CityLab Daily: Did Amazon Overpromise?

  1. Andrew Small

Also: The power of privileged neighborhoods, and the women of the Bauhaus.

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What We’re Following

Grand ole operations: Over the weekend, a $23 million incentives package for Amazon HQ2 cleared its final hurdle as the Arlington County Board in Virginia approved subsidies for the e-commerce giant (WaPo). Meanwhile, Nashville’s Metro Council plans to vote Tuesday on a similar incentive package for the company’s 1-million-square-foot “Operations Center of Excellence.” But Amazon’s plans are facing new scrutiny after the company filed salary data that casts doubt on whether its local hiring will match what it promised.

The promise was 5,000 full-time jobs paying an average wage of over $150,000 in Davidson County. A new breakdown of the company’s hiring commitments shows baseline salaries that fall far short of that, a fact that caught labor activists’ attention. “Let’s give Amazon all of the benefit of the doubt—let’s say they’ll pay all employees $50,000 over the median wage,” one activist tells CityLab’s Sarah Holder. “Literally, they’d have to almost triple these wages to reach the number they’ve been promising all along.” Read Sarah’s story: In Nashville, Will Amazon Overpromise and Under-Deliver?

—Andrew Small

More on CityLab

Unpacking the Power of Privileged Neighborhoods

A new study shows that growing up in an affluent community brings “compounding privileges” and higher educational attainment—especially for white residents.

Tanvi Misra

Atlanta’s Big Transit Vote Is a Referendum on Race

As suburban Gwinnett County weighs a MARTA expansion, changing demographics and politics may decide the Georgia capital's transportation future.

Laura Bliss

Why Berlin Is Giving Women a Discount on Public Transit

The German capital is celebrating Equal Pay Day with the Frauenticket, a discounted fare that reflects the gender pay gap.

Feargus O'Sullivan

The Women of the Bauhaus

Walter Gropius’s lofty rhetoric about equality fell short of the essentialist differences that the art school’s founders perceived between the sexes (and imposed on women at the school).

Kriston Capps

France’s Yellow Vests Are Rebels Without a Cause

As weekly protests continue in Paris, French President Emmanuel Macron is still trying to figure out what the “yellow vest” movement wants. It’s not an easy task.

Rachel Donadio

Give Me a Brake

Arnd Wiegmann/Reuters

Bike-lane foes say the darnedest things. Advocates of enhanced bicycle infrastructure know this all too well. The latest short film by Streetsfilms’ Clarence Eckerson asks advocates at this year’s National Bike Summit outside Washington, D.C., to recount their most ridiculous tales of bike-lane opposition. Enjoy some of these head-scratchers—including the classic If you build a bike lane, the terrorists will win—here: Watch Bike Advocates Vent About the Silliest Anti-Bike Lane Arguments

What We’re Reading

ETA: Uber plans to kick off IPO in April (Reuters)

Climate change is hastening the decline of destinations, giving rise to “last-chance tourism” (Vox)

New York City says electric cars are now the cheapest option for its fleet (Quartz)

Why Lyft would prefer you take a scooter (Bloomberg)

Google Doodle pays tribute to the inventor of the “tenji block,” which helps people with visual impairments navigate cities (CNET)

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