably live in O4W, Decatur, Midtown, or Buckhead, and take MARTA in.
  - Overtonwindow 9y ago

zip1234 9y ago

Where is the data from? How does Detroit not have enough housing to support such a company? I'm guessing a lot of cities can build enough housing. Detroit especially has lots of housing--maybe not new builds in certain areas, but they are tearing down blocks of houses right now and people can buy houses for 15k. I question the article's data.

lithos 9y ago
If you want housing that has had walls ripped off to get copper wire for selling to a scrap yard. Yes there is plenty of that. If you want to pay housing boom sized taxes on a house worth a fraction of that, there is plenty of that as well. Since you aren't allowed to reappraise a lot of property.
- zip1234 9y ago
  A fair point. I'll agree that those properties are mostly not 'move-in' ready. However, the 4 year time period allows for redevelopment of properties. Also, my main point is that the author's data source is unclear. How do we know what was factored into the housing supply calculation?

Aardwolf 9y ago

Am I the only one who thought this would be about housing in the Amazon rainforest?

seanmcdirmid 9y ago
I was thinking about Greek Amazon woman warriors. The title really didn't make sense to me.
kentosi 9y ago
Nope. I actually was expecting to read about a lack of housing for displaced Amazonians due to deforestation.
- marcosdumay 9y ago
  I was expecting something similar too. I'd just like to point that deforestation does not displace people.
  - lovich 9y ago
    I don't think that's true. I would certainly classified the tribes in the Amazon who get killed or pushed out of their homes by loggers and ranchers as displaced due to deforestation.
    - marcosdumay 9y ago
      If you are imagining a rain forest as something full of people, just forget it. For population density concerns, the main difference between a forest and a desert is that people can traverse the desert, so you will find way more of them there. When tribes and agriculture exist near each other, you will see economical interdependency, not one population pushing the other away.
stefantheard 9y ago
Another confused person reporting in. I read the title and was like "well, that's not completely surprising is it?"

vdnkh 9y ago

Interesting to see parts of NJ highlighted in the list. NJ used to have a huge tech sector, accommodating RCA, bell labs, AT&T, etc. but hasn't found strong footing in the software age. The old bell labs complex in holmdel (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Labs_Holmdel_Complex https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Labs_Holmdel_Complex), recently redeveloped, is undergoing a "tech renaissance" of sorts now, finding tenants such as Nvidia. At it's peak it employed over 6000 engineers on site. And it sits on a massive plot of land (complete with it's own substation, road salt facilities, wastewater treatment plant, AC plant, etc.), which is unfortunately now being developed into "luxury" homes. But maybe if Amazon started looking earlier than now when the facility was still dormant they would have found a suitable home here.

Buttes 9y ago
Hey yeah why not, I'd live in bits of Jersey. If I can work nearby in Jersey and be able hop on the PATH to The City on weekends, that doesn't sound half bad.

mikestew 9y ago

Completely unrelated to the topic at hand, but I've gain a new-found respect for Medium, having not seen this on the site before: "This embedded content is from a site that does not comply with the Do Not Track (DNT) setting now enabled on your browser. Please note, if you click through and view it anyway, you may be tracked by the website hosting the embed. Learn More about Medium's DNT policy" I think that's the first time I've seen visible evidence of the DNT setting actually doing something. Now whether or not that offsets the header/footer turds that litter their mobile site, I'm still deciding. :-)

tedmiston 9y ago
It's been there for years, maybe even since the beginning.

taw-an 9y ago

"That means that what Amazon is really looking for is something else: that special something." Massive tax breaks and giveaways. That's all this is about. It's a dog and pony show to see who will fork up the most to buy in to the delusion that it will pay off somehow.

x0x0 9y ago
Exactly. And what is particularly galling about Amazon is they essentially pay no taxes. Since 2008, Amazon has paid $1.8B in income tax while Walmart has paid $64B [1]. So they're basically leeches demanding public services while contributing virtually nothing. As someone whose name I've forgotten said, the fundamental question surrounding silicon valley / SV type companies is how do you run a country when a company with $0.5T market cap / Fortune #12 essentially pays no taxes. Who pays for roads/fire services/schools. [1] https://www.l2inc.com/daily-insights/no-mercy-no-malice/bread-crumbs https://www.l2inc.com/daily-insights/no-mercy-no-malice/brea...
- PKop 9y ago
  Do the thousands of employees contribute economic benefit, as well as taxes, to Seattle or other cities? It's absurd to think that there is no tax money being injected into the city simply because the corporate tax collected is low. They are spending their profits! Some of it in Seattle, and in other places they have physical presence on wages, real estate, etc. Honestly you need to explain your premise that they contribute nothing... it's illogical. Where is the money going? Why are "taxes" the only way citizens of a community can prosper? Do wages not count? If they do count, would you like to argue that Amazon is not paying wages to thousands of employees? Do those employees pay taxes? Taxes aside, are the wages themselves beneficial? One final point: "tax breaks" in and of themselves seem silly to rail against, like a shareholder being upset at "discounts". Is your contention that a city giving any tax breaks will see less tax revenue as a result of Amazon coming into their city than if they didn't? Surely it's a question of how much no?
  - x0x0 9y ago
    Since our current system uses taxes from both employees and companies, it should be obvious that taxing employees alone doesn't cover our bills. Wages by themselves are not beneficial because cities and countries require money to build/maintain public works. The history of cities giving tax breaks to attract business and that resulting in a net positive outcome for the city is very very slim. See eg any economist (except those paid for by sports teams) that's covered this.

0x4f3759df 9y ago

Does anyone know of a site where you can bet on the outcome of this process?

nathancahill 9y ago
I bet that PredictIt would be willing to host it.

ynniv 9y ago

The premise is interesting, but some of the calculations aren't convincing. The first map of cities that "did produce 5,000 extra housing units beyond household formation" is particularly strange. Which city is more prepared for such an expansion, one that built zero units and lost 5,000 residents, or one that built 100,000 units and gained 100,000 residents? Without greater clarity into the data, many of these maps fall into "lies, damn lies, and statistics".

Finnucane 9y ago
Yeah, that struck me as odd too. Under normal circumstances, you wouldn't expect private developers to build that much excess inventory on spec with no expectation of being able to sell quickly.
ynniv 9y ago
In the 6 years from 2010 to 2016, metro Atlanta has added 94,000 "housing units". No one would even notice an extra 5%. Over the same period we also added 259,000 jobs, and 4% more isn't going to fundamentally change anything. https://www.huduser.gov/portal/publications/pdf/AtlantaGA-comp-16.pdf https://www.huduser.gov/portal/publications/pdf/AtlantaGA-co...

empath75 9y ago

Everything about this article is kind of dumb. Using this exact same argument, it would be impossible for any company to build any headquarters, and yet somehow the American economy still continues to grow. It's not like amazon is going to airlift in 50k people on day 1. Anyway, Northern Virginia is still the obvious place for second HQ, given metro access to DC, Dulles airport, the millions of datacenters, fios penetration and large numbers of local it workers.

ianai 9y ago
I really hope they go somewhere less “obvious”. There’s a lot of the US that really need a good local industry.
UltimateFloofy 9y ago
With AOL closing up shop in NOVA, theres a huge real estate gap that Amazon might be over to take over too on top of all the other speculative talk Northern VA already offers. I'm sure FFX County / Loudoun will place an appealing bid.
- empath75 9y ago
  Aol isn’t closing up shop in nova.
ergothus 9y ago
I agree that the article fails to explain why a city can't increase it's housing creation when the market demands (sort of like most places already do, albeit with issues). BUT I think it's fair to point out that Amazon going anywhere where it represents a large change in the population will have a notable housing impact. Construction lags behind demand and the current markets in high tech areas have lots of problems with difficult local regulations, extreme rents, very limited availability, and general gentrification issues. Amazon will likely be a net positive for wherever they go, but it's a good idea to anticipate and try to reduce the inevitable negatives. I want to disagree with your NoVa conclusion, but I can't. It has location, population, infrastructure, though transportation is notoriously bad - almost always ranked worse for traffic than San Francisco and Seattle, usually beating Boston, and challenging LA depending on what you measure. (that's from memory and a few google searches to make sure I'm not crazy, take with salt) North Carolina would be the next natural match, but I don't see Amazon taking on that political mess.

pfedigan 9y ago

In my opinion, I don't think cities should be partnered completely with one company. We may be closer to a dystopian future than we think..

wavefunction 9y ago

The projections for Austin's population growth from two million inhabitants to four million by 2030 require an additional 167,000,000 housing units required. This seems to be a problem but not uncommon even beyond Amazon.

jandrese 9y ago
Every person moving in needs 83.5 homes?
- syntheticnature 9y ago
  I'm thinking it was supposed to be 167,000 instead, which seems low unless there's slack space or projected construction (over 11 people/house).
refurb 9y ago
Why would they need ~83 new houses for each new inhabitant?

will_brown 9y ago

I think Miami makes a lot of sense, and housing has always been one of the top reasons. Notwithstanding what this article suggests (a little hard to follow), Miami housing numbers are as follows: About 12,300 new condos are expected to be completed in downtown between between 2014 and 2019; between 2004 and 2009, more than 21,000 units were delivered. And this is just downtown, “Miami” itself is a sprawling area with development continuing South and West where it’s suggested Amazon would set up shop. In fact some of the housing development has even been paused due to to much housing coming on the market and lack of demand (though the demand is actually there, local wages are not, reading between the lines foreign investment is drying up). Still the developers (deep pockets) want nothing more than to keep the good times rolling and bringing in Amazon would be instrumental.

graeme 9y ago
Miami strikes me as an atrocious long run bet for amazon. Rising sea levels + stronger + storms + porous ruck under Miami mean the city will be under increasing strain. And sooner than most people living there think.
yahna 9y ago
I can buy an overpriced condo in Seattle. rather have a place with a bit of space.
- will_brown 9y ago
  I'm sure you can buy an over priced condo anywhere, but are there 30,000+ units available in those markets, which in my estimation is the point of the article vis-a-vis a housing market that can support 50,000 Amazonians. And I'm not going to knock Seattle, there is nothing wrong with cold, wet, dark and depressing...but there is something to be said about the year round Tropical weather Miami has to offer. Its why Miami has snowbirds and our number 1 industry is tourism (discounting Medicare/insurance fraud).

jlos 9y ago

>> Can any city provide a net increase in 5,000 housing units? Well, that’s a speculative question, but one thing we can do is ask if any city did produce 5,000 extra housing units beyond household formation over the last 5 years Calgary (Alberta, Canada, not Texas) added triple that in 2014[1]. Since the province's economy is commodity driven the major city centers are accustomed to boom and bust cycles and are used to adding housing quickly. Also of note, Calgary has rated quite high based on a number of other metrics given by Amazon[2] (though, to be fair its really hard to trust all bias is left behind in these analyses) [1] http://calgaryherald.com/life/homes/new-homes/calgarys-housing-market-experienced-great-growth-in-2014 http://calgaryherald.com/life/homes/new-homes/calgarys-housi... [2] http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/amazon-headquarters-calgary-tops-data-crunchers-analysis-jens-von-bergmann-1.4298204 http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/amazon-headquarters-ca...

thinkling 9y ago
The #1 problem with the article is that it restricts the analysis to the U.S.. With the current political climate around immigration, Amazon can't easily bring engineering talent from around the world to its headquarters. A site outside the US could solve that. The RFP said "North America".
- sheepmullet 9y ago
  > With the current political climate around immigration, Amazon can't easily bring engineering talent from around the world to its headquarters. A crack down on H1B abuse will free up tens of thousands of spots for companies like Amazon to bring in real talent. You have companies like Tata getting 5x as many H1B visas as Amazon. And yet they pay their H1B staff on average ~$50k/year less than Amazon.
  - cbsmith 9y ago
    > A crack down on H1B abuse will free up tens of thousands of spots for companies like Amazon to bring in real talent. Yes, and unicorns would be nice, but let's stick to things that are actually likely to happen.

zeveb 9y ago

It'd be really awesome if the images in this article loaded without JavaScript.

bluedino 9y ago

I noticed something the article fails to mention. When I was in Chicago the other weekend there was so much talk about Amazon moving their headquarters there, with a number of possible sites including the Old Main Post Office. There is a building boom going on right now. Chicago has 54 high-rises in construction, many with residential living space. Some are smaller 50-unit buildings and the biggest, One Grant Park, has 792 units.

paulsutter 9y ago

The Boring Company has a solution for housing: tunnels with no traffic or stoplights. 200kph means you can live far from downtown and still be at work in 15 minutes. “Without tunnels we’ll be in traffic hell forever” -Elon Musk

MrMorden 9y ago
So what does Elon Musk know about boring that Martin Herrenknecht does not? I'd love to see some more affordable tunneling methods, but I'm not holding my breath.
x0x0 9y ago
I don't understand how that helps. You can't built very many 200mph tunnels, so housing at the ends will still have to be very dense or people will have to drive far to get to the stations. So this just shifts the housing density problem.
- paulsutter 9y ago
  Shifting to a less hidebound / bureaucratic location is a great solution. Also: Elon’s goal is a more than 10x reduction in costs, and he’ll be able to charge related to the value of people’s time.
  - pavel_lishin 9y ago
    So, Suburbs 2.0?
  - x0x0 9y ago
    I think you're crazy to believe that if you go build a bunch of very dense housing anywhere, you won't shortly thereafter have a bunch of bureaucracy as a lot of people have to figure out how to live in close quarters. Again, as near as I can tell, the best possible outcome of ultra high speed tunnel transport is you move the dense housing problem (or the traffic problem) elsewhere. That's not actually a solution. I also think it only appears easier than eg fixing sfbay's housing problems.

johan_larson 9y ago

The requirements about the local labour pool and university system are nonsense. People can and will relocate to work for Amazon across the country and even across the world. My take is that the RFP is a long-list of wants, not the short-list of must-haves. They want lots of suitors knocking on their door, to make the bidding process competitive.

PKop 9y ago

Columbus, OH is going to get it. Growing city with very affordable housing, large university system (OSU), close to international airport, centrally located in the midwest.

balls187 9y ago
There are no direct flights between CMH and SEA. Seems like that wouldn't make sense for a company based in Sea. http://flycolumbus.com/airline-info/non-stop-destinations/ http://flycolumbus.com/airline-info/non-stop-destinations/
- sjroot 9y ago
  I feel like this is a non-issue. If there is a demand for CMH-SEA flights then surely an airline will cater to it.
  - jandrese 9y ago
    Yeah, if you build it they will come. Although I'd think Amazon would be pretty good at telepresence.
- PKop 9y ago
  I don't think it's likely that this would remain true if Amazon was there.
Spivak 9y ago
They also just built three new data centers in central Ohio and offered to partner with Ohio State. Columbus proper might be a good choice but I suspect they've got their eye on Dublin.

jpollock 9y ago

This makes a false assumption - that Amazon would be on top of existing job creation. Cities already have models that assume/hope for a certain amount of job creation (and loss), with some of that being provided by new entrants to the area. If existing businesses aren't meeting the model, they go out and find new sources. The jobs and housing numbers are separate (separate orgs, both flowing from the same model). So, consider this more of a mayor being a salesman meeting their annual quota with a single sale. It's risky, but it's not an issue if it happens - they have already planned for success. Now, if they aren't producing housing to meet their plan, that's an entirely different problem.

dredmorbius 9y ago

There's a precedent I'm aware of for a wholesale move. RAND Corporation did this in the 1950s, moving from the east coast to Santa Monica, putting entire families on trains to head west (young man, and grow up with the country...). Mentioned in Martin Campbell-Kelly's book: http://www.worldcat.org/title/from-airline-reservations-to-sonic-the-hedgehog-a-history-of-the-software-industry-history-of-computing/oclc/940545837&referer=brief_results http://www.worldcat.org/title/from-airline-reservations-to-s...

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xchaotic 9y ago

Or they could simply embrace work from home. No matter what city they choose, I won't work for them.

sjroot 9y ago
They have absolutely no need to court you.