| >Converted an un-safe warehouse district into prime, central real estate and a thriving neighborhood (South Lake Union) SLU was not un-safe. The idea that there is a seriously unsafe neighborhood in the city of Seattle is laughable. I remember SLU before Amazon. It has become extremely expensive and gentrified, that's it. >Grown a progressive, thriving economy that has in turn supported development of mass transit (ST2, ST3 - citywide light rail) Has massively inflated the population with wealthy transplants over a short period of time, pushing non-tech workers into the suburbs and requiring the citizens to pay for the added infrastructure costs due to Amazon-caused overcrowding without chipping in to help the city. >Pushed the median household income up 13% over the last decade You don't actually believe this is due to Amazon? I'm sure they helped a little.. mostly by pushing the poors out... >Seattle ain't perfect, but there is no question in my mind that we'd be worse off without the thriving local tech economy. Agreed, and Seattle has always been home to a thriving tech sector which is great. But other companies behave better with respect to their local community. Microsoft set up shop across the water, with a big campus so that employees could head into Seattle but didn't invade it and has adopted the culture of the area fairly well. Employees are treated well. |