NYC rejected Amazon’s HQ2 plans. Now some New Yorkers are second-guessing that decision.

The Coronavirus pandemic revives an old debate about what cities should give up to bring in more jobs.

It seems so long ago. Amazon’s announcement dominated headlines: they would withdraw their planned HQ2 from Queens, taking an estimated 25,000 jobs along with them. No one expected an upcoming global pandemic that would lock down the nation and put tens of thousands of NYC residents out of work.

Many New Yorkers celebrated when the tech behemoth finally withdrew their plans to build in Queens. They didn’t want to subsidize a massive corporation accused of annihilating small businesses. In the DC area too, speculation was rampant about what the new Amazon headquarters there would mean for jobs and traffic.

Meanwhile, DC area startups rejoiced. Amazon’s headquarters would bring in a wave of fresh tech talent.

As we’ve written before, with Amazon’s announcement, the DC metro area felt like it was finally, officially, an East Coast tech hub. The “DMV” (that’s DC, Maryland, Virginia for the DC outsiders) was the new destination for software engineers and developers looking to make it big. Crunchbase lists almost 900 DC area startups currently, and it seemed…