"Please send those high paying jobs anywhere but here!"

[Recursion]

I understand why someone from a national perspective might want Amazon to rethink it's NYC location, but for the life of me I can't parse why NYC progressives -- who care passionately about wages -- want one of the highest-paying companies to send those high-paying HQ jobs anywhere but NYC.

[Dennis Donovan]

1. Isn't the complaint that the wages offered aren't in line...

...with the cost of living in that particular area?

[Recursion]

2. No, it's that it will drive housing prices up

HQ jobs at Amazon are very well paid. That's a lot of programmers, DBAs, sales, etc. They tend to start with six figures.

The complaint is that it will make housing unaffordable. It's like people want wages to rise without housing prices going up, which isn't a meaningful thing to want.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

11. Interestingly this article says there's a glut of housing in NYC

I don't live there so I can't say whether it's true or not

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/realestate/nyc-housing-market-to-face-glut-after-2018-sellers-found-few-takers/ar-BBTklHk

[Recursion]

12. There's a high vacancy rate but that can mean a lot of things

And the other problem is where those vacancies are. There's great transit but it's difficult to get e.g. from Brooklyn to Queens.

[Sanity Claws]

3. I think your OP has several incorrect assumptions.

1. Amazon does not provide high paying jobs. Maybe management is paid well enough but the line workers are not. Seattle has had issues with that.
2. It chose to locate in Astoria/Long Island City area of Queens. It is already very heavily populated and mass transit in the area is already a mess. If Amazon went there, the mess would be intolerable.
3. Amazon negotiated a ton of tax breaks. Amazon will not be making up for the increased pressure on mass transit, housing , etc.

[Recursion]

4. This is an HQ, not a warehouse. There's already a warehouse in Queens

1. This is a bunch of programmers, managers, marketers, marketers, etc. People who will be making $100K and up. Amazon spends lavishly on its staff and underpays its line, but this is a staff building.

2. It's less dense than other parts of Queens as it is. Are you saying the neighborhood would be better off with lower paying jobs from a different company?

3. They negotiated breaks that will cost the city $48K per job, for jobs that pay a lot more than that.

[fleur-de-lisa]

5. I read somewhere (can't remember now)

that Amazon has a history of promoting and transferring their existing employees into their newer facilities, meaning that there probably wouldn't be many higher-paying jobs for people who currently reside in Queens.

[Recursion]

6. How many database admins live in Long Island City right now?

There will be some poaching from the IT firms that are there, and bringing some people in. But it pushes up wages in IT, marketing, etc. for the whole city.

[fleur-de-lisa]

8. No idea, mate. I live in New Orleans.

[Sanity Claws]

7. Incorrect assumptions

1. They will need support staff, such as admin assistants, receptionists, etc. I sincerely doubt that they make anywhere near 6 figures.
2. Actually Astoria and LIC are pretty densely populated; they are just across the East River from Manhattan. In the past 8 years or so, LIC has turned into one tower after another. If you take the 7 train, you see it. Less densely populated areas would be in east Queens.
3. That helps Amazon a lot but that does not help the City. The city needs tax revenues to rebuild its infrastructure, particularly mass transit. Negotiating that kind of tax break means the City does not have the means to take care of the increased burdens. And the increased burdens will be felt immediately. Slowly recovering tax revenues will not take care of the immediate burdens placed on the city's infrastructure.

I don't know where you live but if you lived in NYC and took mass transit, you could see that mass transit is breaking down and that there already is a serious shortage of affordable housing.That is why New Yorkers are upset.

[Recursion]

9. I know the 7 train well

I used to live in Woodside.

I'm just seriously surprised at the realization that higher paying jobs aren't in fact something people want in their city.

[Sanity Claws]

10. Of course, higher paying jobs are wanted

The question is whether the problems associated with such growth can be absorbed.
My fear is that current problems, such as the breakdown of mass transit and increased homelessness, will be exacerbated.

[Texasgal]

13. Many of us didn't want

it in Austin and there was a good reason.

Here we are in a going through a housing and affordability crisis... our infrastructure is awful ( we have some the worst traffic in the USA ) we lack places to build something like this without taking over a natural or green area. I assume they have the same concerns as Austin did.

??? Maybe

[Recursion]

14. I mean, I guess? Keeping people poor will keep housing prices down, sure

We saw that in the crash and recession, for that matter: rents fell

The infrastructure thing I get, though Queens has better transit than anywhere else I've ever lived.

[Squinch]

15. My family's business used to be in LIC for 2 generations. It is really, underneath it all,

a small town. Lots of people with deep roots there.

It will be unrecognizable in a few years. I wonder if that contributes to it.

[Recursion]

18. LIC has constantly been changing for more than a century

It was a farming village in the 1880s, then a dockyard in the 1900s, then movie studios in the 1920s, then a bedroom community in the 40s, then factories in the 60s, then skid row in the 80s, then hipsters in the 00s. So it will be silicon valley east in the 2020s and something else again in the 2040s.

[DanTex]

16. I don't know where I stand, but I understand the resistance.

Yeah, there will be high-paying jobs, but those high-paying jobs will be white-collar jobs which NYC already has tons of. The Amazon office isn't going to raise the wages of working-class New Yorkers, or of most current residents of LIC. Instead, it's going to be more gentrification. There will be more white-collar workers who move to or commute to Queens, current residents will see their rents go up and some will have to move further out, and so on. Of course, this is already happening all over NYC and has been happening for many years.

Progressives care about wages, and wage inequality, because they (we) care about making sure everyone has a decent life. The people who would be earning $150K per year at the new Amazon office are going be just fine, earning basically just as much, even if the office doesn't come.

And whatever one feels about gentrification, there's definitely a question of whether tax subsidies should be used to promote it. And there's also the argument that NYC already has a ton to offer to employers just by being NYC, and shouldn't need to be giving away tax incentives to particular companies like this.

I don't know the details of how big the subsidies are, and how much extra tax revenues they think they will get from it, and so on. Maybe from a budget point of view it makes sense. But I can definitely see why people who live around there and aren't going to become tech workers are unhappy.

Personally I'd rather have them spend the tax money on improving the subways and building a Penn Station that's not horrible.

[Recursion]

19. High paid white collar professionals get manicures and coffee, I think is the idea

And will even pay absurd prices for both.

[Hoyt]

17. That is surprising considering the new jobs will average $150K.

Assumes this is correct:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/2018/11/13/amazon-will-pay-hq2-employees-150000-dollars-that-goes-further-in-nashville.html

Sounds like more competition for 400 square feet apartments in NYC.

[Recursion]

20. Honestly I think Amazon is underestimating the NYC wage pressure

I think they expect to poach more people than they will from existing IT companies in NYC