I am assuming you are not from NY because you keep getting it wrong. NYC transit is struggling from outdated equipment and lack of finding, not too many riders. Ridership is actually down significantly. Because the subways suck and Uber/Lyft.

Of course it takes revenue to upgrade an antiquated system. If only there was an opportunity to create a large stream of revenue... say in Queens someplace.

You're correct; I'm from SF, which is apparently a mystical land that no one east of the Mississippi has heard of or is capable of learning from to apply more empirical knowledge to the present discussion.

you don't see how those are the same thing?

The NYC subway is struggling to move people into Manhattan during morning rush hours and out of Manhattan during morning rush hours. Other than those times and specifically in those directions (particularly on the tunnel/bridge bottlenecks in/out of Manhattan), NYC subway is operating at well below 100% capacity.

Amazon in LIC would not make that situation significantly worse. It would actually bring more revenues to MTA and make it financially easier to make needed repairs.

This Amazon subthread should be copied and sent to the Economics department of major universities. Someone do it now.

I looked into this more and it appears to have been a significant mistake to take you at your word - ridership is down in the last couple years, after hitting a peak level in 2015 (and dropping by only 0.3% in 2016) that hadn't been seen since the 1940s. The drop in ridership appears to be, in large part, because of poor service happening because of the system being under strain.

"Actually ridership is down a lot, no problems with capacity here, just old trains" seems like an exceptionally disingenuous take ignoring what happened up until 2016.

Okay, cool, also rents would go up and you've yet to acknowledge any kind of tradeoff we should consider

Something something teachers are highly paid?

No. These people can be trained to serve $20 lattes to Amazon employees with a warm smile in future Amazon HQs where subcommandante Ocasio-Cortez hasn't brainwashed locals that aren't in her district.

Is it really so hard for you to understand rent would not be going up significantly in Queens area as a whole and the LIC residents themselves for the most part wouldn't care too much or actually would overall benefit?

If you just look at any development and say "higher rent" then you are basically saying no to any economic development to attract investment and employment, which are drivers.

The typical tradeoffs of development are very minimal when it comes to AMZN in LIC. The pressure on public transport doesn't apply because the relevant subway lines/directions are currently underutilized. The concern over gentrification is limited because the area got gentrified a long time ago and the poor residents left are mostly essentially protected because they are in Queensbridge Houses. The concern over subsidies is overblown at best since Amazon would get very little of it unless it delivered on the benefits. The area really has been mostly just apartments for lawyers/bankers commuting to midtown and parking lots and city has repeatedly failed to bring more big employers to the area. Even if you broaden the pressure on rent for the entire area as a whole, it's still not that applicable because NYC's public transport reaches a lot more areas that are still in need of development and jobs and that will keep the impact on overall rent for the entire area relatively small.

All of the above are almost certainly considerations when NYC submitted the proposal to put AMZN in LIC, and not some area like Hudson Yards or lower east side/Alphabet city.

For what it's worth, the poor residents of LIC, if the NYCHA tenant association's (the association for the residents at the housing projects basically) presidents' words are any guide, basically outright said Gianaris/Van Bramer ****ed them over.

Good thing they couldn't possibly be connected issues!

Aaron Gordon is a great follow for subway issues fwiw.

"Bernie vs. Hillary" is a terrible comparison to use to try to show some African-American general election voting pattern, and shows you either are clueless when it comes to thinking/learning about 2016 or are being intentionally deceptive.

The Clintons had always been relatively popular among black voters, and Bernie stumbled around when it came to connecting with minorities at that time. Nobody denies this. Is your position that black voters preferred Clinton because they were against Medicare for All (for example)? Do you have polling among African-Americans that shows they prefer more centrist policies to more socialist policies? Or are you basing your opinion on #NeverBernie Twitter accounts?

If your preferred candidates are Booker/Biden you just straight up have bad, charter-school-welfare-reform-lets-just-be-nice-to-each-other political views that you're trying to mask as pragmatism.

Is it really so hard for you to understand that adding a bunch of high-paying jobs to an area that's already one of the most demand-heavy and expensive housing markets in the country will apply even even more pressure to drive prices higher?

You can look at a development, say "higher rent", and still say yes to it. Saying "higher rent" while considering the options is acknowledging the tradeoff, something you have yet to do ITT.

Tell your "the area is already gentrified, who cares" story to residents of the Mission district in SF, or anywhere in Oakland, as if the existing increases in their area means they no longer get to complain about things getting even worse for them.

Also, you can't simultaneously argue "this one area will be fine, don't need to consider other areas" while also arguing elsewhere "this is good because transit means future employees would have a wide selection of neighborhoods whose prices they can drive up".

Of course the locals who own property will like the idea because it will make their property values rise. This is no indication that it is a good thing for anyone else, including their own kids.

Casual repeated reminder (4th? 5th? That's a lot of ignoring revots and grizy) that both Tesla and Foxconn got their sweetheart deals extracting the maximum from local rubes and promptly didn't keep up their part of the bargain re: jobs.

Waiting for those lawsuits for breach of contract any minute now.

Still slightly better than the Rams/Marlins debacles?

But, these just never end well. There is no incentive for it too.

The STL one is the worst. Won't they be paying a team not there for years?

It's a real tossup. The Rams left and the state still owes about $150 million. The taxpayers will pony up over 2 billion for the Marlins, a team that is last in attendance and does not attempt to be competitive due to the same ownership that ripped off the city.

Here's the thing, a company coming to you and saying "please give us these concessions in return for us favoring you over other options" is bribery. You don't do it because governments shouldn't do that. All this "stop taking a useless moral stand and act in the interests of New York" stuff is no different to "this is just how you do business here" heard in corrupt countries the world over.

I agree that there needs to be systemic change but that doesn't mean you just play ball in the meantime. If states want to offer tax incentives that's one thing, but having a company go "hey we've got some business to sell for a quid pro quo here, what y'all got for us?" should be illegal and/or result in punitive actions from governments.

Maybe it should be illegal. But under current law negotiating for subsidies from local/foreign governments is legal and every government in the world does it if the company is big enough.

And it goes back to the point that people like Gianaris and AOC are just marking this down as a win even though most of their constituents would have benefitted from Amazon's presence and supported it.

They made a moral stand. But what did they really win? Amazon will just go somewhere else, Boston maybe, when this dies down and still get its subsidies. Maybe AMZN just gives NYC a giant middle finger and take NJ's 7 billion and plops down in Newport or Hoboken and be visible from Manhattan.

Just **** off. Gianaris ****ed over his constituents because he wanted to keep stomping on AMZN to pave his way to NYS governor mansion or even the White House.

exactly what NY did, and it bought them protests from far-left activists like AOC.

This wasn't bribery. When employers hire a top candidate, they offer a package including signing bonus, salary, benefits, stock options, etc. Because they are in competition with other employers for that talent. States are in competition with each other also.

It's not bribery. No one was forced to enter the HQ2 sweepstakes in the first place. The NY offer was based on Amazon delivering on certain benchmarks. It was an investment with a big potential return.

If NY can't offer any financial incentives, how do they compete against other lower-cost states, that may not require a $15 minimum wage like NY does for example?

From "teachers are well paid" to "how can NY be competitive in attracting businesses?"

Truly some of the worst takes I've ever seen.

Tesla was late but still mostly delivered on the jobs. Foxconn got basically nothing out of the deal and Wisconsin hasn't spent much. Tesla would have gotten almost nothing too if it didn't deliver.

The deals weren't structured, like is the case with some stadiums, with subsidies given right up front (cash payments+subsidized bond issuances). There was little negative financial impact to the governments that gave the "incentives" to the employers.

The Foxconn deal was clearly an ass kissing deal to keep Trump off the company's back. The company didn't need anything except getting Trump in a picture with its CEOs. But the incentive to make sure Tesla ended up well for Nevada is well, the company needed the plant to succeed. AMZN similarly actually does have strategic reasons (recruiting namely but also some of its biggest clients/potential clients are in NYC) to have a major presence in NYC. The problem for NYC is Amazon could achieve most of those objectives to a high degree by plopping down in Hoboken/Newport, Boston, and/or DC.

Foxxcon had a history of hugely renegging on deals as in outright lying repeatedly. Wisconsin would have known that if they had actually done any research instead of trying to turn it into a Scott Walker/Trump win.

I actually think they kind of knew. The deal was structured to give Foxconn basically nothing until they delivered on the jobs. The biggest casualty of that deal is Trump and Walker's credibility.

Too bad Trump basically had none to begin with. Walker got his ass voted out though, which is good.