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Comment by allengeorge | Hacker News Reader

New York made New York appealing to Amazon.

Snark aside, it’s unlikely one can link Amazon’s decision to a single factor. New York being what it has has a large number of assets in its favor: a huge, mobile workforce, strong business community, strong sales community, deep tech pool, a strong transit system, legitimately a world-class city...

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The $4.6b in subsidies also helped make NY more appealing to Amazon.

>“The taxpayer costs of these two deals is high, both in absolute terms and on a per-job basis, contrary to Amazon’s artful spin. Together, we believe they exceed $4.6 billion and the cost per job in New York is at least $112,000, not the $48,000 the company used in a selective and incomplete press release calculation. [1]

[1] https://www.goodjobsfirst.org/news/releases/amazon-hq2-hq3-s...

That seems a bit extreme, but that was the response from our engineers in Detroit.

Amazon claimed we didn't have enough programmers, but the reality is that most of our programmers are picked up by automotive companies. There is talent, but they are already high in demand.

If amazon admitted they didn't want to exceed our 6 figure salaries, the response would have been better. Instead I see Amazon as an increasingly crony company.

Not 100% sure I get the last point, since NYC programmers don't exactly come in cheap either.

Automotive doesn’t pay well by tech standards. Amazon’s engineers in Detroit are paid far better than their automotive counterparts.

Detroit has a good tech talent base, but sadly, it isn’t up-to-par with the coastal tech hubs.

> it’s unlikely one can link Amazon’s decision to a single factor.

It will never happen but imagine if when articles like this were written you had some understanding of how the article came about? In other words was it floated by Columbia's PR department? Did the author just trip over the subject and then decide to somehow write an article that ended up with the very timely link bait title?

Paul Graham's 'The Submarine' for context:

http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html

New York is definitely a world-class city, but Amazon had the opportunity to attract talent to make a city that is not currently a world-class city into one but instead selected an already established one

Amazon's already had to go through the growing pains of doing that once (in Seattle) and probably learned that they didn't want to do it again.

> Amazon had the opportunity to attract talent to make a city that is not currently a world-class city into one

Not really. Big cities operate at scales and complexities far above what Amazon can bring. Density begets density. Meanwhile, that cities have largely been built—and remained—in similar places (protected harbours with navigable rivers and ideally shallow bedrock) implies there are deeper reasons for why density exists where it does.

I’m not sure about that. Amazon turned Seattle into a truly big city, which it wasn’t before.

Eh, Microsoft and Boeing?

I lived in Seattle for a few years, as Amazon expanded. Traffic and housing exploded during that time. Boeing and Microsoft had their large facilities outside of Seattle proper, which I think minimized their effects on the city itself compared to Amazon.

difference is, NYC has all the talented MBAs, engineers and other smart people who will work 60+ hours a week already. that kind of culture just isn't present in many other cities

strong transit system? no

Come to SF then you will think nyc transit is quite strong in fact

I'm not aware of another city in the USA with as useful a transit system. In terms of what it could be, it's atrocious. In terms of how it enables the city to function, it's essential.

Name a single city in the US that has a better one.

NYC doesn't compare to Europe or Asia, of course, but it's streets ahead of anything else in the US.

*Note: there is SO MUCH wrong with the MTA and the NYC subway system, but it's currently the best in the country, unfortunately.

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