10 ms·

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. Co

• nkozyra 8y ago
  > 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.
  • TuringNYC 8y ago
    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 -- down with tech" "tech pays too little -- down with tech." This reeks of false excuses and clinging to some mythical perfect that doesn't exist and isn't driven by tech. Inter-city import of workers is also non-sensical. Finally, that the exit of 25,000 high paying jobs could be seen as some sort of victory is also alarming. NYC has really never recovered from the 2008 crash when ~500,000 well paying finance jobs were compressed/reduced/automated. NYC needs those jobs and the ecosystem they would create. EDIT: In response to the citation request, i'll look for it. But rough numbers are: several broker dealers disappeared all together - Lehman, Bears, Merrill. UBS' building in Stamford is practically empty now. Legions of contractors, not on employee payroll but still working there, were also let go. Their books of business were absorbed but the staff were mostly redundant. Secondly, 2008 was used (wisely) to compress unnecessary workers -- tons of stuff that used to be done by teams got automated by software. As an example, i saw our own market data teams go from ~20 in 2006 --> 7 in 2010--> 2 in 2014 as more and more APIs and standardized software took over rote tasks like pulling market data, creating curves, etc. Other examples include Fax --> DTCC econfirm for operational work. Tear-ups for redundant contracts (e.g., TriOptima and other platforms.) Custom trade platforms per-firm cant compete in most cases to straight out of box Bloomberg POMS/AIM and again, technology made things more efficient.
    • jkaptur 8y ago
      > NYC has really never recovered from the 2008 crash when ~500,000 well paying finance jobs were compressed/reduced/automated. Can you expand on that, or provide a citation/link? It doesn’t ring true to me (a New Yorker who worked in finance in 2008), but I’d love to learn more.
      • jkaptur 8y ago
        Ok... I see that you edited rather than reply. I'd be very interested if you could find that link. Let me answer your anecdote with another anecdote: I worked for one of the banks that disappeared (Merrill), and it's not like they just locked the doors. Many, many employees (like me) just became workers at Bank of America. Even given extremely generous assumptions, your 500k number sounds off by at least an order of magnitude. The statement "NYC has never really recovered" still doesn't seem right to me.
    • kharms 8y ago
      >My shock is the dual narrative on "tech pays too much -- down with tech" "tech pays too little -- down with tech." What's shocking about this? If you're uneducated and barely scraping by in LIC and Amazon moves in you have two problems: their low end jobs don't pay enough to improve your quality of life while their high end jobs are unattainable and will drive you out of the neighborhood. While Amazon might have been a net positive for the city it would have been actively harmful to a slice of the population. They spoke up.
      • ng12 8y ago
        > If you're uneducated and barely scraping by in LIC LIC is already a 10m commute to midtown and home to nothing but shiny glass towers.
    • joeyb1111 8y ago
      > Finally, that the exit of 25,000 high paying jobs could be seen as some sort of victory is also alarming. NYC has really never recovered from the 2008 crash when ~500,000 well paying finance jobs were compressed/reduced/automated. NYC needs those jobs and the ecosystem they would create. NYC unemployment is like 4%. I don't think it's in need.
• code4tee 8y ago
  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.
  • arcanus 8y ago
    Given the withdrawal of Amazon, didn't that invalidate the argument?
    • code4tee 8y ago
      Amazon didn’t withdraw from NYC. They still have around 5k employees here. Meanwhile Google is significantly expanding their NYC offices and nobody had to bribe them to do it.
      • aetherson 8y ago
        Are you sure about that? Giving tax breaks to large employers is pretty standard practice. What was unusual about the Amazon debacle was how public it was.
      • graeme 8y ago
        Amazon's still expanding in nyc too. But....not 25,000 employees. Does Google have 25,000 employees in NYC?
        • DelaneyM 8y ago
          At its current rate of growth it will by the time Amazon would have.
      • coredog64 8y ago
        Pretty sure Google is eligible for the same Empire State development grants that made up $2.5B of the $3B that Amazon was going to get.
        • 8y ago
• kharms 8y ago
  It's weird to me that there's so much attention given to AOC. She has no hard power in domestic NY politics. She didn't stop the deal. State politicians threatening the permitting process stopped the deal. If NYC has a problem it's with Byzantine building codes and zoning.
• wefarrell 8y ago
  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, who campaigned against higher rents, to justify not opposing Amazon?
  • kissickas 8y ago
    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.
    • leereeves 8y ago
      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.
      • TuringNYC 8y ago
        >> 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-developments-coming-to-long-island-city/ https://www.6sqft.com/queens-new-skyline-a-rundown-of-the-30... When you build upwards, the sky is the limit, literally.
        • leereeves 8y ago
          I looked at the first seven of those; one was a hotel and the rest were all high-density luxury towers, not affordable housing for blue collar workers. For example: https://www.buzzbuzzhome.com/us/the-forge https://www.buzzbuzzhome.com/us/the-forge
• crb002 8y ago
  Amazon realized they need to be outside SF/NYC to keep out of the bubble.
• dalbasal 8y ago
  This is, unfortunately, how popular/populist political movements tend to work. First, agree on the enemy/problem. Then, work out why they're the enemy. This can be xenophobic: migrants, jews, black people, brown people, chinese people, etc. There have been massive popular movements against all these in recent history. They all followed this pattern. Jews were simultaneously accused of being behind banks and capitalism and bolshevism. Migrants are almost always accused simultaneously accused of stealing jobs and living off the dole. Others chime in that they're destroying or diluting native culture. It can be more abstract. The problem is capitalism, socialism, monopolies, "corporate greed," the monetary system... Everyone will have their own definition of whichever enemy emerges, and their own reasoning for why its the problem. Those are extreme and indefensible examples. But, popular movements can also be right about things, while being irrational about reasons. What we are when we gather politically is... not our best selves. ^btw: I don't know enough about the nyc-amazon affair to have an opinion. Also, not comparing anyone to Nazis.
• jakelazaroff 8y ago
  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.
  • moate 8y ago
    >>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.
  • rchaud 8y ago
    > I also don't really understand why AOC is being scapegoated for this — For the same reason the purple-haired woman screaming into Logic Man's face fuels millions of "SJW cringe" video views. AOC for many people is a symbol of "snowflake socialist millennials who want the world to be handed to them". This is a narrative that persists even when it is Amazon that pays no federal tax and demands extra concessions despite already being highly profitable.
• jkaplowitz 8y ago
  I'm born, raised, lived most of my life (though not now), and still vote federally in NYC. As a NYer by almost any definition, I agree with AOC that this was a bad deal, and partly due to the influx of new people. Maybe not for her reasons. Particularly, they picked a part of NYC where neither the housing market nor the neighborhood's transit infrastructure can handle that extreme rapid growth. The 7 and G trains would be overwhelmed, lots of residents would be priced out disruptively fast, etc. They also don't need billions of dollars of subsidies from NY. They are among the most valuable companies in the world, already have an office in NYC, and will still be growing that. By contrast, I have no problem with Google doubling it's NYC office from 7k employees to 14k, because it's in a different part of the city which can absorb that just fine in all regards. And no subsidies involved, as far as we the public have been made aware. (Disclosure, I used to work at Google NYC for Google, but I really would be saying the same thing about the locations and growth plans if the company labels were swapped. I have no inside info on either company's real estate plans and don't work or speak for either now.) You and I agree that the people who thought Amazon's NYC HQ would pay below living wage are misunderstanding - at least for directly employed workers. Not sure how their office contractors are treated, but I expect the answer would match whatever's true in Seattle.
  • L_Rahman 8y ago
    The transit infrastructure argument is moot. Here's transit reporter Aaron Gordon making the case far better than I could: > The G, 7, E, M, F, R, N, and W are all within a reasonable walking distance from the proposed HQ site. In the short term, Amazon will occupy one million square feet of 1 Court Square, which sits directly above…Court Square on the E, M, 7, and G lines (the other aforementioned lines are not far away). While they’re all crowded during rush hour and Court Square itself will strain under the ridership (but less so than during the L shutdown) the G and M have additional peak-direction capacity. Also, they’re all well below the current crowding levels on the L and 4/5. Further, there’s good reason to believe many Amazon workers will follow non-traditional commuting patterns. For starters, a number of them will probably live within walking or bicycling distance from HQ2 given the housing construction boom in the neighborhood. For those who don’t, many will reverse-commute from Manhattan (Hudson Yards, the other NYC neighborhood experiencing a housing construction boom, is straight down the 7). For workers looking to commute from the suburbs, LIC has two LIRR stops, although they currently don’t have very attractive service patterns. Some might even choose to live in Metro North country, given that LIC is one stop on the 7 from Grand Central. It’s also worth noting that East Side Access service, which would bring the LIRR to Grand Central, is slated to begin in December 2022, making Long Island a more attractive option. The point is not that any one of these options will be most attractive to future Amazon employees, but all of them will attract some and the load will be dispersed. This is the beauty of a robust, healthy transit network: it can absorb even the biggest of shocks. 40000 people across 8 lines with a bunch of countercyclical commuters is a drop in the bucket in NY transit.
• takeout 8y ago
  This is such a ridiculously bad take. NYers were against Amazon for the same reason Seattle residents were against Amazon taking over SLU. Nobody wanted 15k gentrifying jobs in LIC, half a mile from the Queensbridge Projects. Nobody wanted 15k transplant yuppies who don't want to contribute to culture at all. Nobody wanted Greenpoint, Astoria, and Williamsburg to turn (even more into) a gross similacrum of the Mission, where all the black and brown people get kicked out in favor of boring ass FAANG employees who only leave their 3k a month railroads to go to Soulcycle. NYC is still a tech town. But it's not _only_ a tech town. You don't have to only be one thing in order to succeed.
  • blang 8y ago
    The diversity of Seattle has increased with the number of Amazon employees: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/data/seattle-is-less-white-than-it-has-ever-been-in-modern-history-new-census-data-show/ https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/data/seattle-is-le...
    • takeout 8y ago
      Racial diversity != economic diversity. I can see why you thought I meant that, and for that I apologize.
  • cdelsolar 8y ago
    how are the yuppies not contributing to culture? we invented avocado toast.
  • wan23 8y ago
    Note that by "nobody" you mean actually mean a majority of New Yorkers, according to polling. Only 35% of New Yorkers were opposed to the plan.
• danielson 8y ago
  > At what point does someone who moves to NYC become a NYer? 10 years, or if you were here on 9/11.
  • zebnyc 8y ago
    Who gets to decide this 10 year magic number?
    • danielson 8y ago
      New York Today: Becoming a New Yorker https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/05/nyregion/new-york-today-becoming-a-new-yorker.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/05/nyregion/new-york-today-b...
• untog 8y ago
  Google is in the midst of a large expansion in NYC. Amazon themselves are even still expanding in NYC, just not to the levels (and location) of the HQ2 plan. NYC tech will be absolutely fine. It's still a very desirable place to base a company, and IMO people won't even be talking about the Amazon deal in a year's time. I mean, think about the level of resistance big tech companies face in San Francisco, or Seattle even. This is a pretty uniform thing.
• drugme 8y ago
  Which one is it? The fact that some people may have been misinformed about one aspect of the issue (the number of fulfillment jobs) does not -- in any way -- diminish the perfectly legitimate concerns that others had about rising rents and displacement. What if someone commuted from NJ? The concern is not about commuters from the metro region. But rather for the expect large numbers of transplants from many thousands of miles of way -- in exchange for massive subsidies positioned as "necessary" for the benefit of local job creation.
• L_Rahman 8y ago
  The anti-Amazon movement wasn't about hating Amazon specifically. The anti-Amazon movement was about the world's richest company and the world's richest secretly negotiating three billion dollars in subsidies with the governor. New Yorkers have no problem with technology companies. Google just bought a third of the West Village. No one cares. The Times is running trend pieces about hapless Facebook employees moving from Palo Alto to the East Village and paying 7800 dollars in rent. No one cares. One thing I'd encourage you to do is think of New York as a system instead of focusing on the storylines of the individual players. NY is a grossly corrupt city with a non-functioning democracy. The story of NY for the last two hundred years is a series of big companies making shady deals with the government to get big handouts while public infrastructure is failing, housing supply is unaffordable and neighborhoods get structured by real estate developers instead of people. Unless the system attracts too much attention, it's mostly stable. That's why Google is on a multi-billion real estate buying spree and the subways have gone sixty years without signaling upgrades. The problem is that Amazon made a huge show out of their arrival and pushed for concessions beyond what their peers asked for. That created a lot of attention and organizers harnessed long standing grievances with the government and housing policy along with it to push Amazon out.
• rchaud 8y ago
  > since when did NYC become a country? Where could/couldnt workers come from -- would it be only from Queens? Would Brooklyn be OK? What if someone commuted from NJ? This question is coming up because moves of this scale aren't common, especially in big cities. NYC is very densely populated, and affordable housing is already a huge issue. Nobody worries about Foxconn hiring non-Ohioans because most people aren't going to want to move to Ohio to work for Foxconn.