Amazon is offering $20 million to the Arlington County Affordable Housing Investment Fund in exchange for being allowed to build a bigger headquarters complex in the county than zoning allows.
...it would be the greatest single infusion of money ever into Arlington’s housing fund, which in recent years received between $14 million and $16 million annually from the county government and $5 million to $6 million in loan repayments from developers.
— The Washington Post
According to The Washington Post, the affordable housing proposal has been long awaited by Arlington residents who worry about the arrival of thousands of well-paid Amazon employees and the higher rents and housing costs that could result.
In exchange for the donation, Amazon hopes to increase the allowable size of its new ZGF Architects-designed HQ. Additionally, the company plans to create 25,000 new jobs and invest $2.5 billion in building its headquarters in the Pentagon City and Crystal City neighborhoods over the next decade, reports The Washington Post.
5 Comments
That should be far more than $20m, and it should be an annual requirment.
But Miles, they are PAYING to PLAY. Just because others can't doesn't mean they shouldn't be allowed to...right?
that is less than 1% of the investment cost they are claiming to make the buildings in the area. Pretty low.
Stepping back a bit, I wonder why the mythos of Ford and the previous generation of work-hub creat-anators does not include the burden of the company moving in and disrupting everything. Was it really great that they did the same thing only 60 years ago? Or did they fuck up the cities they latched onto too? The aftermath is clear in Detroit, but what about when it was all going "well"?
the company town is a mechanism to accumulate useful human resources for the company's purposes.
it's a simple strategy, project (like to pro - ject) some sense of social care for those less fortunate by giving them shelter, while expecting labor to fuel the mechanism of industry and then bail when the resources have served their purposes.
you can be a republican conservative and say "hey you poor people don't try hard enough, get a job"
or you can be a democratic liberal and say "i'll bring housing and jobs!"
(the difference is simple, the republican is telling you how they really think about you, the democrat is making you feel good, while both just use you)
or you can be a free thinking human and realize everyone is here to make a deal.
Notice how WaPo (owned by Bezos / Amazon) frames it: “the greatest single infusion of money ever into Arlington’s housing fund“.
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