Where big Silicon Valley business goes, prosperity follows—at least, that’s what big Silicon Valley business tells us.

Ever since it became known that Vancouver was courting Amazon to build its second North American headquarters in the city, myriad questions arose around how the major tech firm might affect our city. When the B.C. government chipped in $50,000 to help with the City of Vancouver’s bid in September, the questions became much more pressing.

Just what would it really be like for an American megacorporation like Amazon to colonize a relatively boutique tech centre like Vancouver?

Political, social, and economic impacts

If Amazon brought a major new facility to Vancouver, it would revolutionize the city’s tech sector overnight, turning it from just another major world tech city into one of the most important tech hubs in North America. Laborers and tech-sector experts would feel its effects immediately. That said, it would affect a lot more than job prospects. Its effects would be felt through every corner of the local economy, and from there impact the city’s politics and even culture.

Local politicians have also expressed concern about the potential problems that such an enormous addition would have on the city’s already stressed residential housing market. “Where in this city, or even in this region, do we have the capacity to put that many people?” asked Vancouver city councillor Adriane Carr. “Putting demand on housing is only going to increase the vacancy rate and escalate the prices.”

Vancouver is built on its tech scene—and Amazon is tech

Because of both demographics and tax incentive programs, Vancouver has long been an attractive home for tech companies and startups of all kinds. The city has prospered right along with its tech scene, and the city’s basic appeal to creative workers have furnished the city with the talent needed to expand even further. Amazon represents the ultimate fulfillment of that potential, one of the biggest tech-sector employers in the world coming to bring guaranteed business for an indefinite period of time.

Vancouver is a city built on its tech scene, and Amazon’s new office could greatly reinforce that foundation. At the same time, past influxes of high-paying jobs certainly have not corrected wider issues, like cost of living. The issue isn’t simply to bring in high-paying jobs, but to bring in prosperity via high-paying jobs, and the two don’t always necessarily go hand-in-hand.

Richard Cheung, a CPA and CFO at TIO Networks in Vancouver, knows how fundamentally new sources of high-paying work can change any community in which they operate. “Whenever a city can attract a strong established brand like Amazon,” Cheung says, “it will absolutely transform the economic and physical landscape of the region.”

“The creation of up to 50,000 high paying jobs attracting mostly tech-savvy workers… will have enormous economic benefits for local businesses and our entire province.” Just as examples, Cheung cited increased numbers of hotels stays, air travel and restaurant trips as possible marginal benefits to the rest of the city.

Being a CPA, Cheung knows how even mild infusions of capital and business can have wide-ranging effects in a delicate municipal ecosystem like Vancouver. On the surface, it’s a good thing that Amazon might bring thousands of new highly paid jobs, immediately raising the ratio of wages to cost of living that has long plagued the city’s reputation—but we need to be mindful of the long-term consequences.

Prosperity for some, higher prices for all

In a city where local residents make up only a portion of home owners and landowners, even a few thousand people with newly enormous salaries could seriously skew the market by bringing all-new purchasing power to areas that are still in the process of developing. If Vancouver does manage to attract Amazon, the city will undergo extremely rapid change for both residents and existing companies. You need a CPA to help navigate that space.

Cheung noted that although the effects of HQ2 could easily be very positive, “we should be aware that the higher salaries and influx of people will push up... housing costs (rental or ownership) in an already expensive city”.

It’s important to remember that Vancouver is still just one outside player in a tough, inherently American game, and chances are still good that Amazon will leave the city untouched.

With or without Amazon, Vancouverites should think seriously about getting help to secure their financial future. It might look like a thriving, stable metropolis, but a major shakeup to the city’s order could be just a corporate press release away.