This past Valentine's Day, Amazon stunned New York City by announcing it was withdrawing its plan to build its new Queens headquarters. The company's 14-month long search for a new home, which spanned all of North America and attracted wall-to-wall media coverage, ended unceremoniously that morning when it announced it would take its 40,000 jobs elsewhere.
This loss for New Yorkers is disappointing. This was the single biggest job creation opportunity in New York State history, projected to deliver close to $30 billion in tax revenue over the next quarter century, fortify the city's economy, and given tens of thousands of people new pathways to the middle class. New Yorkers were excited about these career ladders; a Siena poll published two days before the company backed out showed that 58 percent of New York voters approved of Amazon's headquarters, with the margin even wider in communities of color.
