Philly Dodged A 'Prosperity Time Bomb' When Amazon Didn't Pick Us. Will Bunch
It almost seems silly to ask if too much prosperity is a good thing. But did you really want to be standing underneath a "prosperity bomb"? That's the evocative phrase that Seattle Times columnist Danny Westneat used to describe the fallout from astronomical housing costs, congestion, and income inequality that come after raining down tens of thousands of six-figure tech jobs on one city, as has happened in Westneat's hometown in the early 21st century.
In an anticlimactic finish to a 14-month spectacle that left virtually no one satisfied, the Godzilla of high tech, Seattle-based Amazon, made it official Tuesday: Its second headquarters and 50,000 eventual high-paying jobs will not only not come to Philadelphia — despite a cloying campaign that even plastered itself on Seattle's buses — but will instead be divided evenly between Philly's two archrivals, New York City's Queens borough and Washington's suburbs in northern Virginia.
There was a time, maybe 20 years ago, when losing out to NYC and D.C. would have been a fatal blow to Philadelphia's already looking-up-at-the-grass-low civic self-esteem. In November 2018, it wasn't even our city's worst loss of the week — a dishonor that goes to Eagles coach Doug Pederson and his sputtering gridiron champs.
Honestly, losing Amazon — upon further review — feels like a win for Philadelphia, a moment that hopefully we'll look back on as the day that we dodged a bullet, if not that bomb...-MORE.
http://www2.philly.com/philly/columnists/will_bunch/amazon-hq2-philadelphia-pitch-virginia-new-york-20181114.html
Related: What Amazon Was Offered: Helipads, Zoo Tickets: NY, VA, Nashville, Phila, Pgh, Atl, Dallas., The Guardian https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016220148
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