To keep things in perspective, there are >8 million people in NYC and >20 million in the surrounding areas. Amazon is planning to employ 25,000, which is tiny in the scheme of things, especially considering that it's going to take a decade to be fully up and running. On top of that, I'm sure that many, if not most, of these employees are going to come from NYC's existing workforce.
I used to work in Long Island City and I commuted from Manhattan's Upper West Side, which took about 30 minutes. Commutes are even shorter from must of lower Manhattan and Brooklyn, not to mention most of Queens. I just can't imagine that this is going to have a noticeable effect on NYC or Long Island pricing overall.
[1] to those not familiar with New York, Long Island City, despite the name, is a neighborhood, not a municipality, located in Queens. While technically Brooklyn and Queens are located physically on Long Island, typically when people say "Long Island" they are referring to those parts of the island beyond New York City borders.
Apartment prices have been dropping in LIC for a few years because of all the new development. I can't imagine Amazon's announcement will slow the development pace, so I wouldn't be surprised if LIC rents do not rise at all.
Today it will be more like 2.5 to 3 hours to get home... Thank god for work from home tomorrow!
LIC is already basically full of luxury high-rises, so it's unclear to me that it'll get significantly more expensive.
Of course, what the hell do I know about real estate.
It depends on whether NYC/NY will invest in it. People have talked about LIC being the next great thing for decades. I guess sooner or later, it will be LIC's turn. But I don't think AMZN is it.
> you can live in Manhattan and get to LIC in 1-9 stops in < 30m.
Nobody who lives in manhattan wants to work in LIC though. That's the problem. Manhattan is the work hub of the satellite regions like brooklyn, queens, hoboken, etc. These regions aren't work hubs for manhattan.
> You could even live in Jersey City and get to LIC in 50m.
Depends on the part of jersey city you live in. Most people aren't willing to switch trains to get to work. PATH to Metro twice a day? No thank you. If traffic warrants it, you could probably take the ferry directly from downtown JC to LIC.
> Most people aren't willing to switch trains to get to work.
Not true in NYC. Plenty of people change subways once or even twice to commute. Changing PATH to subway is no different except you have to pay twice.
> you could probably take the ferry directly from downtown JC to LIC.
Currently there are no ferries that run this route directly. NY Waterway runs the Hudson River ferries, which the MTA (subcontracted out) runs the East River ferries. You could do this commute by ferry if you changed ferries at Wall St/Pier 11, but that point you might as well take the train.
I was under the impression that the MTA is not involved at all in the NYC Ferry system - it is run by Hornblower, a German cruise company.
[Edit: I am correct. Per https://www.ferry.nyc/about/faq/ "The MTA is a state agency, while NYC Ferry is an NYCEDC project."]