The Fight to Stop Amazon’s Huge New New York Office Starts Now

Amazon announced its “second headquarters,” and New York City politicians and locals began to mobilize against it–and the $1.5 billion in tax cuts it will receive

Fast Company
Fast Company

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Photo: Christopher Czermak/Unsplash

By Eillie Anzilotti

Amazon’s months of bread crumbing the reveal of its second headquarters came to an end on November 13: The mega-company officially named Long Island City, Queens, and Arlington, Virginia, as the joint recipients of HQ2. There’s a lot to unpack in this conversation. After the long bidding war that had cities like Newark groveling before Amazon with billion-dollar tax-break offers and mayors offering to rename their jurisdictions after the tech giant, the most powerful company in the U.S. announced it will be headed to two of the most powerful cities in the U.S.: New York and Washington, D.C. (It’s also setting up a much smaller operations outpost in Nashville.)

Most small companies, when they look to establish themselves in a new place, are shown a number of hoops through which they have to jump. They have to secure licenses (that cost money) from the city and state. They have to go through the often-arduous process of community approval where they want to take root. And they have to pay ongoing taxes…

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Fast Company
Fast Company

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