Right man…
The argument is maddening lmao.
1 Like
New Bedford and Fall River are on the list lol … they have a snowball’s chance in hell of being picked … if they did I’d be working a lot closer to home lol
1 Like
Flag, trendy talking point. 10 yards. Loss of down.
How is more jobs, more tax revenue, more construction, less crime etc… a bad thing? Gentrification is a good thing.
“Boo boo. I’ve been priced out of my cheap shitty tenament building and now I can’t afford to live here.”
Tough. Businesses are literally investing in the neighborhood. Either get on board the prosperity train or go find another slum to live in.
1 Like
Agreed, but I still don’t see how it’s immoral?
I 100% agree with you.
1 Like
I wouldn’t think fulfillment. They already have like 1400, this might include place that direct ship categories for them. 1400 is massive after all for # of DCs. l also don’t agree in tax financing businesses.
What is the purpose of a HQ2 anyway?
1 Like
Ya, I haven’t read much about it. I honestly don’t know what the purpose of a second HQ is. It could be a matter of wanting additional capabilities (like their AWS services which seem to be growing) coupled with a more decentralized approach to decision making. But that’s just me speculating.
Albany/Rensselaer (near me) have put in a bid and it’s so hilarious to hear the mayors and city counsels beg and plead. They don’t have a prayer in NY because of the toxic business environment we have. We have a chip plant nearby that was built on the tax payers shoulders. They received a 665 million dollar grant and I think 10 years tax free. It’s the only way the Dems up hear know how to do business. Cost tax payers around 200k per job created and the layoff have already begun 6 years later. When the government money dries up, they’ll leave.
So no, I don’t want this Amazon thing anywhere near me because it will be here for all the wrong reasons and hurt more than it helps.
1 Like
Well before that happens the mayor will leave for a better elected seat, riding that they are a great deal maker and support business.
3 Likes
After looking at their criteria, I think if they end up anywhere around here it will be in the western corridor out near the airport. Still close enough to be “the Burgh”, and have access to local amenities and resources, but outside of the city and Allegheny co. taxes and whatnot.
If thats the case, there probably wouldn’t be much of the negative effects of gentrification that concern some people, and would also tap the Weirton/Beaver/Washington county areas for labor.
Just a guess, but given their logistical requirements, it would include a fulfillment center.
If all of that speculation were the case, I can’t see it being a bad thing at all. If they want to have a center directly in the city though, somebody is going to get the bump. There is only so much space to build anything in there, let alone a 30-50 acre complex.
2 Likes
Grew up in the Berkshires myself.
1 Like
Just saw PDX has offered them a piece of property any guesses on who gets it? A coworker and I are betting lunch on who can guess it. My three guesses were NC, PHX or DNV.
Yeah, I don’t want this thread to be totally Pittsburgh-centric but more of a broad discussion of pros and cons of HQ2 in various places, but I agree that the most likely scenario (based on their wishlist, as you said) is south/west, out by the airport. My ex-gf worked (still works? It’s been awhile, lol) at the Dick’s Sporting Goods corporate HQ and there’s a ton of space out that way. Amazon could probably buy a goodly chunk of land and build a massive campus out there, in which case I don’t think there would be too much day-to-day impact on the city itself, and presumably we’d get all the wonderful benefits of those 50k highly-paid people spending money eating and shopping around here.
@Alrightmiami19c outlines the one extreme that existed in my mind, so thanks for spelling that out.
2 Likes
Yeah, don’t mean to threadjack.
It occurred to me that there are other parts of the country that could probably really use that type of economic infusion, and I don’t really think that this region is one of them. Not that 50K jobs is anything to sneeze at, but we don’t have the unemployed to even fill the bill.
Then I remembered that re-education initiative that was started a while back for displaced coal miners down around Kentucky, and thought Now that is a region that really needs the work.
I don’t know that need carries much weight in a decision making process like that though.
1 Like
It’s cool - we should definitely talk some about Pittsburgh because it brings up some interesting points that can be part of this discussion for any hypothetical city. And also, because I want to figure out whether I should be rooting for HQ2 coming here or against it, lol.
That brings up an interesting point, and one of the things I tried to touch on upthread. I am not sure whether Pittsburgh (and surrounding area) actually “needs” HQ2 - of course, it can still be a good thing whether the area “needs” it or not…
Also, it would be interesting to see just how those jobs were/are filled (again, color me skeptical that they would actually hire 50,000 people to work at this thing, but it’s still going to be a five-figure number). Presumably there will be some totally transplants that are totally new-to-the-region, some unemployed-or-between-jobs-people-from-the-region that get hired, and some talent poaching from local organizations that decides to go work there (which can have a trickle-down/out effect since those orgs need to replace that talent). One of the presumed reasons Pittsburgh is even on the list is proximity to the CMU/Pitt techie-nerd pipeline. Presumably there will be some jockeying between Google, Uber, and Amazon for all those dorks.
First, I don’t think “regional need” carries any weight in the decision making process, lol. I’m pretty sure “whatever city will give us the best deal in property & taxes while still being a trendy enough spot that the talent we want to attract will go work there.”
But this did bring up something interesting - I read an article a little while ago about Johnstown (mostly “how does this rusted out town that voted for Trump feel about him now”) that discussed some of the struggles in that region, but it had one interesting nugget that one local guy said “I’d like to hire 100+ people today…but a lot of the ex-miners have no interesting in taking up a new trade, they just want mining to come back” (I’m paraphrasing a little, but you get the gist). So, to state the obvious, putting the thing in a region with high unemployment helps the most if some of those people actually take up the trade. Even if they don’t, I suppose that it still has benefits because all of those people moving in need houses, cars, groceries, etc.
1 Like
Ok. I’ve become cognizant that I can get carried away with the sammiches and whatnot. I guess that the thing I’m looking at is the over all expansion/transformation. Its been amazing to look at it longitudinally (I was 9-12 in 1981-'83, when things really went kaput.) That was a really bad time, but at the same time- my dad started working as a teacher at one of the local tech schools helping the mill workers get re-educated. So there’s some give and take of sorts. This was also a point of contraction or damn near exodus of the population. So, my ingrained response to the prospect of more jobs is always “Fuck Yeah!” seasoned with a tad bit of skepticism. I know that booms bust.
All that being said- What about gentrification? I dunno. To me and a lot of people my age and younger, places like Braddock, The Hill, Homewood etc. have always been run down, But if you step back a generation, they were actually the neighborhoods that gave birth to the affluence we see today. Thats where my great grand parents and grand parents landed when they came over from Scotland, before moving out to the coal patch that is now Bethel Park. They’ve simply become run down and rusty over the years. Best way to understand what those communities used to be is to see where everybody goes home to at Thanksgiving and Christmas. An older poster on here, Chushin is a good one for this. Without telling his story too much, he was originally from Duquesne. Not one of the greatest places at this point, but home to lot of people that moved up and out. Heck, his brother lives over in USC! The same can be said for a lot of the older places around town, Mckees Rocks to Mckeesport, those places used to be nice.
So with that in mind, I don’t really see gentrification so much as revitalization. I’ll buffer that statement with the fact that this is only one mans perspective, but if you ask around a little, you’ll likely hear echos of the same.
God bless those geek factories. They are true world beaters. It really is amazing to have such assets clustered right there. One of the greater strategies at play for the last couple of decades has been to retain the massive amount of human capital and talent that those two places have attracted. I would expect a lot of transplants at all levels (if HQ2 actually happens). Actually, one of my best friends is a transplant from a little town in Tennessee. He became part of the academic/technical revolution that began after the steel crash, and ended up building an incredible body of work at UPMC. I think that is one of the things that makes this place so interesting. You never know who you may end up talking to. I can only assume that with the types of numbers that they’re talking about, the time scale they have in mind is a long one.
I don’t think its a factor either. Thats just my idealist peeking out.
And now the realist- Its unfortunate, but some of those people are going to live and die waiting for the mines to re-open. The same thing happened with the old steel guys. A lot of them just went to the bar and drank themselves into the grave. It might happen a lot more quickly with all of that high grade heroine we have now, though.
On the other hand, my wife was recently down in Sprin Hill, Tenn. at the former Saturn plant/company town where her company recently opened another center. I speculate that as a society, we’ve learned a few lessons from the industrial revolution and have some new mechanisms in place to help people become re-educated and develop new vocational skills. It may be overly optimistic, but I give the current generation a lot of credit for flexibility as our economy has transformed from primarily industrial to service oriented.
Boy that was long winded. Please pardon the mega-post riddled with esoteric geographical references, as I just happened to have a good bit of time on my hands and a nice Rocky Patel to go with my morning coffee, so I may have bloviated a bit.
4 Likes
Bravo. Also what wrapper and filler on that Rocky Patel? Living vicariously through you as I don’t need another hobby with consumables lol.
1 Like
It was an Edge Habano.
The wrapper is a Habano, and filler is Nicaraguan Esteli, Condega, and Jalapa.
Its my recent favorite. Nice when the wife and kiddo are still sleeping. She hates them!
2 Likes
Having been to Seattle a couple of months ago for a trip to visit my brother(who works at Amazon) and reading news reports about the horrible effects software companies have to local housing prices and vice versa, I think having HQ2 come to your city is a huge double-edged sword and may not be as beneficial as you’d think it would be.
You’re basically asking for monster traffic and huge increases in cost of living.
Software tech companies are a plague imo. We didn’t have this kind of shit back during the semiconductor boom and I don’t know why we need to see this kind of shit with the software boom.
I WANT to see a repeat of the dot-com bust.
^^^^ Twilight Zone alert - 84 year dad mentioned dot-com bust last night at dinner
Consider this hypothesis:
Amazon locates HQ2 in Austin, Atlanta, or Charlotte, (imo Charlotte)
Slowly moves more and more functions to cheaper locale that allows less salary and less direct competition from Silicon Valley,
Bezos will be closer to DC for his power tripping.
Thinking 50k is mondo exaggeration - akin to ‘economic multiplier’.
Don’t see Pittsburgh as a realistic choice personally.
1 Like