Just when Amazon forsakes New York City, I decide to go to my neighborhood Foot Locker for two pairs of sneakers and the saleswoman ends up ordering them online for me with “free delivery.” And so?
Amazon expects to get what it wants. It has run roughshod over Seattle local government for years—don't dare raise employer taxes for affordable housing, enticed cities and states across the nation to give up valuable data in the food fight for a second headquarters, paid what amounts to no federal tax last year, and secured all sorts of tax incentives and enticements for their new locations. An unequaled corporate octopus, the company has muscularly positioned itself to reap whatever business welfare it can wrangle. It also needs to draw a high-powered talent pool into its orbit by locating in prime gateway cities and puts its logistics centers at the nation's most strategic transport hubs.
The formula has worked extraordinarily. By now we all shop online through Amazon's seamless site. Brilliantly, Bezos and Co. reinvest in the company to keep its systems ahead of the pack (its cloud computing business is now larger than the e-commerce business)—you can buy whatever in minutes and it arrives in a couple of days, sometimes sooner, inevitably beating your expectations.
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Jonathan D. Miller
A marketing communication strategist who turned to real estate analysis, Jonathan D. Miller is a foremost interpreter of 21st citistate futures – cities and suburbs alike – seen through the lens of lifestyles and market realities. For more than 20 years (1992-2013), Miller authored Emerging Trends in Real Estate, the leading commercial real estate industry outlook report, published annually by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the Urban Land Institute (ULI). He has lectures frequently on trends in real estate, including the future of America's major 24-hour urban centers and sprawling suburbs. He also has been author of ULI’s annual forecasts on infrastructure and its What’s Next? series of forecasts. On a weekly basis, he writes the Trendczar blog for GlobeStreet.com, the real estate news website. Outside his published forecasting work, Miller is a prominent communications/institutional investor-marketing strategist and partner in Miller Ryan LLC, helping corporate clients develop and execute branding and communications programs. He led the re-branding of GMAC Commercial Mortgage to Capmark Financial Group Inc. and he was part of the management team that helped build Equitable Real Estate Investment Management, Inc. (subsequently Lend Lease Real Estate Investments, Inc.) into the leading real estate advisor to pension funds and other real institutional investors. He joined the Equitable Life Assurance Society of the U.S. in 1981, moving to Equitable Real Estate in 1984 as head of Corporate/Marketing Communications. In the 1980's he managed relations for several of the country's most prominent real estate developments including New York's Trump Tower and the Equitable Center. Earlier in his career, Miller was a reporter for Gannett Newspapers. He is a member of the Citistates Group and a board member of NYC Outward Bound Schools and the Center for Employment Opportunities.
