10 Simple Steps to Keep Amazon From Ruining Your City
Easy. Duh. Lemme walk you through it, Jeff. (Can I call you Jeff?)
- Put the new HQ right on a central, well-connected transit line.
- Build a limited amount of employee parking, and manage demand by charging for it and offering transit vouchers.
- Create some sort of totally-unheard-of-in-America regional government entity that can regulate land use in the central city and surrounding suburbs.
- Update the zoning around high-frequency transit stops all throughout the region, with height and density limits set high enough to provide a number of homes that will meet the increased demand caused by new Amazon jobs and multiplier effects, no minimum parking requirements, and a special tax assessment to take advantage of increasing property values.
- By-right approval of projects that meet the new zoning and provide a predetermined (but financially feasible) percentage of subsidized, below-market-rate homes, with priority given to existing low-income residents in the neighborhood.
- Beef up renter protections such as right of return, free legal representation to challenge evictions, and, yeah, OK, some controls on preposterous, sudden rent increases.
- Devote increased tax revenue to improving transit frequency, converting car lanes and on-street parking to bus-priority lanes and separated bike lanes, and, if there’s anything left over, expansion of the transit network.
- Bring all public schools in region up to level of wealthiest suburban schools in terms of facilities, equipment, and teacher pay.
- Convince wealthy suburbanites not to revolt—literally or at the ballot box.
- While you’re at it, get anti-displacement activists and the Sierra Club on board, too, by … I dunno, convincing them that you’re absolutely addressing their concerns and involving them in the process without compromising any of the nine previous steps.
