Amazon’s HQ2 Will Be A Boon And A Burden

By Laura Pellicer,

Published October 24, 2017 at 12:22 PM EDT

1 of 2

For years now, much of downtown Seattle has been a maze of broken streets and caution-taped sidewalks, with dozens of enormous cranes towering overhead as construction trucks rumble past pedestrians and bicyclists.

Elaine Thompson / AP Photo

2 of 2

Joshua McNichols and Carolyn Adolph host the new podcast 'Prime(d)', a look at how Amazon's headquarters changed Seattle.

Courtesy of Joshua McNichols

Take it from Seattle, having Amazon’s headquarters in your city can be a blessing.

For every one job Amazon created in the city, it added an estimated seven external jobs as well. The 33-building tech campus drove up the average income in the area and helped foster a high-skilled economy. But alongside those changes, Seattle was also hit with traffic woes, a spike in homelessness, and the flight of African-American and low income communities to the outskirts of the city.

Host Frank Stasio speaks with Joshua McNichols and Carolyn Adolph, reporters from NPR member station KUOW, about their new podcast “Prime(d)” that explores the city’s long-term relationship with Amazon.