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Amazon looking to build a second HQ in North America, will add 50k jobs

V

VeeP

Member
Marmaladefire said:
Brings in arguably already privileged people from other areas for high paying tech jobs, which drives up prices on everything ( Like when people say "It's all over when a whole foods opens" Amazon is literally whole foods), which in turns makes things too expensive for natives/people who aren't making upwards of $150k~ per household, and thus drives them out of their own communities. Then the schools become even more segregated, putting black and brown children in a worse situation than they already were in and they might as well actually paint a thick red line on the edges of town.
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Thanks for taking the time to explain that. Does this apply to Fulfillment centers also?
 
C

Catdaddy

Member
Not Nashville – traffic is bad enough and gets worse by the day. Atlanta needs some more people…

Since he said N.A. - my guess would be Canada...but who knows...
 
D

Deleted member 284

Unconfirmed Member
Honestly, Buffalo would be a great landing place. American HA close to Canada and would revitalize a city.
 
K

Kinitari

Black Canada Mafia
AbortedWalrusFetus said:
Philadelphia is perfect for this. It's got it's own burgeoning tech scene, but it specializes in education and medicine for the most part, due to the lack of large tech firms in the area.

It's got 1.5 million people, meeting the larger than 1m population requirement, and a metro area of over 4 million.

It's centrally located in an area that it is very easy to attact talent. It's less than 3 hours from New York City, Baltimore, and Washington, DC. 5 hours from Boston and Pittsburgh.

It's also got the infrastructure. The city was developed to house and maintain living for 2 million residents, but the rust belt decline hit it hard and the population is now only 1.5 million.

It's on the East coast, which is probably the ideal location for doing business with Europe, and would be opposite the country of their original Seattle offices.

It's got a massive plot of land at the Navy Yard which is currently housing many exciting companies and is a massive economic driver, but it's also a Keystone Opportunity Zone, which means it's abated from nearly every Pennsylvania State Tax and Philadelphia City Tax, which is obviously going to be interesting to Amazon.

It's got a major international airport, a major international port, and sits on one of the greatest shipping hubs in the USA. Philadelphia is the 7th largest shipping hub, and it's an hour and a half from NYC/NJ which is the 6th largest.

It's also got more art, culture, and history than almost any other American city.

Seems perfect Amazon, you know what to do. We even have the eastcoast flagship Whole Foods store, and you guys just bought them.
Click to expand...

This sounds like a big contender. I still think Toronto might be high on the list, but the biggest problem with Toronto is that we're already smushed, and rumours of Google opening a large facility here (if they turn out true) will smush us more, and dilute the talent as well - we can only churn out so many devs. We're still cheaper than most U.S. tech hubs, but my salary has been fucking skyrocketing in the last few years, so I imagine we'll be less and less cheap as time goes on.
 
M

Marmaladefire

Member
VeeP said:
Thanks for taking the time to explain that. Does this apply to Fulfillment centers also?
Click to expand...

Not really, because those jobs are low paying. They treat their workers at fulfillment centers like crap though! So Amazon is always up for ruining lives one way or another.

slit said:
Amazon opening a new HDQ is headlining news. I know they are not going to want a damper on it which will happen if they open in NC. Corporate America going back doing business with NC doesn't change that. Nobody cares about some company opening a small field office, Amazon opening a new HDQ is on a different level. If you live in NC, blame the boneheads in the state legislature.
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The triangle is the most blue area of the state and one of the most attractive areas in the country for young people in tech right now. Amazon is Amazon, and most of the people taking these jobs, will realistically be straight white and asian men. If you think that Amazon A.) actually cares about LGBTQ rights over profit, talent, convenience, or anything else, and B.) won't be able to shake off the optics because they are Amazon and everyone already knows they are bad, but we still want prime shipping, I would have to disagree strongly.

There are good reasons not to come here (Hurricanes! Tornadoes! BBQ with vinegar!) But realistically, and unfortunately
(depending on who you ask, because it's not like there aren't LGBTQ people especially in the RTP area who would like those jobs and services, and companies and artists were in effect boycotting us and calling it support),
the outrage over HB2 has very much died down
 
H

Hickbilly Deluxe

Banned
Stay the hell out of minnesota. The TC area is already a hellhole trying to drive, the roads are constantly under repair already, we've already reached our yuppie quota, and they would drive up the cost of living in the smaller cities people would cummute from. Fuck that shit.
 
A

AbortedWalrusFetus

Member
I am very curious if they mean actual city population of 1m, or just metropolitan area population of 1m.

Cause if it's the first, that really narrows it down a lot.

Edit: It's metro areas.
 
S

slit

Member
Marmaladefire said:
Not really, because those jobs are low paying. They treat their workers at fulfillment centers like crap though! So Amazon is always up for ruining lives one way or another.



The triangle is the most blue area of the state and one of the most attractive areas in the country for young people in tech right now. Amazon is Amazon, and most of the people taking these jobs, will realistically be straight white and asian men. If you think that Amazon A.) actually cares about LGBTQ rights over profit, talent, convenience, or anything else, and B.) won't be able to shake off the optics because they are Amazon and everyone already knows they are bad, but we still want prime shipping, I would have to disagree strongly.

There are good reasons not to come here (Hurricanes! Tornadoes! BBQ with vinegar!) But realistically, and unfortunately
(depending on who you ask, because it's not like there aren't LGBTQ people especially in the RTP area who would like those jobs and services, and companies and artists were in effect boycotting us and calling it support),
the outrage over HB2 has very much died down
Click to expand...

Whether they actually care about LGBTQ rights is not the point. They care about the optics. If you are a business planner you just don't just invite that. There are plenty of other places on the east coast that have just as much if not more talent than the Triangle and when you have those options you don't take the worst one. .
 
Z

Zeke

Member
Really people Austin? Austin hates expanding and the traffic there is already horrendous no way they build there. San Antonio would be a better spot tons of places to build and regional talent would be great for them. I35 corridor is exploding right plus low cost of living (for now) would also help attract people.
 
Pagusas

Pagusas

Elden Member
Stinkles said:
Isn't Dfw technically closer to Fort Worth? Which based on my limited experience is a way cuter place.
Click to expand...

Nope, directly between them. And I find Fort Worth far uglier than Dallas, especially if we are comparing the nicest parts of Fort Worth to the nicest parts of Dallas (especially North Dallas).

But in terms of proximity, its directly between both cities, its really a marvel that they both agreed on it.
 
Zoe

Zoe

Member
Zeke said:
Really people Austin? Austin hates expanding and the traffic there is already horrendous no way they build there. San Antonio would be a better spot tons of places to build and regional talent would be great for them. I35 corridor is exploding right plus low cost of living (for now) would also help attract people.
Click to expand...

Doesn't need to be Austin proper:
It added that the location does not need to in an urban or downtown location, or a development-prepped site.
Click to expand...
 
S

Schlep

Member
Stinkles said:
Isn't Dfw technically closer to Fort Worth? Which based on my limited experience is a way cuter place.
Click to expand...

DFW is right between the two cities. Fort Worth area would be a better location than Dallas area at this point, but the talent pool is lower for technical employees. Closest I could see it being put to Fort Worth is Grapevine or Arlington. If they did open somewhere in DFW, I would expect them to set up in Irving or Plano/Frisco.

Pagusas said:
Nope, directly between them. And I find Fort Worth far uglier than Dallas, especially if we are comparing the nicest parts of Fort Worth to the nicest parts of Dallas (especially North Dallas).
Click to expand...

Agreed. Dallas has much nicer housing areas (Turtle Creek, White Rock Lake, etc) than Fort Worth (Rivercrest, Far North FW). Anything between uptown and UP is pretty amazing. Once you get to the Dallas suburbs, it's a bit more hit and miss. I'd say that Southlake, Westlake, Trophy Club, Grapevine, Colleyville, Keller, and NRH is a far nicer area than anything on the Dallas side outside of certain areas of Plano/Frisco and redneck Southlake (McKinney).
 
F

Fuzzery

Member
Kinitari said:
This sounds like a big contender. I still think Toronto might be high on the list, but the biggest problem with Toronto is that we're already smushed, and rumours of Google opening a large facility here (if they turn out true) will smush us more, and dilute the talent as well - we can only churn out so many devs. We're still cheaper than most U.S. tech hubs, but my salary has been fucking skyrocketing in the last few years, so I imagine we'll be less and less cheap as time goes on.
Click to expand...
Around how much are Devs in Toronto getting paid now?
 
A

AbortedWalrusFetus

Member
Let's see these requirements related to the Philly navy yard:

30 Mile proximity to population center: It's IN the city.
45 Minute proximity to international airport: It's about 15 minutes drive from the airport, or you can take mass transit.
1-2 Miles from Major highways: It sits basically ON I-95
Close to Major arterial roads: Within 10 minutes of 295, NJ Turnpike, I-76
Access to mass transit at site: Bus routes to site, subway stop a 5 minute shuttle ride from site
500,000 sqft of development space: Currently prepped for 4,000,000 sqft of office development, shovel ready
Up to 8,000,000 Sq Ft of Development space beyond 2027: ???

The 8,000,000 sq ft thing I don't know. I know that the Navy Yard can do half that literally today though.

Edit: I found it. 13.5 Million square feet of space at full build out. Literally every box ticked, in a tax haven.
 
Z

Zeke

Member
You mentioned 130 or 183A. I haven't been to Austin in a few years so I don't know where the locations of you population growth is. I imagine most young talent would want to be in Austin proper so inside 130 i guess? If you're building around those spots Round Rock would be a better place to land to avoid traffic. Unless it's by the airport.
 
L

Later Alligator

Member
Kinitari said:
This sounds like a big contender. I still think Toronto might be high on the list, but the biggest problem with Toronto is that we're already smushed, and rumours of Google opening a large facility here (if they turn out true) will smush us more, and dilute the talent as well - we can only churn out so many devs. We're still cheaper than most U.S. tech hubs, but my salary has been fucking skyrocketing in the last few years, so I imagine we'll be less and less cheap as time goes on.
Click to expand...

i would assume Toronto and Vancouver would be high on the list due to immigration reasons
 
V

vypek

Member
AbortedWalrusFetus said:
Let's see these requirements related to the Philly navy yard:

30 Mile proximity to population center: It's IN the city.
45 Minute proximity to international airport: It's about 15 minutes drive from the airport, or you can take mass transit.
1-2 Miles from Major highways: It sits basically ON I-95
Close to Major arterial roads: Within 10 minutes of 295, NJ Turnpike, I-76
Access to mass transit at site: Bus routes to site, subway stop a 5 minute shuttle ride from site
500,000 sqft of development space: Currently prepped for 4,000,000 sqft of office development, shovel ready
Up to 8,000,000 Sq Ft of Development space beyond 2027: ???

The 8,000,000 sq ft thing I don't know. I know that the Navy Yard can do half that literally today though.

Edit: I found it. 13.5 Million square feet of space at full build out. Literally every box ticked, in a tax haven.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I could definitely see them setting up shop in Philly
 
K

Kinitari

Black Canada Mafia
Fuzzery said:
Around how much are Devs in Toronto getting paid now?
Click to expand...
Depends on how senior they are, but like... I'm recently six figures and my ceiling is probably close to 150k, bit more or less depending on a few factors. I'm just a JavaScript dev too - if you're in AI for example, you'll be making more.

Hinzel said:
i would assume Toronto and Vancouver would be high on the list due to immigration reasons
Click to expand...
Right, we're attracting more and more foreign talent.
 
Pagusas

Pagusas

Elden Member
Schlep said:
Agreed. Dallas has much nicer housing areas (Turtle Creek, White Rock Lake, etc) than Fort Worth (Rivercrest, Far North FW). Anything between uptown and UP is pretty amazing. Once you get to the Dallas suburbs, it's a bit more hit and miss. I'd say that Southlake, Westlake, Trophy Club, Grapevine, Colleyville, Keller, and NRH is a far nicer area than anything on the Dallas side outside of certain areas of Plano/Frisco and redneck Southlake (McKinney).
Click to expand...

I live in Frisco, so I'm a bit bias towards the Dallas side :p

And lol at McKinney being redneck southlake, I had never thought of it that way but its absolutely true! Still an awesome place though. (we are building a new house around Prosper, so I'm now bias towards that area too)
 
S

slit

Member
Entropia said:
There are quite a few possible cities;

If they ended up in Canada, safe bet cities: Toronto, Vancouver or Montreal

Other possibilities: Kitchener-Waterloo, London, Calgary
Click to expand...

I don't feel like looking it up but I doubt those have metros of over a million people.
 
T

teh_pwn

"Saturated fat causes heart disease as much as Brawndo is what plants crave."
Pastry said:
I absolutely can't see a HQ this size functioning in Austin as it stands today, the infrastructure just isn't there to support the size and employees. I do think it'll be Texas though, just not Austin.
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I'm not sure I follow.

As much as I don't like it, Austin is now the 11th largest city in the United States. Among large cities it's the fastest growing. It's full of tens of thousands if not over 100k software developers. Operationally it's cheap and high growth - this is exactly what Amazon goes for.

Counterpoint to your statement - Austin's suburb Round Rock has Dell HQ with around 20k employees.
 
A

AbortedWalrusFetus

Member
teh_pwn said:
I'm not sure I follow.

As much as I don't like it, Austin is now the 11th largest city in the United States. Among large cities it's the fastest growing. It's full of tens of thousands if not over 100k software developers. Operationally it's cheap and high growth - this is exactly what Amazon goes for.

Counterpoint to your statement - Austin's suburb Round Rock has Dell HQ with around 20k employees.
Click to expand...

The question for a city like Austin is, what nearby areas is it going to pull a 50% increase in tech workers from? Places like DC and Philly I could see doing that. Chicago already has the population to meet that demand. Atlanta might be able to. Austin though? I dunno. 50k jobs dumped on one area in a 10 year span is a LOT. You've got like 30m people in a 100 mile radius from Philly, NYC, Boston, DC, even Baltimore. You've got 5m people 100 miles from Austin. Drawing 50k from a crowd of 30m is a lot easier than a crowd of 5m.
 
A

AlphaTwo00

Member
For the Toronto, GTA folks, the most likely answer would actually be Waterloo/Brampton corridor. It skirts around the Toronto house prices, places them close to that corridor of universities (Waterloo, UofT) and have many other tech hubs in the area.
 
K

Kthulhu

Member
The Lamp said:
Might as well add it to Dallas like every other fucking company moving here and destroying our traffic (glares at Toyota).
Click to expand...

Wouldn't it make more sense to build it in Austin if it were to come to Texas?

Edit: I see I have been beaten.

It'd be awesome if they came to Texas though. The sooner Amazon Go becomes a thing the better.
 
Zoe

Zoe

Member
AbortedWalrusFetus said:
The question for a city like Austin is, what nearby areas is it going to pull a 50% increase in tech workers from? Places like DC and Philly I could see doing that. Chicago already has the population to meet that demand. Atlanta might be able to. Austin though? I dunno. 50k jobs dumped on one area in a 10 year span is a LOT. You've got like 30m people in a 100 mile radius from Philly, NYC, Boston, DC, even Baltimore. You've got 5m people 100 miles from Austin. Drawing 50k from a crowd of 30m is a lot easier than a crowd of 5m.
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You've got the university (half the CS people I graduated with ended up in Seattle), people from the other Texas metros, and people from California. They'll probably be able to poach people from Apple and Oracle as well.

Zeke said:
You mentioned 130 or 183A. I haven't been to Austin in a few years so I don't know where the locations of you population growth is. I imagine most young talent would want to be in Austin proper so inside 130 i guess? If you're building around those spots Round Rock would be a better place to land to avoid traffic. Unless it's by the airport.
Click to expand...

I could definitely see Round Rock--a lot of younger people and those starting their families have been moving in that direction. They just started offering CapMetro services as well.

On a personal level, my worst fear would be north Parmer, but it would make sense since there's a ton of land with a bunch of huge tech offices already.
 
K

Kthulhu

Member
Randolph Freelander said:
I'm actually rooting quite hard against Texas. Anywhere but there, because screw Texas.

Edit: Unless this is enough to tip Texas blue. In which case...

Edit 2: Trump won by 800K votes. Screw Texas.
Click to expand...

Texas is gonna be purple soon. There are also millions of Democrats living here now.
 
A

AlphaTwo00

Member
slit said:
I don't feel like looking it up but I doubt those have metros of over a million people.
Click to expand...
KW is striking distance to the 30 mile of Toronto city limit and 45 minute from Pearson technically.

Bonus: all of the abandoned RIM/Blackberry campus is still available land means easy entry without major construction.
 
A

AbortedWalrusFetus

Member
Zoe said:
You've got the university (half the CS people I graduated with ended up in Seattle), people from the other Texas metros, and people from California. They'll probably be able to poach people from Apple and Oracle as well.
Click to expand...

Right, now how does that stack up to other choices Amazon might make. Any city they choose can get those people to move just as readily, but getting people to move takes time and it may be better to go somewhere that's more ready to supply the labor.
 
L

LeroyPantwether

Member
What about Phoenix?

Huge city, big colleges, can also poach talent from cali, super business friendly environment, infrastructure that could handle it.


As long as it doesn't go to Canada I'm cool.
 
A

AbortedWalrusFetus

Member
LeroyPantwether said:
What about Phoenix?

Huge city, big colleges, can also poach talent from cali, super business friendly environment, infrastructure that could handle it.


As long as it doesn't go to Canada I'm cool.
Click to expand...

One of their criteria, though not a major criteria, is mass transit to the site. That's not exactly something Phoenix shines in.
 
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