Amazon’s growing pains in Seattle offer lessons to new hosts

SEATTLE (AP) — As Amazon turns its attention to setting up new homes in Long Island City, New York and Arlington, Virginia, experts and historians in Seattle say both places can expect a delicate relationship with the world’s hottest online retailer.

The communities will be subject to outsized influence from a company used to getting what it wants and unfazed by blame, fairly or not, for widespread changes all around.

Just look to the Pacific Northwest, where both Amazon and Seattle have transformed dramatically together and sometimes at odds over the past 24 years, prompting resentment among a certain crowd of “mossback” natives.

Amazon’s workforce in the city has grown from 5,000 to 45,000 employees since 2010, while its physical footprint in the downtown core has expanded from 1 million to 8 million square feet today.