7 ms·

Can't believe how many subsidies they got, to me it's a question of fairness, why should we subsidize them, but not others? I get that they are doing the commun

Can't believe how many subsidies they got, to me it's a question of fairness, why should we subsidize them, but not others? I get that they are doing the community a service by creating high paying jobs, but there certainly have been negative sides to what they've done (gentrification, poor working conditions for many employees in their warehouses).

phoenixstrike 8y ago
How is gentrification negative?
- sandworm101 8y ago
  If you rent.
- bsanr 8y ago
  Drives up rent. Breaks up existing, stable (if often impoverished) communities. Increased, concentrated development can have a negative environmental impact.
  - matchbok 8y ago
    Nobody is entitled to live in a certain area for a certain price. Such things lead to distorted markets and tons of other issues.
    - bsanr 8y ago
      So do the developer incentives that have driven urban redevelopment for the last 2 decades. Hence, in part, the glut of luxury apartments and the ever-tightening affordable housing market.
      - matchbok 8y ago
        Nothing wrong with luxury apartments. Today's luxury is tomorrow's regular housing.
        bsanr 8y ago
        If I may be glib in kind: Narrator: He immediately found something wrong with luxury apartments. http://fortune.com/2016/08/16/recession-risk-luxury-apartments/ http://fortune.com/2016/08/16/recession-risk-luxury-apartmen...
    - kettlecorn 8y ago
      Is avoiding a distorted market more important than avoiding disrupting the lives of people? “Nobody is entitled to live in a certain area for a certain price.” isn’t really true if they were there first and have established a family or a community. Maintaining a functioning free market is not inherently a moral goal, although many seem to think it is.
      - matchbok 8y ago
        There will always be disruption. Disruption is part of being human. How long do I have to live in a place to declare that I am no longer responsible for maintaining my financial stability and I get to demand free rent from the city? 2 years? 10 years?
    - infinite8s 8y ago
      That's the justification for indigenous genocide everywhere.
  - robrenaud 8y ago
    Concentrated development is exactly what you want for the environment. Urban living is way more environmentally friendly than non-urban living. https://www.citylab.com/life/2012/04/why-bigger-cities-are-greener/863/ https://www.citylab.com/life/2012/04/why-bigger-cities-are-g...
prolikewh0a 8y ago
They're doing the community a service by creating high paying jobs? The people will be shipped in from all around the world and displace the current communities. This destroys communities. This segregates poor & lower income people out. Only already rich people get to experience the benefits of this. The subsidies and tax cuts they got are an embarrassment to our system and a wonderful look into how this country isn't working for lower classes and small local business that actually build communities. Amazon doesn't need subsidies, this is just a race to the bottom.
- empath75 8y ago
  There aren’t any poor people living in crystal city.
- raiflip 8y ago
  That's partially true. Not sure where you are from, but as opposed to places like San Francisco, NYC has a functioning real estate private sector that reacts rationally to increases in demand by increasing supply. This is not to say gentrification is not a thing, but it's not like in San Francisco where there's basically a set housing stock and new people completely displace the old people. Instead new people displace some of the old residents, but they also rent or buy newly built housing. In the long run Amazon's choice is probably good for nyc. It could be very good if nyc manages to get its act together regarding subway and infrastructure.
  - gorkemyurt 8y ago
    In case you didn't know SF has been building more housing/per capita than New York City for a while now..
    - magic_beans 8y ago
      Where is this housing you speak of???
      - gorkemyurt 8y ago
mikeash 8y ago
A big company wants to bring some high paying jobs to a large, prosperous metro area that’s doing just fine without them: shower them with money! Someone is on the verge of literally starving to death: make them pee in a cup before you give them any food to make sure they’re not an addict. The Feds ought to use their interstate commerce power to put a stop to these races to the bottom to court individual projects. If some locality wants to be low-tax and business-friendly then go for it, but do it for everyone.
gammateam 8y ago
You say gentrification like its a pejorative term. Maybe its your recurring assumption that fairness has anything to do with this. Just excise the prosperity preaching from your brain and you'll see that none of this is related. They provide a perceived dollar benefit to the governing institution, the governing institution has the authority to catalyze that, the end.
- imtyler 8y ago
  >You say gentrification like its a pejorative term. I mean, it kind of is. It not only refers to 'improvements' but also the displacement of anyone below the middle class as a result of those improvements.
  - matchbok 8y ago
    Displacement is a fact of life. Nobody is entitled to live in a certain area for a certain amount of money. What ever happened to living within your means?
    - imtyler 8y ago
      >Nobody is entitled to live in a certain area for a certain amount of money. Not inherently, no. But legally speaking there are concepts like "rent control" and "adverse possession" that were created to assert on some level that people do, in fact, have a right to continue living in a space that they've occupied for a reasonable duration.
      - gammateam 8y ago
        Accelerating pushing the price up of the non-rent controlled units in the finite landspace, making only the most extreme examples of gentrifiers possible and out of reach for more individuals and businesses But then subsidizing one business to do it anyway is the problem. Got ittttttttt Economies are ecosystems.
    - bsanr 8y ago
kevin_thibedeau 8y ago
New York's Excelsior program has pretty low bars for it's tax credits: https://esd.ny.gov/excelsior-jobs-program#eligibility https://esd.ny.gov/excelsior-jobs-program#eligibility https://esd.ny.gov/sites/default/files/Excelsior_Overview_2017.pdf https://esd.ny.gov/sites/default/files/Excelsior_Overview_20...

phoenixstrike 8y ago

How is gentrification negative?

sandworm101 8y ago
If you rent.
bsanr 8y ago
Drives up rent. Breaks up existing, stable (if often impoverished) communities. Increased, concentrated development can have a negative environmental impact.
- matchbok 8y ago
  Nobody is entitled to live in a certain area for a certain price. Such things lead to distorted markets and tons of other issues.
  - bsanr 8y ago
    So do the developer incentives that have driven urban redevelopment for the last 2 decades. Hence, in part, the glut of luxury apartments and the ever-tightening affordable housing market.
    - matchbok 8y ago
      Nothing wrong with luxury apartments. Today's luxury is tomorrow's regular housing.
      - bsanr 8y ago
        If I may be glib in kind: Narrator: He immediately found something wrong with luxury apartments. http://fortune.com/2016/08/16/recession-risk-luxury-apartments/ http://fortune.com/2016/08/16/recession-risk-luxury-apartmen...
  - kettlecorn 8y ago
    Is avoiding a distorted market more important than avoiding disrupting the lives of people? “Nobody is entitled to live in a certain area for a certain price.” isn’t really true if they were there first and have established a family or a community. Maintaining a functioning free market is not inherently a moral goal, although many seem to think it is.
    - matchbok 8y ago
      There will always be disruption. Disruption is part of being human. How long do I have to live in a place to declare that I am no longer responsible for maintaining my financial stability and I get to demand free rent from the city? 2 years? 10 years?
  - infinite8s 8y ago
    That's the justification for indigenous genocide everywhere.
- robrenaud 8y ago
  Concentrated development is exactly what you want for the environment. Urban living is way more environmentally friendly than non-urban living. https://www.citylab.com/life/2012/04/why-bigger-cities-are-greener/863/ https://www.citylab.com/life/2012/04/why-bigger-cities-are-g...

prolikewh0a 8y ago

They're doing the community a service by creating high paying jobs? The people will be shipped in from all around the world and displace the current communities. This destroys communities. This segregates poor & lower income people out. Only already rich people get to experience the benefits of this. The subsidies and tax cuts they got are an embarrassment to our system and a wonderful look into how this country isn't working for lower classes and small local business that actually build communities. Amazon doesn't need subsidies, this is just a race to the bottom.

empath75 8y ago
There aren’t any poor people living in crystal city.
raiflip 8y ago
That's partially true. Not sure where you are from, but as opposed to places like San Francisco, NYC has a functioning real estate private sector that reacts rationally to increases in demand by increasing supply. This is not to say gentrification is not a thing, but it's not like in San Francisco where there's basically a set housing stock and new people completely displace the old people. Instead new people displace some of the old residents, but they also rent or buy newly built housing. In the long run Amazon's choice is probably good for nyc. It could be very good if nyc manages to get its act together regarding subway and infrastructure.
- gorkemyurt 8y ago
  In case you didn't know SF has been building more housing/per capita than New York City for a while now..
  - magic_beans 8y ago
    Where is this housing you speak of???
    - gorkemyurt 8y ago

mikeash 8y ago

A big company wants to bring some high paying jobs to a large, prosperous metro area that’s doing just fine without them: shower them with money! Someone is on the verge of literally starving to death: make them pee in a cup before you give them any food to make sure they’re not an addict. The Feds ought to use their interstate commerce power to put a stop to these races to the bottom to court individual projects. If some locality wants to be low-tax and business-friendly then go for it, but do it for everyone.

gammateam 8y ago

You say gentrification like its a pejorative term. Maybe its your recurring assumption that fairness has anything to do with this. Just excise the prosperity preaching from your brain and you'll see that none of this is related. They provide a perceived dollar benefit to the governing institution, the governing institution has the authority to catalyze that, the end.

imtyler 8y ago
>You say gentrification like its a pejorative term. I mean, it kind of is. It not only refers to 'improvements' but also the displacement of anyone below the middle class as a result of those improvements.
- matchbok 8y ago
  Displacement is a fact of life. Nobody is entitled to live in a certain area for a certain amount of money. What ever happened to living within your means?
  - imtyler 8y ago
    >Nobody is entitled to live in a certain area for a certain amount of money. Not inherently, no. But legally speaking there are concepts like "rent control" and "adverse possession" that were created to assert on some level that people do, in fact, have a right to continue living in a space that they've occupied for a reasonable duration.
    - gammateam 8y ago
      Accelerating pushing the price up of the non-rent controlled units in the finite landspace, making only the most extreme examples of gentrifiers possible and out of reach for more individuals and businesses But then subsidizing one business to do it anyway is the problem. Got ittttttttt Economies are ecosystems.
  - bsanr 8y ago

kevin_thibedeau 8y ago

New York's Excelsior program has pretty low bars for it's tax credits: https://esd.ny.gov/excelsior-jobs-program#eligibility https://esd.ny.gov/excelsior-jobs-program#eligibility https://esd.ny.gov/sites/default/files/Excelsior_Overview_2017.pdf https://esd.ny.gov/sites/default/files/Excelsior_Overview_20...