Posted on 03/15/2018 6:41:51 AM PDT by DUMBGRUNT
As cities vie to host second campus, local activists say the ‘Hunger Games’-style competition is a bad deal for everyone – except Amazon...
“If you win this thing, God help you,” he said. “The backlash in that community is going to be horrific, and the person who thinks they’re going to ride that to the governor’s house or the White House is going to ride it to being unelected.”
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
My pals and I have set up an anonymous group to protest the day and time for garbage pickup! Mondays only and never before ten AM! Any other time is out of the question!
It appears that Amazon’s second headquarters will be near Dulles International Airport in Washington, DC. With good reasons: Amazon can draw from the high-educated base near the airport and by the time Amazon’s new headquarters opens, the Silver Line extension of the Washington Metro that reaches Dulles Airport will finally open.
It appears that Amazon’s second headquarters will be near Dulles International Airport in Washington, DC.
Glad I left Reston VIRGINIA in 1979.
If Amazon does move to the vicinity of Dulles Airport, it will be another nail in Virginia’s coffin, as the “Yankeefication” of Virginia progresses. What is happening now in the Old Dominion is what happened to Maryland some decades ago: the overwhelming of a Southern culture by Northerners and immigrants.
>>“Right now in Pittsburgh, we’re losing three black people every day from the city to the surrounding area,” said... In my area, we’d be lily white at that rate, in a week or two. <<
It would be interesting to gather some statistical cohorts.
It’s going to be Dallas. You heard it here first.
I can understand the reasons for that decision, but it would be a disappointing choice. The reasons are straightforward, and Amazon would be merely the latest in a long line of major corporations locating to the Dulles area. The next lemming. Amazon may have enough money and clout to locate a headquarters complex right atop a metro line, but it would still be a choice to operate in high suburbia in a car oriented culture in which most employees will drive ten miles to a metro stop to get on a train, with Amazon calling that a commitment to mass transit. And most employees would live in cul de sac land where they are wedded to their cars for absolutely everything. I hold out hope that Amazon will choose something other than a cookie cutter suburban office park, but that would require a willingness to think outside of the box.
If Amazon wanted to be a leader, it could locate downtown or in a gentrifying inner city area. Employees would have the option of nearby, lower-cost housing which could be easily renovated and upgraded as the area improved. Schools would be an issue, but Amazon employees will be able to afford private schools, which is how the middle class lives in DC anyhow. Or Amazon could really buy in to a leadership role and work with the city to develop a formula for high quality schools in the public system. But that's probably a bridge too far for West Coast lefties to consider.
Amen to that!
VA has been saved largely by the river. MD’s land same-side has ruined it. And the cancer is still spreading.
“Maryland fell first perhaps because they were closer to the Northeast States.”
No, it fell because DC has ITS land and is on the same side of the river.
The river protected VA for a long time, and still does to some extent.
“If Amazon wanted to be a leader, it could locate downtown or in a gentrifying inner city area. Employees would have the option of nearby, lower-cost housing which could be easily renovated and upgraded as the area improved.”
You’ve just described the south-and-east-of-Atlanta area. It’s either already gentrified, is in the process of being gentrified, or qualifies to be gentrified — and housing is way more reasonable than the DC area. Also, airport is close.
The biggest downside to a large tech employer coming to your town is that they will bring with them large numbers of people who exhibit San Francisco voting patterns.
Yep I pray they don’t come to Raleigh.
Wherever Amazon sites it, taxpayers will get screwed. There’s a reason NYS is refusing to make the details of its offer public...
Prior to the Reston VA Ebola Virus outbreak....
Research Triangle Park would be a prime site...
They say that like it’s a bad thing....and some of my best friends are black.
they would probably agree..
Nah. Most will be H-1Bs who can't vote anyway.
Meanwhile, the DC suburbs are blowing their chance to get things right. DC itself is gentrifying. This is relentless. Lower income people are being priced out. Poverty is migrating to the suburbs. In another 20 years, everything inside the beltway will be relatively expensive, with a lot of today's real problem areas being razed and completely redeveloped. The Hispanics are taking over increasingly large swaths of Northern Virginia. Our black brethren are more dispersed, but the black population of DC continues to decline (from 70% to 47% since 1970). As the LBJ-era housing projects are retired, DC will be left with the black professional class, and the poor will leave. This is happening faster than most people realize.
Amazon can buy into a growing success story, or it can go suburban and sentence its employees to the gridlock lifestyle. One already hears the phrase "the Manhattanization of DC." There's a considerable amount of hyperbole in such a statement; we're nowhere near Manhattan densities and I hope we never are ... but we are redeveloping very attractive new areas for young professional people who have dispensed with their cars, and consider the idea of owning a car foolish. Capitol Hill, U Street-Cardozo, and Bloomingdale are old news. Areas like Trinidad, Columbia Heights and Petworth are now gentrifying. Rayful Edmond's old stomping grounds are a hot yuppie neighborhood.
Unless Amazon is ideologically committed to suburban tract housing, it should consider DC proper and think about areas where most of its employees could live without a car. Instead of providing parking as an employee benefit, for example, pay for employees' Zipcar monthly membership fees. Or provide a flat cash allowance for commuting costs pegged to metro fares. People who drive and wanted parking would pay the excess charges out of their own pockets. People who walked or rode a bike could take the benefit in cash. Jeff Bezos could get all the virtue signaling he wants with that, but more importantly, it would be great for the employees, who otherwise will be spending far too much time in their cars.
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