Pressure applied by activists and many elected officials led to Amazon pulling out of Queens, but a political backlash may await them.
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Amazon’s sudden decision to cancel its plan to build a corporate campus in Long Island City, Queens, amounted to a stunning rejection for the two often-at-odds politicians who had heralded its arrival, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio, and the biggest win yet for emboldened left-wing progressives in New York.
The turn of events on Thursday represented a reordering of New York’s political power structure, as one of the world’s biggest companies was driven from the city by a group of rabble-rousing activists and elected officials who objected to a suite of corporate sweeteners and tax breaks.
But as this reality settled into New York, the architects of the uprising faced a backlash of their own, as 25,000 jobs — potentially remaking Long Island City as a high-tech hub — had vanished in a blink, and with them the chance to inject billions of dollars in tax revenues in the coming years.
[For the full story on Amazon’s stunning decision to pull out of New York, read more here .]
The victory of the resurgent left also placed a new target on its back, especially with polls showing that the deal offering Amazon tax incentives remained largely popular with New Yorkers .
Some Democrats, including Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, whose district bordered the Amazon site, cheered the deal’s demise, with one leading opponent calling it a “shakedown;” others, such as a Queens councilman, called it “the greatest economic loss and missed opportunity ever” for New York City.
