By Hugh Brown
NEW YORK, N.Y. – Amazon has announced that they will be splitting their second headquarters between Long Island City and Crystal City, a neighborhood in Arlington, Virginia. This trillion-dollar company’s decision to split their headquarters between New York and the Washington D.C. metro area is to many, a controversial one.
Supporters of this move look at the jobs Amazon is promising to bring into the cities. The company has promised 25,000 new jobs to both Arlington and New York. That many jobs also attracts people to those areas. While some of the jobs filled may be from people already living in the area, this means a rather large influx of people seeking work into these already-booming metro areas. This means that more apartments and neighborhoods get filled, and more money is pumped into the local economy.
New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo has been especially welcoming to Amazon in New York City. The State of New York is offering Amazon up to $3 billion in tax cuts and credits over the next 15 years according to the New York Times.
“It is from my point of view that 25,000 jobs is a big transformative move for our economy to take another step in the tech sector,” said Cuomo.
Many have been opposed to this move. In the past, several big companies that moved to metropolitan areas have devastated the area, and for many different reasons. Sometimes the company over-expands and fails, leaving thousands out of jobs. That is what we’ve seen in “rust belt” cities like Detroit. Large companies can also cause pollution in areas.
Some have accused Amazon of hosting a fake competition to see what kind of tax cuts they would get. The theory is that Amazon knew they wanted to go to the Washington area and New York City, so they proposed a national biding war to see how much New York and Washington would offer in tax incentives. With $3 billion coming from New York State, this theory makes sense.
New York City’s infrastructure is crumbling. Their subways haven’t run on time in months, and there’s no sign of improvement in the near future. The cost of living in Queens is already absurd and most people can’t afford for it to get worse. The area is also very crowded and does not need a giant company building offices or warehouses right in the middle of it.
Although this is biased, the Buffalo-Rochester bid was near perfect. The area between the two cities is not too developed which would be great for building warehouses and office buildings. The cost of living in both cities is relatively low. Both cities have international airports and are a little more centralized in the country than New York.
Amazon has clearly ripped off the State of New York and will eat up and destroy Queens, and frankly, it’s disgusting.
Niagara Wire 