Amazon Unbound: Jeff Bezos and the Invention of a Global Empire

by Brad Stone

There was plenty of blame to go around. The mayor and governor had enticed Amazon to Queens without securing the backing of its local politicians. Those leaders were also at fault; they assembled the opposition atop the falsehood that Amazon was getting an indecorous $2.5 billion handout, rather than a rebate on the sizable tax contributions it would make over the course of two decades. They also played on innate fears that the character of a cherished community and its surrounding neighborhoods would change. Yet much of Long Island City had gentrified years ago, and most of the lower-income housing in the area and surrounding neighborhoods was either rent-stabilized or belonged to large public housing complexes whose residents were protected from rising rents. And the alternative to rising home prices and an increased cost of living is rarely stasis; usually, it’s falling home prices, a lower cost of living, and hopelessness. By rejecting Amazon, an outer borough undergoing its own dramatic transformation was robbed of an economic injection that may have tangentially benefited its poorer residents.