Anonymous
Post 12/05/2018 17:34     Subject: Re:Amazon's Reality Check for MD

the key here is "20 years ago" pp.

Also tiny MD (mostly DC bordering state) may be richer than huge VA but NOVA specifically is blasting past People's Republic of MD.

as business escapes MD their share of the DC Areas economy will continue to fall. everyone from MD publications and officials to Wapo see this. But go ahead and ignore the issues, NOVA thanks you for absorbing the regional crime and being weak competition where economic development is concerned.
Anonymous
Post 12/05/2018 16:35     Subject: Amazon's Reality Check for MD

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Glad MOCO didn’t sell their souls to Amazon. All those tax breaks and incentives are a form of government assistance, aka welfare to the employees.


Except for the fact Virginia negotiated a great deal, and didn't "sell its soul." It gave Amazon less than HALF the incentives that NYC did, and nothing close to that $8 billion whopper MD offered. New York ends up paying about $60,000 per job for HQ2, Virginia will pay $23,000 per job. But yeah, we're so much better off without Discovery. Or Amazon. Or whatever.


+1 Virginia's incentives are among the lowest yet they won the bid. MoCo's basically threw themselves at Amazon with it's $8B bid and still nothing. I am a MoCo resident and getting disturbed by Maryland's inability to attract more businesses. All I see is residential homes popping up and no real plans to accommodate the new population. If you think your public schools with a 28:1 kid ratio with no aid, I can't imagine what it will be like in a few years.


Maryland is for losers....state has been on the decline for some time now....nothing there..


When we moved to the DC area 20 years ago for jobs (in law firms), my DH and I were advised to live in Bethesda/Chevy Chase. We bought a house there and love it. It's a great place to live. Granted, I don't know about the rest of MoCo or even the rest of Maryland, but Bethesda/CC seems to be a lot of lawyers and doctors who have short commutes to their workplaces, or economists who consult or work at the World Bank.
Anonymous
Post 12/05/2018 06:55     Subject: Amazon's Reality Check for MD

Why still argue about this? MoCo didn't lose Amazon, it lost half the Amazon...nor did it lose something it never had. Lost the bid....that was changed by Bezos and not a good deal at half the jobs, half the infrastructure, half everything... Again, the decline state is richest in the union and has most millionaires per capita. I guess it is not a bad way to decline.
Anonymous
Post 12/05/2018 05:14     Subject: Re:Amazon's Reality Check for MD

Anonymous wrote:Actually from the Wapo article this is more glaring PP:

“In 1983, the region’s economic activity, which reflects job growth, was split equally among Northern Virginia, Washington and the Maryland suburbs, he said. By last year, Northern Virginia’s share had grown to 48 percent, while the Maryland suburbs held about steady with 31 percent, and Washington had dropped to 21 percent.”


Wow. Had no idea all three areas were equal at one point in time. I don't know if it'll ever be that way again with the way NoVA is growing. But I don't want to wake up one morning and see VA at 56% and DC and MD at 22% each. That's "little brother" status.
Anonymous
Post 12/04/2018 09:29     Subject: Re:Amazon's Reality Check for MD

Actually from the Wapo article this is more glaring PP:

“In 1983, the region’s economic activity, which reflects job growth, was split equally among Northern Virginia, Washington and the Maryland suburbs, he said. By last year, Northern Virginia’s share had grown to 48 percent, while the Maryland suburbs held about steady with 31 percent, and Washington had dropped to 21 percent.”
Anonymous
Post 12/04/2018 09:23     Subject: Re:Amazon's Reality Check for MD

One of the reasons Maryland created such a large incentive package for Amazon is because we know our business climate is not as competitive,” said Basu, whose Baltimore firm, the Sage Policy Group, conducted the state’s economic impact study of Amazon’s potential benefits but was not involved in the bid.
“We know we need a massive package to attract them,” Basu said. “Even with that, Amazon said, ‘Thanks but no thanks.’?”

We checked all the boxes,” Firestine said. “I don’t think we need to say, ‘Oh, my God, where did we fail?’ Instead, it should be, ‘We’re happy we made the top group.’?

Losing the Amazon bid to Northern Virginia “should be a confirmation of an ongoing problem, that [Montgomery] has lost its competitive edge in the region,” Fuller said.

“At the end of the day, companies don’t make decisions based on incentives,” Silverman said. “They’re the icing on the cake. The cake is your workforce, transportation and educational infrastructure, and taxes. Maryland offered money, but money wasn’t the driver behind this.”
I think the bigger [issue] is the lack of attention Montgomery County has paid to business growth,” Duncan said. “I think Amazon looked at [Montgomery] and said, ‘We’re not going to have a reliable partner 10 to 20 years from now. We’ll be in constant battle with the local government.’?”

Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/marylands-amazon-loss-prompts-questions-about-its-competitiveness/2018/12/03/c568085c-e930-11e8-bbdb-72fdbf9d4fed_story.html







Anonymous
Post 11/21/2018 18:19     Subject: Amazon's Reality Check for MD

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:People keep saying this, but in some ways CC was just a better choice in that it had existing empty buildings with a Metro stop. White Flint had a big plot of land miles from the nearest public transit.

Which...great for Crystal City but there was very little MoCo could do about that.
I thought there was a metro stop at White Flint.


There is. I get get off there sometimes—I’d guess it’s about a 10-min walk to the mall site.


It’s maybe 8 tops. I used to get off there, walk the couple blocks to WF, and walk to the Metro.
Anonymous
Post 11/21/2018 16:27     Subject: Amazon's Reality Check for MD

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:OP why do you feel compelled to slam Montco? I regularly travel to NOVA and DC, let’s not pretend the people who live there aren’t dealing with awful traffic seven days a week. Why on earth would I pay a premium to live in NOVA or DC? Overpriced broken metro? Overpriced hot lanes? The privilege of sitting in weekend traffic on 66 and 495 on the weekends? Lack of parking, inefficient public transportation? Yeah I’ll pay 40% more for housing, where do I sign up?


Who's "slamming" MoCo? By asking County leaders to take a hard look at our policies? By raising some level of concern over losing Discovery and getting beat out for Amazon? Yeah, I'm worried about the long-term business climate here, especially with an economic juggernaut rising right across the river from us. Can't understand why that makes me some sort of lunatic. I've got a vested interest in this being a robust economy, and that can't happen on the backs of small business owners alone - we need big corporate investment to go along with that.

Cheers to those who actually proposed real ideas, like at least revisiting the concept of what might be accomplished with a new Potomac River bridge. Jeers to those who quickly went to the old standbys: VA is soulless. Tysons traffic sucks. I'm glad we lost Amazon. That's a great blueprint for our future.

Your last sentence give you out.


Gives. My last sentence "gives" me out. If you're going to nitpick, at least be grammatically correct.

The fact remains, it gives you out.
That you agree and didn't deny.
Anonymous
Post 11/21/2018 11:21     Subject: Amazon's Reality Check for MD

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Glad MOCO didn’t sell their souls to Amazon. All those tax breaks and incentives are a form of government assistance, aka welfare to the employees.


Except for the fact Virginia negotiated a great deal, and didn't "sell its soul." It gave Amazon less than HALF the incentives that NYC did, and nothing close to that $8 billion whopper MD offered. New York ends up paying about $60,000 per job for HQ2, Virginia will pay $23,000 per job. But yeah, we're so much better off without Discovery. Or Amazon. Or whatever.


+1 Virginia's incentives are among the lowest yet they won the bid. MoCo's basically threw themselves at Amazon with it's $8B bid and still nothing. I am a MoCo resident and getting disturbed by Maryland's inability to attract more businesses. All I see is residential homes popping up and no real plans to accommodate the new population. If you think your public schools with a 28:1 kid ratio with no aid, I can't imagine what it will be like in a few years.


Maryland is for losers....state has been on the decline for some time now....nothing there..


Uh oh.. The lights are on but nobody's home Please go back to your town of simpletons.
Anonymous
Post 11/21/2018 11:05     Subject: Amazon's Reality Check for MD

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Glad MOCO didn’t sell their souls to Amazon. All those tax breaks and incentives are a form of government assistance, aka welfare to the employees.


Except for the fact Virginia negotiated a great deal, and didn't "sell its soul." It gave Amazon less than HALF the incentives that NYC did, and nothing close to that $8 billion whopper MD offered. New York ends up paying about $60,000 per job for HQ2, Virginia will pay $23,000 per job. But yeah, we're so much better off without Discovery. Or Amazon. Or whatever.


+1 Virginia's incentives are among the lowest yet they won the bid. MoCo's basically threw themselves at Amazon with it's $8B bid and still nothing. I am a MoCo resident and getting disturbed by Maryland's inability to attract more businesses. All I see is residential homes popping up and no real plans to accommodate the new population. If you think your public schools with a 28:1 kid ratio with no aid, I can't imagine what it will be like in a few years.


Maryland is for losers....state has been on the decline for some time now....nothing there..
Anonymous
Post 11/21/2018 10:51     Subject: Amazon's Reality Check for MD

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:OP why do you feel compelled to slam Montco? I regularly travel to NOVA and DC, let’s not pretend the people who live there aren’t dealing with awful traffic seven days a week. Why on earth would I pay a premium to live in NOVA or DC? Overpriced broken metro? Overpriced hot lanes? The privilege of sitting in weekend traffic on 66 and 495 on the weekends? Lack of parking, inefficient public transportation? Yeah I’ll pay 40% more for housing, where do I sign up?


Who's "slamming" MoCo? By asking County leaders to take a hard look at our policies? By raising some level of concern over losing Discovery and getting beat out for Amazon? Yeah, I'm worried about the long-term business climate here, especially with an economic juggernaut rising right across the river from us. Can't understand why that makes me some sort of lunatic. I've got a vested interest in this being a robust economy, and that can't happen on the backs of small business owners alone - we need big corporate investment to go along with that.

Cheers to those who actually proposed real ideas, like at least revisiting the concept of what might be accomplished with a new Potomac River bridge. Jeers to those who quickly went to the old standbys: VA is soulless. Tysons traffic sucks. I'm glad we lost Amazon. That's a great blueprint for our future.


Discovery leaving has NOTHING to do with Montgomery County. Discovery is a sinking ship. Trust me, I'm in the industry and worked there in its better days. The only reason the Discovery brand is holding on is because they purchased Scripps TV, who runs HGTV. The popularity of Fixer Upper, Property Brothers, those other well known brands are what is saving them. When Discovery announced they were leaving MD, they had 1,300 employees in the SS location. 200 are remaining in SS, moving to a smaller location. The new headquarters is being advertised as in NYC, but most employees will be in lower cost Knoxville TN.

Montgomery County does have some rethinking to do regarding how to attract new businesses but losing Discovery is not a loss at all.
Anonymous
Post 11/21/2018 10:38     Subject: Amazon's Reality Check for MD

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:OP why do you feel compelled to slam Montco? I regularly travel to NOVA and DC, let’s not pretend the people who live there aren’t dealing with awful traffic seven days a week. Why on earth would I pay a premium to live in NOVA or DC? Overpriced broken metro? Overpriced hot lanes? The privilege of sitting in weekend traffic on 66 and 495 on the weekends? Lack of parking, inefficient public transportation? Yeah I’ll pay 40% more for housing, where do I sign up?


Who's "slamming" MoCo? By asking County leaders to take a hard look at our policies? By raising some level of concern over losing Discovery and getting beat out for Amazon? Yeah, I'm worried about the long-term business climate here, especially with an economic juggernaut rising right across the river from us. Can't understand why that makes me some sort of lunatic. I've got a vested interest in this being a robust economy, and that can't happen on the backs of small business owners alone - we need big corporate investment to go along with that.

Cheers to those who actually proposed real ideas, like at least revisiting the concept of what might be accomplished with a new Potomac River bridge. Jeers to those who quickly went to the old standbys: VA is soulless. Tysons traffic sucks. I'm glad we lost Amazon. That's a great blueprint for our future.

Your last sentence give you out.


Gives. My last sentence "gives" me out. If you're going to nitpick, at least be grammatically correct.
Anonymous
Post 11/21/2018 10:26     Subject: Amazon's Reality Check for MD

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:OP why do you feel compelled to slam Montco? I regularly travel to NOVA and DC, let’s not pretend the people who live there aren’t dealing with awful traffic seven days a week. Why on earth would I pay a premium to live in NOVA or DC? Overpriced broken metro? Overpriced hot lanes? The privilege of sitting in weekend traffic on 66 and 495 on the weekends? Lack of parking, inefficient public transportation? Yeah I’ll pay 40% more for housing, where do I sign up?


Who's "slamming" MoCo? By asking County leaders to take a hard look at our policies? By raising some level of concern over losing Discovery and getting beat out for Amazon? Yeah, I'm worried about the long-term business climate here, especially with an economic juggernaut rising right across the river from us. Can't understand why that makes me some sort of lunatic. I've got a vested interest in this being a robust economy, and that can't happen on the backs of small business owners alone - we need big corporate investment to go along with that.

Cheers to those who actually proposed real ideas, like at least revisiting the concept of what might be accomplished with a new Potomac River bridge. Jeers to those who quickly went to the old standbys: VA is soulless. Tysons traffic sucks. I'm glad we lost Amazon. That's a great blueprint for our future.

Your last sentence give you out.
Anonymous
Post 11/21/2018 09:46     Subject: Amazon's Reality Check for MD

Anonymous wrote:OP why do you feel compelled to slam Montco? I regularly travel to NOVA and DC, let’s not pretend the people who live there aren’t dealing with awful traffic seven days a week. Why on earth would I pay a premium to live in NOVA or DC? Overpriced broken metro? Overpriced hot lanes? The privilege of sitting in weekend traffic on 66 and 495 on the weekends? Lack of parking, inefficient public transportation? Yeah I’ll pay 40% more for housing, where do I sign up?


Who's "slamming" MoCo? By asking County leaders to take a hard look at our policies? By raising some level of concern over losing Discovery and getting beat out for Amazon? Yeah, I'm worried about the long-term business climate here, especially with an economic juggernaut rising right across the river from us. Can't understand why that makes me some sort of lunatic. I've got a vested interest in this being a robust economy, and that can't happen on the backs of small business owners alone - we need big corporate investment to go along with that.

Cheers to those who actually proposed real ideas, like at least revisiting the concept of what might be accomplished with a new Potomac River bridge. Jeers to those who quickly went to the old standbys: VA is soulless. Tysons traffic sucks. I'm glad we lost Amazon. That's a great blueprint for our future.
Anonymous
Post 11/20/2018 22:22     Subject: Amazon's Reality Check for MD

This whole thread likely was started by some pimply wannabe hipster-“Urbanist.” He is sitting in his mother’s basement and being paid as $10 stringer to Greater Greater Washington to push the big development agenda.