By Dave Colon
Almost immediately after Amazon announced
on November 13 that it would build a new corporate campus in the Queens
neighborhood of Long Island City, critics of the company—and of the multibillion dollar package that helped woo Jeff Bezos to the neighborhood—loudly began making themselves themselves heard.
The
anti-Amazon contingent is a combination of longtime anti-gentrification
activists, organizers fresh off a campaign season that remade state
politics, and elected officials embracing the city’s emerging left, like
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. And while the options to stop the up to $3 billion in incentives
Amazon could wind up collecting are limited, the forces opposed to the
deal have been working nonstop to convince the public that not only does
New York not need to give incentives to Amazon, but that the city
doesn’t need Amazon at all.
While Governor Andrew “Amazon”
Cuomo, Mayor Bill de Blasio and Amazon itself have relied on their
power and the promise of 25,000 jobs, organizers have hit the streets,
going door to door to rally opposition against the subsidies and connect
Amazon’s looming presence to issues such as the affordable housing
crisis, New York’s sanctuary city status, and the city’s crumbling
infrastructure—whether it’s the subways or the chronically underfunded
public housing system.
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Source: Splinter (via Empire Report New York)
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