Amazon is not stupid. I have observed that in communities that try to milk them they will not build any more. In communities that are grateful for the flood of jobs, more and more facilities pop up.
There are many styles of Amazon fulfillment centers. You get one, its a test, you get 4, you passed the test.
Seattle failed, those jobs will go elsewhere. You drop 5000 jobs from 11 - 17 bucks and hour for unskilled labor on a town and you get prosperity.
But the jobs in downtown Seattle aren’t the warehouse/fulfillment center jobs, I think you’re talking about. Seattle is the corporate nerve center, the hipster techie liberals and management.
Those $11-17/hr jobs are on the outskirts of major cities or in the country, where land is cheap, property taxes low and a job at that pay rate is considered a really good job.
The urban hubs, like Amazon HQ in Seattle, are filled with all the “do good - feel good - liberals”. The ones that scream from the rooftops about equality and opportunity and every other liberal agenda item they can think of.
Kinda like that Walmart store in Montreal that voted to join the union. The next day, the store closed...permanently.
Most CEO’s, even the liberal ones aren’t stupid.
They move.
Maryland instituted a Millionaire’s tax years ago. It was an extra tax on high earners, most of whom just changed their citizenship to their homes in low tax states or just moved.
Amazon is basically offices, servers and warehouses. It’s not like they own manufacturing plants with millions of dollars of infrastructure.
Moving can literally be done over the weekend if they put their minds to it.
I work for a manufacturing company. Moving the plant would be nearly impossible. Between the specialty equipment and the skilled labor, the disruption would be massive. I think the only way would be to build a new one, run them concurrently then when the new one is fully up to speed in a few years, shutter the old one.