Enough already with the delusions, distractions and destructive promises.
Amazon.com Inc.’s HQ2 here in Vancouver? Is our mayor serious?
Where is he hiding the 1.8 million square feet Amazon wants? Where is the housing those tens of thousands of workers and their families would need?
How would he situate and celebrate a company that would further hurt the small and medium-sized merchants in our city?
What concessions would he provide in this North American HQ2 contest to bring those jobs? Would he give what he has never contemplated providing others to come – or others to stay?
Would he advocate – as Amazon would doubtlessly seek – more generous provisions of a duty-free flow of goods?
Where is the public transit?
Yes, enough already.
These headline-grabbing fantasies steer attention from real housing issues, job-generating ideas and real challenges for the city’s space and how it uses it.
It is a cruel pretension that the City of Vancouver is in any way shapely to accommodate Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ intention to demand more space of any city than does the Pentagon of Washington.
But let’s not fully say no to Amazon among us quite yet. Metro Vancouver, on the other hand, has some definite possibilities. Surrey, Burnaby and Richmond particularly have attributes that appeal: space in all cases, access to an airport in Richmond’s case, and a go-forward attitude that green-lights business because those cities more easily can.
While it’s hard to fathom why Amazon might want two headquarters so geographically proximate, perhaps our mayor might wish to selflessly lobby for Metro.
My sense is that the job of regional representation is more credibly and persuasively placed with the head of the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade, Iain Black.
The New York Times last week looked at data from interested American cities – it didn’t have data for Canada – and concluded that Denver (followed by Boston and Washington) best fit Amazon’s extensive criteria.
Still, for any Canadian centre to contemplate Amazon is to contemplate a new environment of easier data flows and computer code sharing, heavier transmission duties and criminal treatment of trade secrets. These matters will be part and parcel of the logistical challenge.
In our own backyard in Vancouver, too, are hundreds of small vendors already under the effect of Amazon’s profound disruption. They experience, day after day, consumers inspecting products in their stores and then hopping onto their smartphones to buy the same from Amazon at a discount.
Anyone lobbying on Vancouver’s behalf would well know these merchants stand to be roadkill in any localization.
The allure of Amazon is incredible, no question. But the focus of a city strategy in building higher-paying jobs has to be careful not to concurrently hand bullets to those with the gun.
Our focus on those who have committed to the city should not be placed in favour of those who would capitalize on it, nor should we offer provisions that others have not been and might not be permitted to claim.
As a committed Amazon customer since 2000, when I’d be pleasantly surprised by an autographed copy of a book I’d order, I can appreciate not only its superb service but its vision for consumerism. But it’s an appreciation that entails some apprehension of its impact.
Just as our ride-sharing discussions haven’t adequately addressed adjustment programs for the incumbents – even our bike-sharing discussions haven’t – we’d need to understand how we would deal with the Amazon effect on our city.
The mayor’s lunge is another shiny object he’d like us to admire.
Rather than rush to create the PowerPoint presentation for the Amazon execs, we need the more significant conversations about our goals and how we get to them.
Kirk LaPointe is Editor-in-Chief of Business in Vancouver Media Group and Vice-President of Glacier Media.
