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Comment by dunpeal | Hacker News Reader

Indeed. Many people will say dropping a huge Amazon campus in Queens will adversely effect the character of the city, and exacerbate many of its issues.

I don't necessarily disagree with them, and if it was up to me, I'd rather Amazon land in Dallas that probably needs the jobs more.

However, this will be an objectively good thing for NYC as a center of commerce, and help establish it as a tech hub at a time its local job market isn't doing all too well.

Moreover, I doubt Amazon will game the system so excessively that it won't end up paying in taxes and investment and influx of business and salaries much more than it will receive in tax breaks.

It's unlikely they'll game the system so badly because it's not wise to screw the municipal authorities that can make your life miserable.

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>"However, this will be an objectively good thing for NYC as a center of commerce, and help establish it as a tech hub at a time its local job market isn't doing all too well."

NYC is already a tech hub and has been for the last decade at least - Google, FB, Spotify, MongoDB, Pinterest, Bloomberg, Etsy, Salesforce, Seamless, Twitter, MLBAM, Square etc are all in NYC.

NYC's economy isn't doing too well? It grew by 2.7% for the second consecutive quarter in 2018[1]. It's expanding, how is that "not doing too well" exactly?

https://comptroller.nyc.gov/reports/new-york-city-quarterly-...

I am sure Amazon is also already "in" NYC. Having a presence in a important is not the same as moving/adding 50k+ employees/HQ there.

Out of the companies you mentioned I think only Etsy , MongoDB, Seamless are NYC based, all the larger employers such as Google,FB,SalesForce ,Twitter are valley based.

No the companies I mentioned don't just have a presence "in" NYC. Google owns an entire city block with some 5K employees. It's the biggest office outside of Mountain View. Spotify's headquarter are also NYC and that some 3K employees. Sales Force also owns a building in midtown. FB has 10 floors. These are not "satellite" offices.

And the point is that 50K people is not some magic tipping point that is going to fix NYC infrastructure issues.

JP Morgan chase has 15K employees in it new building on 270 Park Ave and guess what, NYC infrastructure woes didn't disappear.

I am willing to bet that Amazon also already has significant presence in NYC, while I don't know exact numbers, a reasonable proxy is their job site, it lists around 600 active openings in the NYC, which means they employ 5-10k employees already.

NYC is way too big for any material impact either way by Amazon on infra, however the tech scene could use the boost, while as you point out there is already significant presence from some major folks, this could be potentially be the start of something much larger

> NYC's economy isn't doing too well? It grew by 2.7% for the second consecutive quarter in 2018.

The economy has been growing at 3.5-4% during this time nationally, so a 2.7% is actually training the national growth by a significant margin.

I don't have have the article handy, but hiring in NYC has been down this year by 3% or so. My unscientific observation is that finance employment in NYC has been in a slow but steady decline since 2008, and unlikely to recover.

NYC was already doing better than most of the country economically. NYC recovered from the Great Recession rather quickly compared to much of the rest of the country.

Perhaps in past years. This year, with the lower growth and decline in job numbers, it's been doing worse.

> I'd rather Amazon land in Dallas that probably needs the jobs more.

Having lived there, disincentivizing jobs and thereby incentivizing emmigration is the best outcome for most people in the DFW area. What a hellhole. "I want to die in Dallas" said noone ever.

Dallas is not a hellhole, yea may be a couple of months in Summer. I am confused about Dallas being a contender, but Texas Enterprise Fund usually makes a hard to refuse offer. Still, do not think Amazon is going to land here. Having said that, Dallas in a logistical center, especially it has become a national distribution point for goods coming from Mexico to US. It also makes sense if Amazon is splitting HQ2 into two smaller one, instead of having two HQs in East Coast, might as well send one part to central timezone.

Given Amazon's workforce demographics the optics of a very Red state don't look good.

It does if they enforce their non-discrimination policies. The oppressed need jobs too.

Also, news media's love of simplification has really twisted people's view of states other than their own. Georgia is about as "blue" as California or New York, but most of it is concentrated in a few counties in Metro Atlanta amid 159 state-wide. People mistake resolution for politics.

If an alleged "blue" state had as many counties as Georgia, those county election maps would look awfully red too. But since they don't, the counties that lean D take up more space, and the extremes on both ends are attenuated in a larger pool so red doesn't look as red.

The south in particular is notorious for having lots of counties. It was a way to get more money during Reconstruction. There's a reason the most prosperous former Confederate states have more counties even if you exclude those formed post-Reconstruction.

But its perception that counts if your asking people to move to a new area especially if your recruiting internationally

And also living in a small liberal eclave isn't that appealing.

The aforementioned Atlanta metro is the 9th largest MSA in the US (just ahead of Boston).

So not really a small liberal enclave.

I think the person you replied to started working on their reply in the time I added everything after the first line.

Assuming that they don't want to import a bunch of blue folks to Seattle (college hires)

I grew up around Dallas, a lot of the suburbs around there are _really_ nice (All-American feel, everybody goes to high school football games, etc.), had a lot of the fastest growing communities in the nation, the economy is booming in Texas, lower taxes, family friendly, and the culture is a lot more neighborly/friendly than most of the places I've lived (our neighbors brought over cookies when we moved in). Curious what gave you the opposite impression?

It’s funny to me that your example of all American is changing pretty quickly, at least in places with educated parents, since it involves watching children get brain damage.

Hehe, I actually hate football, and my mom never liked it either since she wanted us to have brain cells and such (we all played basketball instead), but I give it as an example of a community thing people did and supported. Totally agree on that point though.

There are plenty of nice people everywhere.

> cookies

Our neighbors in California let us stay in their house for 3 weeks. For free.

> a lot of the suburbs around there are _really_ nice

If you think suburban sprawl is a selling point for a city, you may want to visit some other places.

> fastest growing communities in the nation

When land is cheaper than free, you're sort of incentivized to build.

> lower taxes > the economy is booming in Texas

Who gets that money? Texas has a fairly regressive system of taxation: http://www.burntorangereport.com/diary/29392/texas-third-reg...

> family friendly

* Texas is in the bottom quartile of social welfare spending: https://www.urban.org/policy-centers/cross-center-initiative...

* The climate is brutal (at certain times in the summer it's actually cooler further south).

* The distance to anywhere else is unreal.

I absolutely agree many of the people are absolutely wonderful. I have also been to plenty of high school football games where a lot of racial slurs were muttered in the stands.

Totally agree that there are lots of nice people everywhere. I live in California now and I much prefer the weather, more to do too, and lots of nice people here too. I think you're criteria are a bit different than mine, and you interpret it differently, and that's okay. I'm mainly just pointing out that Texas is actually quite nice for some people and for lots of reasons. If you don't agree or think those reasons aren't important, that's totally fine, but lots of people who live there disagree with you.

I suspect that a lot more people want to work in NYC "the city that never sleeps" than Dallas "home of Jr Ewing"

Dallas gets a lot of (imo, undeserved) hate, but I'm curious as to why you didn't like it?

It effectively puts them in the heart of government and business. In hindsight it’s a pretty strong choice. Really wish they had chosen somewhere that really needed work though.

> I'd rather Amazon land in Dallas that probably needs the jobs more.

Nah, jobs are definitely not needed and there is already an influx of large out of state companies moving in. I will say with the rapidly expanding suburbs coupled with the lack of culture or protectionist policies due to everyone around being transplants anyways, it could absorb it (assuming we're not talking about Dallas proper but outside of the city which is where most companies reside).

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