Seattle’s Rent Prices Rise and Homelessness Increases Due to Amazon

Regardless of their personal opinions about Amazon, residents of the fastest-growing city in the U.S. are united on one point – Seattle has paid a significant price after becoming home to this megacorporation, leading to rising rent prices, an increase in homelessness, congested streets, and overloaded public transport….

According to The Guardian, even residents who enthusiastically welcomed the construction of Amazon’s campus in the city center now believe that the company has brought more harm than good to the city. In addition to being accused of destroying the city’s transit and education systems, the highly paid workers of the tech giant have driven up the prices of goods and real estate.

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Since Amazon’s founding, the city’s population has increased by approximately 40 percent, with nearly 20,000 new residents moving in each year, most of whom are Amazon employees. The average salary at the company is around $100,000 per year, which is double the median salary of other residents in Seattle, causing a significant drop in purchasing power and creating a large economic gap between natives and newcomers.

Real estate prices have risen by 70 percent in the last five years, forcing lower-paid residents to move outside the city or live on the streets. Seattle has thus become the area with the highest number of homeless people in the U.S., after New York and Los Angeles. Currently, there are over 11,000 people in the city without a roof over their heads. Amazon has attempted to mitigate the damage by financially supporting organizations like Mary’s Place to build a new shelter that would accommodate 200 homeless individuals.

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The problem also arises from the excessive concentration of citizens using public transport, which has forced city authorities to introduce more lines running to the campus. Amazon co-financed the upgrade and purchase of new trams with $700,000. However, the flow of cars to the campus remains too high, resulting in enormous traffic jams on the highway.

Bezos’s company is undoubtedly destroying the liberal and progressive culture of the city, as unlike other giant corporations that have their headquarters there, such as Microsoft, Starbucks, and Boeing, it has placed its campus in the city center. Critics point out that Amazon is trying to shape the future of Seattle, whose residents are becoming increasingly dependent on the company’s donations, thereby giving it excessive power at the expense of democratic institutions.