NYT Op-Ed Argues Amazon 'Took Seattle's Soul' (bendbulletin.com) 285
New York Times columnist Timothy Egan was part of the paper's Pulitzer Prize-winning team in 2001. Now he's written an op-ed arguing Amazon "took Seattle's soul." An anonymous reader writes:
Since Amazon arrived "we've been overwhelmed by a future we never had any say over," Egan writes, with a message for cities competing to be the site of Amazon's next headquarters. Amazon now owns as much office space as Seattle's next 40 biggest employers combined, according to an analysis by the Seattle Times, "a mind-boggling 19 percent of all prime office space in the city, the most for any employer in a major U.S. city...more than twice as large as any other company in any other big U.S. city."
Egan notes Amazon is offering 50,000 high-paying jobs and $5 billion worth of investments, "a once-in-a-century, destiny-shaping event," but "You think you can shape Amazon? Not a chance. It will shape you... What comes with the title of being the fastest growing big city in the country, with having the nation's hottest real estate market, is that the city no longer works for some people. For many others, the pace of change, not to mention the traffic, has been disorienting... [M]edian home prices have doubled in five years, to $700,000. This is not a good thing in a place where teachers and cops used to be able to afford a house with a water view... As a Seattle native, I miss the old city, the lack of pretense, and dinner parties that didn't turn into discussions of real estate porn.
Wages have risen faster in Amazon's Seattle than anywhere else in America, and while Amazon changed the city's character, it also poured $38 billion into the city's economy. (Besides Amazon's own 40,000 employees, it also attracted another 50,000 new jobs.) "To the next Amazon lottery winner I would say, enjoy the boom," Egan concludes, "but be careful what you wish for."
Egan notes Amazon is offering 50,000 high-paying jobs and $5 billion worth of investments, "a once-in-a-century, destiny-shaping event," but "You think you can shape Amazon? Not a chance. It will shape you... What comes with the title of being the fastest growing big city in the country, with having the nation's hottest real estate market, is that the city no longer works for some people. For many others, the pace of change, not to mention the traffic, has been disorienting... [M]edian home prices have doubled in five years, to $700,000. This is not a good thing in a place where teachers and cops used to be able to afford a house with a water view... As a Seattle native, I miss the old city, the lack of pretense, and dinner parties that didn't turn into discussions of real estate porn.
Wages have risen faster in Amazon's Seattle than anywhere else in America, and while Amazon changed the city's character, it also poured $38 billion into the city's economy. (Besides Amazon's own 40,000 employees, it also attracted another 50,000 new jobs.) "To the next Amazon lottery winner I would say, enjoy the boom," Egan concludes, "but be careful what you wish for."
never had it (Score:4, Insightful)
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I have proof that Seattle had soul, at least at one time:
https://www.billboard.com/file... [billboard.com]
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Haha, I thought it was gonna be Quincy Jones rather than Jimi Hendrix.
Re:never had it (Score:4, Insightful)
Rich tech companies aren't new to the Seattle area (hint: Microsoft is just across Lake Washington in Redmond). It's just new to the city of Seattle proper. Far better to deal with the issues that come from a sudden boom than the opposite. Look at a city in decline to see how it *could* be.
Dramatic change always shakes some people up, even if it's generally positive change. Yes, there are some growing pains, but I think Amazon is going to be a huge long-term net positive for the city.
Re: never had it (Score:5, Informative)
Arguably much better. Walmart pays bottom rung wages, while Amazon jobs tech pay really well. In my own field of videogame development, they've sucked up a huge amount of local talent with their new game studio, largely by paying better wages. This ends up driving UP wages elsewhere as well, if companies want to keep their best talent. Boosted wages means local families have more to spend, and that's a boon for the local economies and tax revenue, which relies on sales taxes.
You can look at other parallel situations in the area. Microsoft was a *massive* economic boon to the small city of Redmond. That arguably had a much more significant effect on a much smaller economy, and it's done quite well. Redmond has a lot of really nice local shops, boutiques, and public places in the area. Yes, housing prices tend to rise, but that's a single negative amongst a huge number of positive effects.
Bitching about prosperity. Talk about first-world problems.
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It also has the effect of turning a $200k home into a $2 million home.
Re: never had it (Score:4, Informative)
As a blue collar worker living in Seattle and currently looking to buy. I can tell you there is no way you can find a house in seattle for anything near $200k. You might be able to find a studio or one bedroom condo in seattle for around $250k but it's either going to be something the size of a cardboard box or have HOA dues in excess of $800 (often more than the payment will be). Actually anything within 1/2 hr driving to Seattle is quickly becoming the same. Houses are non-existent for >$250k. I'm actually just trying to find something like a one bedroom condo within driving range of seattle with a monthly payment of >$1500 because within a year the average rent will be much higher than that and the only chance anyone will have of being able to afford to live here unless you are making six figures will be near zero. Unless you want to live in a tent by the road.
I'm not blaming Amazon for this though. We expect progress, so when it arrives it's kind of pointless to bitch about it, but the same goes for those people needing my services. It costs a lot to live here so don't cry when you get my bill :)
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Yes, housing prices tend to rise, but that's a single negative amongst a huge number of positive effects.
Indeed. I hated it when my house doubled in value.
Re: never had it (Score:5, Insightful)
You realize that means absolutely nothing, unless you are prepared to move out into a cheaper area?
If your house doubled in price, that likely means that you'll have to pay double (or more) for your next house, too. You gain nothing.
Re: never had it (Score:2)
Huge down payment on the next house. No PMI. Lower interest rate. That is what it did for me. Double the square footage, quadruple the land.
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If your house doubled in price, that likely means that you'll have to pay double (or more) for your next house, too.
And later you sell that house for the value you bought it for, maybe more. Doesn't change the fact that your first investment doubled. That was operating on the assumption that housing inflation doubles everywhere. It doesn't.
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Re: never had it (Score:4, Insightful)
Arguably much better. Walmart pays bottom rung wages, while Amazon jobs tech pay really well. In my own field of videogame development, they've sucked up a huge amount of local talent with their new game studio
More importantly, Wal-Mart comes to take over existing local jobs in other retailers while a new game studio would expand the market.
largely by paying better wages. This ends up driving UP wages elsewhere as well, if companies want to keep their best talent. Boosted wages means local families have more to spend
Now that's a gross oversimplification. If you rise with the tide, everything is great. But a lot of people are stuck in jobs that pay minimum wage, are set by public authorities or don't see any increased competition for the jobs they offer. Or they have some other form of income or fixed amount of money like social security or retirement savings. There are a whole lot of people who will not see any additional income or new busniess/employment opportunities.
Redmond has a lot of really nice local shops, boutiques, and public places in the area. Yes, housing prices tend to rise, but that's a single negative amongst a huge number of positive effects.
Many low-income families rent because they either can't afford to buy or they have too unstable jobs to commit. Their rent goes up, which is a much bigger deal than if you own and taxes go up. And shop space becomes more expensive so prices go up, nice but costly hipster establishments replace cheaper ones. Out with Costco, in with Whole Foods. That corner pub where you could get a coffee, a beer and an meal for a few bucks is replaced with Starbucks, hipster clubs and fine dining. Nice places are nice if you can afford them.
For sure, it's great for the city's economy and you might argue that through trickle-down economics that'll fund improvements to all. But very often there's a displacement effect, in comes the rich people so the poor people are pushed out to new communities. Not everybody is going to be happy about that and they got legitimate reasons not to be. Your post comes away as a little condescending, there's lots of positives and one tiny negative so if you're complaining you're a whiner. But some people only get the short end of the stick.
Re: never had it (Score:2)
Sorry but supply and demand rules nature. Just like a lot of predators will die if there prey is in short supply, if 10 million people can fill a job, it won't pay a lot.
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Sorry but supply and demand rules nature. Just like a lot of predators will die if there prey is in short supply, if 10 million people can fill a job, it won't pay a lot.
Yeast will multiply without bound in a sugar solution, until all the food is gone and they all die. Using primitive instinct as guidance is the road to extinction.
Yet somehow we've survived pretty well. Maybe the system works.
Re: never had it (Score:5, Interesting)
Arguably much better. Walmart pays bottom rung wages
Seriously, stop with the bullshit on that one. Walmart pays over the minimum wage always has whether the state min. wage is $5 and they pay $7.50, or the province wage is $10.50 and they pay $13 they've always done that. Keep in mind that working at a big-box store was never meant to be a career, but rather something to help you along the path. Much like the current hipster whining that they can't survive with their gender studies degrees and working at starbucks.
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If that's actually the case then you've worked with no shortage of management who were born with a silver spoon in their asses. Yet you resent the poor more than the rich and bourgeois who were born on third base. Interesting.
Re: never had it (Score:2)
Same here. It is what movies and tv tell them.
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Where was I only talking about the rich?
You don't have to be an investment banker to help your slacker son get into a good university - after he drank he way through high school - and then help him into a good job fresh out of college - after drinking his way to a BA. A job that an "up from mah bootstraps" shmoe would have to work ten years to get. A being lawyer or manager of your local Wells Fargo branch will do quite nicely.
An
Re: never had it (Score:3, Interesting)
You got lucky.
Others worked even more than you and still remained poor.
People tend to attribute success to their own efforts, and failure to "bad circumstance" or everybody else but themselves. But in fact both are wrong, it's both the same: part luck and chance, part hard work, part society and circumstance and everybody else.
So you worked hard *and* got lucky. (As did I.) Great, enjoy, and kudos to you, but that's no reason to be a schmug. Not everyone who's poor is so because they're lazy. Some worked ev
Re: never had it (Score:2)
LOL, you're funny.
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Meanwhile, those of us who came from little and tended to be a little more self-made tend to get more a bit offended when the implication comes along, over and over again, that we didn't do shit and everything was handed to us because of 'white privilege' or heteronormity or whatever is fashionable to say gives you all the breaks today. If you work hard, teach yourself, and get ahead, don't be surprised if we aren't in favor of getting dragged down again by the mediocrity that didn't bother with any of thos
"Not a good thing" (Score:3, Insightful)
From summary :
[M]edian home prices have doubled in five years, to $700,000. This is not a good thing
It's always stunned me that people continue to make this argument. It's not good for incoming cops/teachers, but what about all of the cops and teachers that had been living there already for decades before? It is a massive windfall for them. Growth like that is in essence stoking a huge retirement bonus for everyone living in a city now. How can that possibly be a bad thing?
Yes new incoming teachers and cops will have to pay more to live, and in smaller spaces. But some of that SHOULD be made up by significantly higher salaries for those positions as well, and if they are not getting said salaries that is a direct fault of the local government, and no-one else.
Remember kids; any time you argue against general prosperity and growth you come off looking kind of dumb.
Re:"Not a good thing" (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't need to displace them (Score:3, Interesting)
Oh, this is what government is for, btw. You build a powerful government a
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it is incredibly bad strategy to displace the workers who maintain it.
Working people are being pushed out by zoning laws and restrictions on the construction of affordable housing. Blaming that on Amazon is idiotic. If Seattle wants to be affordable to working people, they should approve a lot more building permits.
Re:"Not a good thing" (Score:4, Insightful)
Unfortunately, they'd prefer to raise the cost of new housing so they can finance construction of affordable housing. This results in less housing overall but allows the local government to control more of the money while also getting more residents that depend on the government and who will vote to perpetuate it.
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It's actually crazy easy to get a building permit in Seattle right now. (sic. My brother works as a building inspector in the area.) The fact is that why would anyone buy a crazy expensive piece of land and then build something "affordable" on it. That's insane. You can toss up one of those square box stick houses with 4 bedrooms and a postage stamp yard and sell it in a day for more than $750K. It isn't zoning and restrictions it's just the market working the way it's supposed to.
Now if you want to bi
Re: "Not a good thing" (Score:2)
There was a system in the past that people serving buildings had special living quater accomodations that came with the job.
It was not a bad system.
Re:"Not a good thing" (Score:4, Insightful)
Remember kids; any time you argue against general prosperity and growth you come off looking kind of dumb.
Ditto making simplistic statements on complex matters.
Re: "Not a good thing" (Score:3)
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"the value of my house has risen about 10% and added about $200 to my mortgage..."
Then you must be Canadian or British. Our mortgages stay the same as equity rises. But be careful, because they also stay the same if equity drops.
Re: "Not a good thing" (Score:5, Informative)
hen you must be Canadian or British. Our mortgages stay the same as equity rises.
When you make your mortgage payment, you're also paying your property tax. The bank collects it from your payments and holds it in escrow until the property taxes are due. Because banks really hate it when the city forecloses on the property for back property taxes (and they like receiving interest-free loans).
So that poster's mortgage payment likely went up due to the higher property tax payment. While calling the payment "my mortgage" is not pedantically correct, people generally drop "payment" when talking about such issues.
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Which is why a lot of States limit the taxed value from rising more than a certain percentage each year, even if the assessed value skyrockets.
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... as well as discouraging people from selling their house, since even if they buy another of equal value it'll cost them more in property taxes.
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That's your house payment, not your mortgage payment. Semantics are everything.
Colloquial usage of language exists. You either deal with it, or you're the annoying person at the party complaining how everyone is not speaking properly.
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Although it often will be, it doesn't have to be. My mortgage documents (California) had a box I could tick that indicated I would be entirely responsible for insurance and taxes, and that the bank would not collect and pay them for me. I did so, as I'd rather be aware of and manage those payments myself, and I'm financially knowledgeable enough to do so. My
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I'll rephrase what was stated in another reply. In the US, most mortgages pay the property tax and roll it into the monthly interest payments via an escrow account. This ensures that the property doesn't get repossessed for failure to pay the taxes.
Basically, a sharply increasing property value is only good if you both own the property outright and the property tax does not increase beyond your ability to pay it... or if you were about to sell it and move out of town anyhow.
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But in the UK, isn't a change in prevailing interest rate reflected in mortgages already outstanding, rather than the rate being fixed at whatever it was when the mortgage was made? In a rising market with money getting tighter and rates rising, that would mean rising payments.
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Most locales today are ad valorem (taxed at market value). Here there is still a cap .. your market value is capped at 10% increase per yer. If you do any improvements to the property that cap is tossed.
Also the estimated percent of property taxes is 1% for a first ~100k (may have changed) and then 2% there after.
Also insurance is included int the mortgage* payment.
Mortgage includes: Interest + Principal + Property Taxes + Property Insurance + PMI**
* This all assumes your mortgage is with a bank or lending
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Some people win, therefore no people lose. Nice argument you got there, shame if something should happen to it.
You don't even seem to realize that families are multi-generational affairs.
In a free market, anyone can change their location at any time in response to changing economic conditions. But just try to take your spouse or your social network with you at the same time.
Winner: affluence. Loser: social cohesion.
There, was that actually so difficult to figure out?
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The funding level isn't really what got them held in contempt of court. People voted to require that education be "fully funded" without really considering what that meant. All the state government really had to do to meet the requirement was ban local levies to raise money for schools. The legislature was held in contempt of court because they didn't do that immediately and instead took the time to replace that money before ending the levies.
A single giant corporation dominates the city? (Score:2)
A 2nd HQ, or a smokescreen for an eventual move? (Score:5, Interesting)
Although Amazon has stated that they plan to establish a "2nd" HQ that is to be equal to their first, I have to wonder if the motivation is to set up an alternative location that could eventually surpass Seattle and become the primary HQ. It's apparent that there is growing resentment over Amazon's impact on the city, and maybe Amazon is planning ahead for a day when the local political environment is too hostile to support its continued growth.
If that happens, the locals anti-Amazon crowd may end up pondering the wisdom of being careful what you wish for.
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The problem is that they've grown too large to sustain their own growth. It makes more sense to set up second headquarters far away from there if the costs are lower.
So because of Amazon, costs have gone up for real estate and wages, but Amazon is also paying these costs, basically eating it's own tail.
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The anti-Amazon crowd wouldn't mind if Amazon left and took half the tech jobs. Just makes it more of a 'hipster'* / counterculture paradise like Portland and Detroit - the inner bit, which is all that counts since that's where the non-brown people are.
* Provide your own definition since nobody can agree on one.
Portland, Oregon: Constant traffic and pollution (Score:2)
Portland is no longer the city it once was. Now there are constant traffic jams and the increased pollution caused by slow-moving cars.
Portland City managers are allowing the construction of large buildings with no parking.
Amazon and Microsoft make Seattle MISERABLE. (Score:5, Interesting)
Amazon: Worse than Wal-Mart: Amazon's sick brutality and secret history of ruthlessly intimidating workers [salon.com] (February 23, 2014)
Amazon: Inside Amazon: Wrestling Big Ideas in a Bruising Workplace [nytimes.com] (August 15, 2015) Quote: "The company is conducting an experiment in how far it can push white-collar workers..."
Amazon: Amazon Under Fire Over Alleged Worker Abuse in Germany [bloomberg.com] (February 19, 2013)
Microsoft: Microsoft Is Filled With Abusive Managers And Overworked Employees, Says Tell-All Book [businessinsider.com] (May 23, 2012) The Microsoft headquarters is in Redmond, part of the Seattle metropolitan area.
Seattle: Together with Amazon, Microsoft, and inadequate city management, Seattle is an extremely miserable place:
Traffic: Seattle one of the worst U.S. cities for traffic congestion, tied with NYC [geekwire.com] (March 31, 2015) Quote: "An additional 23 minutes a day spent in traffic may not sound like much, but when it adds up over a year it becomes 89 hours." (Whoever wrote that must be accustomed to Seattle misery. An additional 23 minutes a day spent in traffic sounds HORRIBLE.)
Slow internet: Many areas of Seattle have poor internet connections. See the article, These places have the slowest Internet in the country [cnn.com]. (June 25, 2015) Quote: "... Seattle
Important questions for city managers and residents of Amazon's new city: 1) Do you want to invite a company to your city that has a history of abusiveness? 2) Could the managers of Amazon's new city manage Amazon's growth, or would it be almost completely out of their control?
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The August 15, 2015 article was a hatchet job. The Times reporters interviewed a handful of unhappy ex-employees and gave Amazon no opportunity to respond in the article. Amazon did respond later (https://medium.com/@jaycarney/what-the-new-york-times-didn-t-tell-you-a1128aa78931) and anyone who quotes the article should also mention the Amazon's response. Around Amazon HQ the article was considered laughable to the point that someone created a "desk-crying-interest" mailing list. Seriously, I've never seen
Re:A 2nd HQ, or a smokescreen for an eventual move (Score:4, Interesting)
It's apparent that there is growing resentment over Amazon's impact on the city, and maybe Amazon is planning ahead for a day when the local political environment is too hostile to support its continued growth.
The net effect of Amazon leaving Seattle would be like the auto industry leaving Detroit. There would be a mass exodus of hipsters, and in a sense the Amazon Bubble would pop leaving a significant number of losers.
And I'm all for it.
Asimov? (Score:2)
So the First Amazon, on the farthest reaches of the American continent, was based on technology and engineering. The Second Amazon, its location kept secret but as far from the First Amazon as possible in the oldest American city, was based on persuasion and manipulating customers' minds?
And when the First Amazon fails/falls, the Second Amazon will already have taken over without anyone knowing about it. But then the whole thing will be proved a sham as everything was a scheme hatched by the first inte
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Re: A 2nd HQ, or a smokescreen for an eventual mov (Score:2)
Great idea. I would piggyback on that and ask whether it will be used as a bargaining chip instead of just an eventual move.
Yep (Score:2)
Shop around for a better deal on taxes. Moving the HQ to Pittsburgh makes sense because of how low the wages and cost of living is. All that money goes right back into the company's pocket.
When costs rise, things tend to be good (Score:3)
When costs for housing rises, the city gets more property tax income, criminal activity goes down and the city can give police officers and teachers their much needed raises while the schools get better. If Amazon built outside the city, like many companies at one point did (eg. the Google and Apple campus), then you complain about companies destroying the small towns with zero-tax deals and using land that was once grasslands and wildlife while not giving back to the community.
It doesn't stop the teachers and police officers that live there from continuing to live there and if they want to, they can sell the house for a tidy profit, get themselves into a better position, go live in the suburbs, get better educated or retire early.
We're also very sad the fish mongers no longer occupy the houses near the river or the horse buggy makers near the city gates.
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Property tax doesn't work like that in King County. The amount collected is fixed and it's divvied up by figuring out your ratio of appraised value to the county as a whole. As my house has gone up in value, my taxes have gone up some years and down others, depending on how the year went.
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Property tax doesn't work like that in King County. The amount collected is fixed and it's divvied up by figuring out your ratio of appraised value to the county as a whole. As my house has gone up in value, my taxes have gone up some years and down others, depending on how the year went.
Tax revenue goes up when business boom, due to the increased income that companies like Amazon are being taxed on, while rates should more or less stay the same or fluctuate only slightly. In my neck of the woods, some communities offer far superior services such as schools, police and fire, recreation facilities, roads, etc., because they have large corporate tax bases, and often a lot of wealthy residents. In some cases, they are also able to keep rates lower because the per capita income they are taxing
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Costs rise because demand rises. Demand rises due to a growing economy. Another time Seattle's economy grew this fast was during the Alaska gold rush. Seattle was the outfitter and jumping off point for the prospectors. And often where the wealthy ones brought their money back to.
This boom also attracted large numbers of unemployed people looking for opportunities that never materialized. These people ended up living along what was known as Skid road [wikipedia.org]. Now they arrive, hoping for some of that Amazon gold, o
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Re do the calculation with the increased money going towards subsidizing homelessness.
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When Amazon fully departs, Seattle will be become the Detroit of the NWP. Hahaha
Yeah, it sucks when a company's presence is responsible for revitalizing a whole city. Amazon is the behemoth, but it isn't like they are dying or leaving any time soon, or like there hasn't been a ton of collateral growth that will be perfectly sustainable. Detroit's decline was slow, and the city wasn't a paradise even when the big three automakers were booming. Seattle was trendy and had a lot going for it before Amazon became what it is today.
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Only for people that BUY the houses. Existing property owners do not get reassessed. It also depends on how your taxes are calculated but typically, you're off pretty good as long as you hold onto the property.
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Went from a Microsoft Culture to Amazon? (Score:2)
I never knew Seattle before Microsoft, but through the 90's and 00's, Microsoft (and maybe a bit of Intel, both of whom I was a customer of through this time) was a dominant force there.
Isn't this a case of one artificial culture replacing another?
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I grew up about 40 miles to the south of Seattle, then lived in the city from 1978 to 1990. My wife and I decided to move out of Seattle at that point, after we decided to start a family (we weren’t fans of the schools). This was well before Amazon existed, but even back then locals were lamenting the loss of the Seattle we’d known. You can track down episodes of Almost Live from that time period (an iconic local comedy sketch show) and find others who grew up here expressing similar sentiments.
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Remember, kids! Be like Billy! Behave yourself!
It lost its soul (Score:2)
when Frazier was cancelled.
Times change (Score:2)
The first rule of starting off or making expansions to any business to minimize the self cost by getting partners or investors. Amazon isn't going to set up in the middle of nowhere to build up from nothing like los vegas for the good of all, nor should it expect to.
Cascadia Subduction Zone? (Score:3)
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Why is the NYT obsessed with Seattle? (Score:2)
The NY Times seems oddly obsessed with Seattle. I did a search on the NYT web site to see if I am imagining things, but there were a lot of stories there on events and trends in Seattle that I would think only matter to people who live in Seattle.
Chicken Little (Score:2)
It's a good thing Chicken Little didn't get paid for clicks. I'm sure that more than the sky would have been falling.
So what about the Boeing collapse of the early 70's? http://www.historylink.org/Fil... [historylink.org]
What about Seattle being named "Most Livable City" in the early 90's after which the Californication occurred?
The lack of perspective and knowledge from journalists does more damage than anything Amazon could ever do.
Bangalore (Score:3)
What city doesn't want Amazon? (Score:2)
There are so many medium sized cities across the US that would love to have the problems that Seattle has. Growth? Check! Great jobs that aren't going away any time soon? Check! Rising income? Check!
Someone is going to complain no matter what happens. If nobody invests in your city (see Detroit), then it's been abandoned by the high tech economy. If they do, then it's taking away the soul of the city. Ridiculous.
What soul? (Score:2)
I live in Cleveland. They can have the soul.
HQ2 (Score:2)
You don't get to control other people (Score:2)
You don't get to control other people. If a company and its employees want to move into a city, as long as they are making mutually agreeable free market transactions with private land owners to achieve that, tough luck!
If you have a problem, move. No one owns a city. You own your own property (so don't sell it/rent it to a corporation). If you rent, you own nothing, and are free to move when you want to.
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or in 90% of the cases maybe blame adult babies that don't take responsibility for themselves and expect a handout?
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This isn't what causes homelessness; it is the fact that far too many live paycheck to paycheck, and can't survive "bad things" happening to them. It can quickly spiral out of control. Add in mental illness and addictive behavior and it only gets worse.
There are of course people that do choose to be homeless, but it is not a major percentage on a collective scale. (Places like the Haight used to be disproportionately this type of person, not sure about today-- but it is a local phenomenon.)
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wrong, you're merely spewing bullshit that sounds good. in most cases they were on welfare before
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My company (an international company with over 80k employees) has had IT positions open for 6 months on a perfectly liveable salary here,
Sure you do. What you really mean is you post fake jobs for 6 months. You don't fill the open positions, and you have no intention of ever filling the open positions. Your company never hires anyone. Why aren't you hiring?
That's a ridiculous thing to assert without having any real information, you anonymous coward. I know of another company there that has constant openings without pointlessly posting fake jobs. Why can't you understand that demand can be greater than supply? Sure, real estate and other costs are way up in places like Seattle, but so are wages, and not just in IT. I've looked there and seen some impressive openings but haven't found the right time and the right opportunity to pull the trigger on.
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That is, in fact, a damn good thing for the cops and teachers who bought undervalued homes there in the past. Maybe their next homes won't feature the same prime locations, but they'll likely be bigger and nicer, or be paid for largely in cash
Because there are never any new cops or teachers.
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or renters
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Oh, please, zip it already. (Score:3)
Its not just the Bro-grammers, the standard programmers who were neurotic anxious kids themselves are the main bullies in IT. They prefer to blame everyone and everything except themselves for their personal failures, and failure to understand the real world. They isolate themselves in commute buses and avoid interacting with "normal" city residents, instead creating a single "inner party" enclave in which they now belong fulfilling deep seated needs, and love throwing everyone they can out. Even to the des
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Smart people in charge only works if their self-interest coincides with improving the world. As this is rarely the case, I would prefer stupid corrupt people to smart corrupt people.
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One reason I'm very selective in who I teach things to. This violent transparency in IT where knowledge you accumulate is supposed to be freely shared is the bane of everyone's careers at some point.
The alternative only makes logical sense to the geek, but of it course, it ends up even much worse for him. The geek who "defensively" hoards knowledge gets the reputation of being unfriendly and hard to work with. It doesn't matter if you know the infrastructure inside and out -- employers are perfectly capable of hiring people who are just as capable of learning as you are, and they'll be happy to replace a bad employee with a good one.
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$ helicopter > $ alfa romeo now who is poor?
Those step-parents don't own a helicopter, they ARE helicopters.