Two Lists to Compare
Jan. 18th, 2018 05:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
walkitoutAmazon has reduced its candidates for H2 to 20 cities. For suitable values of 20 cities (NYC and Newark are both on the list, NoVa, DC and Montgomery County are all three on the list).
http://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-reveals-hq2-candidates-2018-1
List of US cities with the biggest declines in inventory of homes to buy.
http://www.businessinsider.com/zillow-us-cities-with-worst-housing-shortages-2018-1
Compare, enjoy, and feel sorry for anyone living in the greater DC / Baltimore / NoVa area
I’m bummed Birmingham and Detroit didn’t make the cut. I can’t quite decide whether to pray to El Jefe not to put it in the DC area or not to put it in Boston. Obviously, I want that thing nowhere near me. OTOH, I have family in Fairfax, and was thinking about moving there at some point in the future.
http://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-reveals-hq2-candidates-2018-1
List of US cities with the biggest declines in inventory of homes to buy.
http://www.businessinsider.com/zillow-us-cities-with-worst-housing-shortages-2018-1
Compare, enjoy, and feel sorry for anyone living in the greater DC / Baltimore / NoVa area
I’m bummed Birmingham and Detroit didn’t make the cut. I can’t quite decide whether to pray to El Jefe not to put it in the DC area or not to put it in Boston. Obviously, I want that thing nowhere near me. OTOH, I have family in Fairfax, and was thinking about moving there at some point in the future.
no subject
Date: 2018-01-18 10:54 pm (UTC)Obviously, I want that thing nowhere near me
Why and wherefore? It's going to be a MAJOR boost to the local economy!
Just in case you were serious and not sarcastic . . .
Date: 2018-01-18 11:14 pm (UTC)I _left_ Seattle. I don't want to have to leave (suburban town outside of) Boston.
I am grateful for Amazon, because it made me, um, what's the euphemism, "well off". And it makes it easy for me to avoid actually going to stores other than for groceries. But some places would find the boost that H2 would bring an unalloyed gift. Boston is not one of those places.
Good news, tho -- we chased off the Olympics, so I think we're really safe here.
ETA: Also, everyone who knows me reasonably well out here thinks it would be absolutely hysterical if H2 opened up in the Boston area and I went back to work there. As the butt of this particular joke, I am not actually amused.
Re: Just in case you were serious and not sarcastic . . .
Date: 2018-01-18 11:51 pm (UTC)No, I wasn't being sarcastic at all. The tale of why and how BMW chose to build a plant here in South Carolina is amusing, but the effect on the state's economy and on those counties specifically is undeniable. Likewise, for “wagging the dog” I refer you to Bentonville AR, which was home to Sam Walton's first 5c & 10c store and now has become a moon orbiting Walmart Home Office as a moon orbits Jupiter.
So I was speaking generally, as I did not know your specifics.
Context Isn't Everything .. It's more than that
Date: 2018-01-19 12:00 am (UTC)Well, let's just say that when I want Amazon nowhere near my city, I understand what I am talking about in more detail than it is probably possible for you to imagine.
September is my 20th anniversary of my retirement from working for them. While I left Seattle mostly in 2003, and left permanently (for suitable values of permanently) in 2006, as you can see from my blog title, my identity still lies predominantly in the PacNW -- nothing quite like staying in one place for over 30 years to do that to one's perspective! While I do not necessarily have a problem with the transformation that my former employer has wrought on Seattle, all of the evidence of my friends' lived experience suggests I'd be feeling very differently if I still lived there.
The idea that Amazon as a corporate entity might follow me 3000 miles across a continent (I mean, they already have -- they bought the robot company and they just keep expanding out here) chills me to my bones. And not in a good way.
ETA: To be clear, I LOVE them as a company. I love the CEO. I just don't want them remaking my urban / suburban environment. And my traffic.
ETAYA: I am also grateful to them for the impact on the value of the condo I never got around to selling on Cap Hill.
Re: Context Isn't Everything .. It's more than that
Date: 2018-01-19 12:13 am (UTC)Ah so desu. Regardless of anything else, I'm certainly with you on the traffic problem. Roads not designed for it can't carry it and don't last long under it. And patchwork repairs are only band-aids.
[I swear BMW chose their site by satellite photograph. At the time the area was served by one (1) two-lane blacktop! “Do you want this plant or not?” “Aw, dog-dirt,” his Excellency the Governor said, and had a major highway built there… but of course that was only the start.]