[AmericanChopper]

To escape the lunacy of The Seattle City Council? How about Bellevue, Kirkland or Redmond? The industry in Vancouver is also steadily growing.

The council quite openly sees economic growth as the source of all it's problems, which they have mostly created for themselves. As they have no idea how to manage these problems, and as most of their attempts to do so have in fact made them worse, the only thing they can do to further shirk responsibility is to implement more taxes.

It's hard to see why a business today would plan to base itself in Seattle, or expand on operations there. If Amazon hadn't already completed so much of the construction on its latest building there, I can't imagine they'd be committing to finishing it. Which will all in turn make Seattle's problems even worse.

[taurath]

Going to Vancouver with its far higher taxes to protest a $20m tax on a $xxxbillion company seems like a poor idea to me. Local government need not grovel to those that take advantage of its amenities to attract talent.

[AmericanChopper]

The cost of living is less in Vancouver than Seattle, and by extension salaries are lower. This is what has been moving tech companies further up the west coast, so yes it does make perfect business sense.

You also have things perfectly backwards. These companies are what is driving growth in Seattle, not the other way around. These companies are responsible for more than doubling local government revenue in the past decade. The companies create the growth, not the ‘amenities’ of Seattle city.

If you don’t like or don’t know how to manage economic growth, then by all means, make the environment as hostile as you can for businesses. You only need to look at Detroit to see how beneficial it can be when an entire industry leaves town.

[taurath]

> You also have things perfectly backwards. These companies are what is driving growth in Seattle, not the other way around. These companies are responsible for more than doubling local government revenue in the past decade. The companies create the growth, not the ‘amenities’ of Seattle city.

Why in the world would companies insist on staying in the bay area when they could pay people half in Ohio? This is HN, and story after story talks about how VCs /demand/ you locate yourself in the bay for the talent pool.

Seattle is in no danger of becoming Detroit, or an entire industry leaving, not when software skills are as in demand as they are right now. Its in no danger of Amazon picking up and leaving. Reminder, we're talking about $20 million dollars here, which is less than the budget for benches outside their brand new buildings.

I honestly think it would be a great thing for companies to go set up somewhere else and not over-inflate the 4-5 "chosen" tech areas. Maybe then housing prices can get reasonable, and some town that desperately needs any jobs can get started again.

[AmericanChopper]

I don't think the industry is going to pick up and leave Seattle, but it undoubtably puts more pressure on businesses that are already finding better places to operate elsewhere. It's these companies that have generated the revenue boom that the Seattle City Council has experienced over the past decade. If it wants more revenue and more jobs in the city, then it shouldn't make it harder for businesses to operate nor should it tax jobs. Especially when there are so many desirable areas to operate directly next door, and especially when all of those areas are already experiencing enormous growth.

[taurath]

I honesty don’t think the city should be concerned with revenue and jobs at this point. The unemployment rate is incredibly low. It should be focused on housing affordability and amenities to make it more livable for everyone who lives there, not just the new upper class who are experiencing all of the benefits already. A place where more people can have security and opportunity. And guess what, that makes for a much better city even for the upper class.

[AmericanChopper]

That’s great, but what you’re describing is jobs and growth. Housing is another area where Seattle has failed to manage its resources, so I’m not going to argue that affordability isn’t a problem. But you won’t solve it by stifling growth, which is literally what many in Seattle are advocating. But that security and opportunity you’re talking about, that’s jobs and growth. You can’t argue that the free market has been so successful at creating jobs that you don’t need to worry about it any more. The market forces that brought jobs and booming growth to Seattle can just as easily take them elsewhere.

[NotSammyHagar]

except housing is about the same as seattle, with much much lower salaries. moving to vancouver doesn't make sense in terms of finances.

[AmericanChopper]

Renting is about 30% more expensive in Seattle, and just about every other metric that you can measure costs of living by also favour Vancouver. The fact that Vancouver is on the west coast, and the fact that salaries are lower there than there are in the US is what is currently attracting more technology companies to open offices there. This isn't a theory, Vancouver has Canadas fastest growing tech sector. These are the same conditions that attracted companies to open offices further up the west coast to begin with, only now Seattle doesn't offer the same advantages that it used to.

[taurath]

Average price of a detached house in Vancouver is $1.5 million and avg software salary is C$72,945 per year (completely unaffordable). Average price of a detached house in Seattle is $772,729 and avg software salary is $110,907 a year. Still unaffordable and getting moreso, but doable with dual income.

[AmericanChopper]

The cost of buying a house and the cost of living are not the same thing. For instance the price to rent ratio in Vancouver is about twice as much as it is in Seattle. In any case all of this is completely irrelevant. The cost of living and the salaries are lower in Vancouver than Seattle, a fact that isn't up for debate. One of the core factors that have driven technology companies to expand beyond the valley is the cost of salaries, this is one of the reasons that the sector expanded so much in WA, and it's one of the key reasons that it is _currently_ expanding so much in B.C. None of this is theory, or me arguing for what I think will happen, it is what's happening right now.

[seanmcdirmid]

Back in the day (1990s), Seattle had hardly any tech scene at all and all of the area's tech action was in Bellevue, Kirkland, and Redmond. Today, things are quite changed, with more tech jobs being sought for in downtown Seattle than the east side it seems. It is a really a strange thing to see from a long time resident perspective.

Seattle is oversubscribed, I hope you are right that the companies/startups will move back east to take off the pressure. But somehow I doubt it will happen like that.

[AmericanChopper]

In the long term, I can’t see how the east side could possibly fail to attract more businesses. Growth is already increasing in those areas, and there’s so much room for more. The quality of life is also arguably better over there. The more anti-business Seattle is becoming can only hasten this.

[seanmcdirmid]

The east side is the San Jose of the Seattle area. It isn't hip and happening like the city is. Ya, the rent is cheaper (though not much anymore), houses are bigger, it has a very nice clean suburban feel, you don't trip over needles or homeless people, but many young people find the east side to be too boring.

Course, Microsoft has a bunch of buses they use to move engineers from Seattle to Redmond, but like Google does between SF and Mountain View. I guess that could work, but it doesn't really make the traffic better.

[AmericanChopper]

Yeah, that's a fair point. It is certainly less edgy than downtown Seattle. That said, living in Seattle and commuting east is far more doable than the other way around (although that could be subject to change). I also imagine that the east side is more desirable to employees with families, though I have no idea how much of the workforce that actually makes up.

Preferences aside though, the one thing the east has that Seattle City doesn't is abundant space.

[seanmcdirmid]

These days, the traffic into Seattle is very well balanced with out from Seattle, the reverse commute is kind of dead.