Amazon on Thursday, February 14, 2019, canceled its plans to build an expansive corporate campus in New York City after facing an unexpectedly fierce backlash from some lawmakers and union leaders, who contended that a tech giant did not deserve nearly $3 billion in government incentives.

Bottom line, Cuomo and de Blasio blew it when they failed to have public ownership of the site proposed for Amazon, because thereafter, they could have captured the land value through a 10- or 50-year lease and in that was recoup the billions in “corporate welfare” that so many people complained about (and with this value collected, pay for needed infrastructure, including the 7 train repairs). City Council failed to cap all apartment rents within 10 blocks of what was to be the Amazon building, thereby (in this way) cap the windfall land owners would have gained as gravy they did nothing to earn. On the bright side, the next time this or another building is proposed for some big tech project, we know what to ask for. This was an opportunity lost.