The backlash was mostly about the tax breaks and government subsidies that would have been given. The argument was that New York is New York and doesn’t need to bribe companies to put big offices here.
If that is the case, where are the calls to end the Industrial & Commercial Abatement Program[1], the Relocation and Employment Assistance Program[2], and the Excelsior Jobs Program[3]? That is where the vast majority of the credits came from. The backlash was because it was Amazon that wanted to take advantage of those programs, and do so after that ridiculous and condescending dog-and-pony show they called a search.
Now, some subset of opposition surely is from people who think no company that wants to build a large complex in LIC with 25,000 employees deserves billions in subsidies. If that is the case, those people need to work against the root causes and stop acting like this $3B package was some special deal for Amazon.
[1] https://www1.nyc.gov/site/finance/benefits/benefits-industri...
[2] https://www1.nyc.gov/site/finance/benefits/business-reap.pag...
There was no outcry to prevent Amazon from using general programs that were open to all applicants, the problem was with the special extras they negotiated.
There's no reason to think that Amazon would have been facing opposition if they'd just announced a new project in LIC and applied for the normal programs.
They didn't do that.
No, it isn't.
> There was no outcry to prevent Amazon from using general programs that were open to all applicants, the problem was with the special extras they negotiated.
People were outraged over the $3B. Less than 20% of that was special extras for Amazon. I don't think anyone would have been any less outraged if the number was $2.5B instead. Particularly since most of the arguments boil down to "billion-dollar corporations don't need tax breaks from NYC/NYS".
> There's no reason to think that Amazon would have been facing opposition if they'd just announced a new project in LIC and applied for the normal programs.
Yeah, because nobody would have known. Look at all the people who assume other large companies in NYC don't get any tax breaks simply based on not hearing about said tax breaks.
I don't think Coldplay is very good. We all have opinions. If they wanted to see what would have happened in that scenario they should have tried it.
> Yeah, because nobody would have known. Look at all the people who assume other large companies in NYC don't get any tax breaks simply based on not hearing about said tax breaks.
Well yeah. They launched a massive national PR campaign to showcase that they were demanding the highest level of special treatment. They literally engineered an auction where they were asking cities to compete to see who could give them the most taxpayer dollars. A lot of New Yorkers weren't interested in "winning" that competition.
Not only could they still take advantage of the existing programs, it's almost certain that they actually still will to some extent. And as you'll see when it happens few will protest that because it wasn't the thing people were protesting against.
They were protesting special treatment.
Many New Yorkers felt, justifiably, like the richest man in the world and the most valuable company in the world should play by the same fucking rules as everyone else. I live here and I'm one of them.
This is pure speculation, but I suspect the opponents wouldn't have altered their tone. At any rate -- I agree with you that Amazon shouldn't have received the special tax cut, and they didn't need it, and it was foolish of the State/city leadership to offer it.
I wanted AMZN to come here to NYC, but that whole charade they put on was a turn off. meh.
There’s literally no evidence of this. Dozens of companies, including evil empires like Google and Goldman Sachs, have taken advantage of Empire State grants and EDC programs and whatever else without all that much drama.
Amazon literally shot themselves in the face with their arrogant, entitled attitude here. Consider placing the blame where it belongs.
I (and many others I've spoken to) don't have a problem with the idea of economic subsidy to support businesses moving to NYC, but objected to a company the size (and success) of Amazon doing so. I can imagine there would be widespread support for a move to limit these programs to smaller startup companies, and maybe we'll even see some local politicians propose that.
But there's a city/state issue here. Few people would object to Amazon creating a massive HQ and 25k jobs in Albany, even if they would in NYC. So any answer would have to take that into account too.
Which is hard to do, since Amazon convinced most city leaders across the country to keep the majority of the incentives secret, and therefore no one could know how bad it was until it was already too late.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/05/technology/amazon-headqua...
There's a strong argument here that the protesters were the only people involved in this whole ordeal that actually did their job properly.
Really, can anyone be surprised that this was not met with enthusiasm? IMO the blame lies at the feet of Cuomo, who is used to getting his own way and dictating to others. This is one of very few times that it came back to bite him.
" Patchett did toss out a scrap of news about what’s next for Long Island City. He said city land that had been slated for the tech giant’s corporate towers will instead become a mix of homes and businesses. That, after all, had been the original plan before New York decided to drop it and go a-courtin’ for the company. The new-old project will consist of a thousand residential units—two hundred and fifty of which will be affordable. The neighborhood will also gain 100,000 square feet of light manufacturing and industrial space, ground floor retail, a cultural center, a 600-seat middle school, and a one-acre park."
http://gothamist.com/2019/02/22/amazon_blame_game_patchett.p...
Those things sound like a much better addition to the area than one Amazon.
That said, I'm really getting annoyed at the people who are both ignorant of how Amazon was going to get its $3B in credits and assuming that other companies, like Google, are getting none simply because nobody talks about it.
Edit to explain further: much of the backlash was about concerns like gentrification, or the inability of local infrastructure to handle 25k new residents.
Not that many people here care much about limiting development in general, especially in dense center city areas like the East River waterfront.
People were pissed that we were considering giving money to the richest guy in the world to do something that nearly every company seems desperately interested in doing anyways, namely locating businesses within a half mile radius of midtown manhattan.