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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 aro

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 years as well. In fact, Amazon's presence in the DC-NOVA area will be even bigger than they initially said it would.

bunderbunder 8y ago
Wisconsin doesn't need to give out money, either. If anything, they need to not give out money. The story of the Foxconn factory, for example, is one of Wisconsin acting as if you can give a bunch of money to a company that smells of technology, and they will plunk a bunch of jobs for highly educated and skilled people in the middle of a region with relatively few highly educated and skilled workers. Which, it never worked that way. It never will work that way. Companies go to places that can fill their staffing needs. Wisconsin, which has been systematically defunding its education system in order to re-route that money toward corporate subsidies, is undercutting its own ability to fill those staffing needs. I don't know that everyone in the state realizes it, but Wisconsin is stumbling all over itself to become the darling dumping ground for companies that are founded[1] in cities and states with the kinds of intellectual and entrepreneurial ferments you get around well-run and well-funded university systems to put their call centers, distribution centers, big boxes mostly full of robots, and other things they don't want to waste money putting in a more affluent area. [1] I think "founded" is a key word, here, too. Supporting local entrepreneurship is the key to prosperity. Which mostly means getting out of the way of your entrepreneurs. If you get into a bidding wars to acquire the office where a company puts all their jobs that didn't merit being located at HQ, not only do you end up overspending - the people deciding what to bid aren't playing with their own money, so what else did you expect? - but you're also draining the talent pool that supports their growth. tl;dr: The cart goes behind the horse.
- Spooky23 8y ago
  It depends on the business. If you’re capitalizing a big facility, even things like sales tax exemptions are big value adds. As long as some places in strategic areas do the incentive thing, it’s hard not to.
  - taurath 8y ago
    If you keep participating in the race to the bottom, you eventually end up on the bottom. The belief that any price in tax cuts will benefit your citizens in the form of "jobs" is a particularly toxic form of economic fundamentalism, and its hollowing whole states out.
    - Spooky23 8y ago
      Totally agree. In my neck of the woods one county nearly bankrupted a neighboring one by offering an existing business a deal that led them to move a few miles away. The old county was stuck with sewer bonds and other costs while the revenue vaporized. It’s difficult though as it’s a prisoner’s dilemma type situation.
      - taurath 8y ago
        It sounds like the county that was bankrupted left themselves at the mercy of the business.
        Spooky23 8y ago
        Yes and no. I believe in this case they had an obligation to provide the sewer, and water/sewer ratepayers are responsible for costs. You can’t make an individual ratepayer responsible for the sewer. Definitely a bad situation and a story told a thousand times in the US
- Justsignedup 8y ago
  Kentucky was a perfect example of this. They gave the best corporate welfare money can buy. And everyone left. There were no decent roads, schools, police. So there were no decent workers. The companies were basically given the best deal in a place with no workers. If anything the workers left even more because there was even less attractiveness to be there.
hguant 8y ago
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 pitching cloud security and general technical support to the government, and wants in on it.
- bilbo0s 8y ago
  Yep. Agree with all that, I suspect DC-NOVA will be a whole lot bigger than 25k workers now for Amazon.
bryan2 8y ago
I work in middle Tn and the Amazon job postings have already started. I really have no interest in them though. Primarily remote work is the best.
- bilbo0s 8y ago
  They've already started in NYC and DC-NOVA as well. I'm just saying that the smart money is clearly on DC-NOVA in the long term with NYC as the next big winner there.
JauntTrooper 8y ago
I don’t know, cities rise and fall at lot more quickly than it feels like at the time. New York City was on the verge of bankruptcy in 1975, less than 50 years ago. Detroit’s population started declining as early as the 1950s as companies moved to the suburbs. New York has a world-class, diverse economy, and I expect it to continue to be a central engine of the American and world economy for our lifetimes, but it does require good stewardship to nurture the economy. We may be on the cusp of a reversal of the great urban migration of the last several decades, with populations moving into suburban satellite cities as remote work gains acceptance, driverless cars allow for easier commutes, logistics companies and drones allow for easy delivery of goods to your doorstep, and urban housing prices continue to relentlessly outpace wage growth.
- Kinnard 8y ago
  And millennials make babies.

bunderbunder 8y ago

Wisconsin doesn't need to give out money, either. If anything, they need to not give out money. The story of the Foxconn factory, for example, is one of Wisconsin acting as if you can give a bunch of money to a company that smells of technology, and they will plunk a bunch of jobs for highly educated and skilled people in the middle of a region with relatively few highly educated and skilled workers. Which, it never worked that way. It never will work that way. Companies go to places that can fill their staffing needs. Wisconsin, which has been systematically defunding its education system in order to re-route that money toward corporate subsidies, is undercutting its own ability to fill those staffing needs. I don't know that everyone in the state realizes it, but Wisconsin is stumbling all over itself to become the darling dumping ground for companies that are founded[1] in cities and states with the kinds of intellectual and entrepreneurial ferments you get around well-run and well-funded university systems to put their call centers, distribution centers, big boxes mostly full of robots, and other things they don't want to waste money putting in a more affluent area. [1] I think "founded" is a key word, here, too. Supporting local entrepreneurship is the key to prosperity. Which mostly means getting out of the way of your entrepreneurs. If you get into a bidding wars to acquire the office where a company puts all their jobs that didn't merit being located at HQ, not only do you end up overspending - the people deciding what to bid aren't playing with their own money, so what else did you expect? - but you're also draining the talent pool that supports their growth. tl;dr: The cart goes behind the horse.

Spooky23 8y ago
It depends on the business. If you’re capitalizing a big facility, even things like sales tax exemptions are big value adds. As long as some places in strategic areas do the incentive thing, it’s hard not to.
- taurath 8y ago
  If you keep participating in the race to the bottom, you eventually end up on the bottom. The belief that any price in tax cuts will benefit your citizens in the form of "jobs" is a particularly toxic form of economic fundamentalism, and its hollowing whole states out.
  - Spooky23 8y ago
    Totally agree. In my neck of the woods one county nearly bankrupted a neighboring one by offering an existing business a deal that led them to move a few miles away. The old county was stuck with sewer bonds and other costs while the revenue vaporized. It’s difficult though as it’s a prisoner’s dilemma type situation.
    - taurath 8y ago
      It sounds like the county that was bankrupted left themselves at the mercy of the business.
      - Spooky23 8y ago
        Yes and no. I believe in this case they had an obligation to provide the sewer, and water/sewer ratepayers are responsible for costs. You can’t make an individual ratepayer responsible for the sewer. Definitely a bad situation and a story told a thousand times in the US
Justsignedup 8y ago
Kentucky was a perfect example of this. They gave the best corporate welfare money can buy. And everyone left. There were no decent roads, schools, police. So there were no decent workers. The companies were basically given the best deal in a place with no workers. If anything the workers left even more because there was even less attractiveness to be there.

hguant 8y ago

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 pitching cloud security and general technical support to the government, and wants in on it.

bilbo0s 8y ago
Yep. Agree with all that, I suspect DC-NOVA will be a whole lot bigger than 25k workers now for Amazon.

bryan2 8y ago

I work in middle Tn and the Amazon job postings have already started. I really have no interest in them though. Primarily remote work is the best.

bilbo0s 8y ago
They've already started in NYC and DC-NOVA as well. I'm just saying that the smart money is clearly on DC-NOVA in the long term with NYC as the next big winner there.

JauntTrooper 8y ago

I don’t know, cities rise and fall at lot more quickly than it feels like at the time. New York City was on the verge of bankruptcy in 1975, less than 50 years ago. Detroit’s population started declining as early as the 1950s as companies moved to the suburbs. New York has a world-class, diverse economy, and I expect it to continue to be a central engine of the American and world economy for our lifetimes, but it does require good stewardship to nurture the economy. We may be on the cusp of a reversal of the great urban migration of the last several decades, with populations moving into suburban satellite cities as remote work gains acceptance, driverless cars allow for easier commutes, logistics companies and drones allow for easy delivery of goods to your doorstep, and urban housing prices continue to relentlessly outpace wage growth.

Kinnard 8y ago
And millennials make babies.