This week, Amazon scrapped plans for a New York headquarters. However, it is not just in Queens where local residents don’t want a tech giant setting up a campus. As Rick Noak pointed out in the Washington Post, there is growing opposition from people in Berlin, Melbourne, and Dublin to tech firms expanding in their cities. In Melbourne, the opposition is to an Apple flagship store. They may be thousands of miles apart, but residents in these cities share some coming concerns.
Tech companies bring in small armies of workers but these are rarely recruited from the neighborhoods in question and the new arrivals drive up prices for locals. There is also often opposition to the companies on ideological grounds or simply the fact that a global corporation is taking over key parts of beloved neighborhoods. While city leaders may love the new additions, residents don’t.
