The large Seattle companies also work in discount deals for housing, which is far from ethical or fair:
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/is-it-hou...
People are critical because Amazon has rarely given to charity, or when they do it's something like letting a charity temporally use an existing building before they renovate it:
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/amazons-donating-a-buil...
I mean, maybe we shouldn't be so critical if Bezos is legitimately concerned and they're doing something, but I can understand why people are skeptical based on their track record.
https://www.seattletimes.com/business/amazon/amazon-creating...
Disclosure: i work at Amazon.
If I could make a genie wish, it would be that there was a bunch of luxury condo&apt construction for the new residents so that none of the old residents would have any pressure to move. But, I can’t blame the lack of construction on Amazon.
Seattle has had the most cranes in the country for 3 years now [0] and so much new housing has been built prices recently went down [1].
[0]: https://www.seattlepi.com/seattlenews/article/Seattle-three-...
[1]: https://www.seattletimes.com/business/real-estate/smallest-s...
The alternative is that no one gets raises. That's would be loss for a large number of families and no change for others.
It's not strictly zero-sum because the gains and losses may not exactly offset each other, but one agent's gains still come at the expense of another.
> One family gets a large raise. Another gets a slightly harder time finding affordable housing.
is something to avoid, not strive for.
Wow! "Play a role" has an amazing undertone here; It's Amazon's fault for offering good salaries in Seattle; a better company would offer fewer jobs, at lower salaries, spread out (oh that's what's happening at the warehouses).
Local and State Governments (and the people they represent who are profiting from real estate in San Francisco and Seattle) should not be the distant second you're pointing at here!
Indeed, Amazon HQ2 is considered by many cities to be a giant opportunity for economic growth.
And this is to ignore that Amazon Seattle is located where a previously blighted community was.
Nay, I say, I've considered Seattle as having a higher cost of living since 'You've Got Mail' came out.
In case you don't care to read an article they're just coming off an effort to kill a tax that would have affected them and which was specifically designed to combat homelessness.