And while Amazon’s arrival would be an enormous economic boost, was it right to permit a sprawling campus in an area with limited infrastructure and overcrowded subways, even while the company offered scant details about amenities for the nearby housing projects and other lower-income areas that would be its neighbors?

Ilya Usorov, 27, said he believed that the deal ultimately failed because New Yorkers could not unite behind it sufficiently to overcome the backlash that grew after Amazon said in November that it was coming.

“I feel like all of New York was never really on board,” said Mr. Usorov, who works for a business media start-up a floor above an Amazon store in SoHo. “There was a contingent that was for, then a contingent that was against.”

And while almost everyone interviewed said they were Amazon customers, they said their satisfaction at how easily and quickly they can get everything from shampoo to space heaters did not necessarily mean they were willing to support the company’s voracious expansion into their city.

“Somewhere along the line we have to think about the little man,” said Althea Hudson, 59, who works at New York City College of Technology in Brooklyn.