Thomas Hughes New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio sounded off Saturday in a New York Times op-ed piece denouncing the retreat and renege conduct of Amazon, after the company withdrew plans to nest in Queens. Blame has been spread to both the company and state and local politicians, who in one way or another antagonized Amazon or contributed to the atmosphere of uncertainty that permeated the company’s move.
Mayor de Blasio casts blame not just on Amazon for leaving the negotiating table, but primarily on “a small but vocal group of New Yorkers” for making them uncomfortable at the table. The mayor fails to note that the only reason the company was at that table is because a much more robust array of citizens than a “small” group had opposed the company’s move to the city. Those included organized labor, local retail and transportation advocates, and ordinary citizens that have watched for decades as the city did nothing to maintain affordable rents in the face of rapid redevelopment, hyper-gentrification, and wanton re-zoning.
The locals’ reaction to Amazon wasn’t about Amazon at all. It was about the same local failures that put them in such a vulnerable position in the first place. In that way, more than one class of state and local politicians have enriched themselves and their careers while neglecting their valued constituents.
What New Yorkers have to learn from this episode is to not wait until New York politicians craft inadequate deals on their behalf and then watch any potential change walk away. It is a symptom of top-down development that has had quite the spotlight shone on it this week: if you don’t involve the locals in the decision making process, there can be no sustainable victory. Nothing gets built from the outside, (and nothing gets built in New York City without union labor). Nothing gets maintained from the outside, and neither Bill de Blasio nor Andrew Cuomo live in Long Island City. For that matter, neither does Amazon.
This is a story about failure of negotiations, and it’s been a longer story than this chapter implies. For the next company looking to swindle residents into surrendering their neighborhood for the New Economy and a promise of a drone on every kitchen table: love the locals and hire better guides. This city’s a jungle.
