Amazon HQ2 — what else can it offer to NYC?

For years, suburbia has offered these companies acres of disposable, cheap, anonymous office parks: mostly one- or two-story concrete structures surrounded by loads of surface parking. These sites minimized costs, maximized security and allowed companies to scale up, contract or split into different units quickly — at the same time they promoted sprawl and traffic jams and transformed once-quaint bedroom communities south of San Francisco into phenomenally expensive places to live.

Even though Amazon's search for its new headquarters' locations has ended all the talks and negotiations about the company's potential impact on the cities it will settle in — New York and Crystal City, Virginia—have only begun.  

In ways, the choice comes as no surprise as tech platforms have been attracted to America's wealthy coastal cities, with their established cultures, universities and transit systems, for years. The intensifying expansion of the tech industry amidst urban landscape raises many questions about corporations' powers and rights in a city. 

Michael Kimmelman of the NY Times notes that companies like Amazon, through their multi-billion biding process, should offer to satisfy more than just the city's growing need for new jobs. The author suggests options: "As for housing, the city’s regulatory and zoning policies are more responsible for driving up costs than tech companies. But, in an ideal world, Amazon would reverse what it did in Seattle and commit resources ...

Anastasia Tokmakova via Archinect - News http://bit.ly/2AeN6Ht