Depending who you ask, the decision is either an inspiring triumph for community activism over corporate greed or an ideologically-motivated act of economic suicide. Protesters in New York rally against the arrival of a new Amazon headquarters in the city. Credit:Bloomberg Bowen thinks it was the latter. "This is the type of shit that is going to get Trump re-elected," the 42-year old says. "I'm for education and healthcare for all but someone has to pay for it. Having a trillion dollar company here would have helped us do that."

Bowen is standing a few blocks from the John Brown Smokehouse, a Kansas City-style barbecue restaurant he runs in Long Island City. Dressed in the hobo hipster style - fleecy jacket, old slippers - he moved to the area 10 years ago and has started a family here. "Look around man, this place is a ghost town," he says. "I want my four-year old daughter to grow up in a cool, high-tech neighbourhood, not surrounded by bombed-out factories." Frank Raffaele, who owns a chain of local coffee shops, is just as distraught. "This is a disastrous day for Queens," he says. "This was our big chance and we blew it."

Amazon's planned move to New York followed a national search in which cities competed to woo the company to their area. Officials in Tucson, Arizona, hauled a 6.4 metre tall cactus to Amazon's Seattle headquarters to catch the company's attention. The mayor of Kansas City wrote 1000 five-star reviews of Amazon products, each one mentioning why his city is so great. Stonecrest, a city of 55,000 people in Georgia, offered to carve out 345 acres of land and name the new city Amazon. "Jeff Bezos can be the mayor, CEO, king, whatever they want to call it," Stonecrest mayor Jason Lary said. "He'll be the first person to actually have a corporate city."

In the end Amazon chose to open up new headquarters in Virginia, near Washington DC, and New York. New York's political leaders initially celebrated the move, which they said would deliver 25,000 jobs and $US27.5 billion ($38.5 billion) in tax revenue over 25 years. In return, they gave Amazon $US3 billion in tax incentives and allowed the company to build a helicopter pad on the bank of the East River. "This is a giant step on our path to building an economy in New York City that leaves no one behind," Democratic mayor Bill de Blasio said at a November press conference. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, left wearing a purple tie, and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, right, originally applauded Amazon's decision to open a new headquarters in Queens. Credit:AP

But resistance soon developed among locals, who thought the $3 billion would be better spent fixing the woeful subway system or reducing overcrowding in schools. They organised regular protest rallies and lobbied local politicians to oppose the move. The day Amazon announced it was cancelling the headquarters, they held a victory celebration at a plaza in Queens. "We don’t have a jobs crisis in the neighbourhood, we have a housing crisis," says human rights lawyer Paula Avila Guillen, who lives in nearby Astoria and campaigned against Amazon's arrival. "It is already impossible for middle-class families to buy a home and a lot of people who live here would have been forced out by soaring rents." Many of the purported jobs, she says, would have gone to out-of-towners rather than New Yorkers.

Queens sculptor Stephen Geoffrey says: "The change was too big and too fast for the area. We are doing fine here on our own." Some local politicians and activists also opposed Amazon because of its tough anti-union stance and its work with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which deports illegal immigrants. New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was a vocal critic of the tax breaks given to Amazon. Credit:Bloomberg But a poll released last week by Siena College found that 58 per cent of New Yorkers supported Amazon's arrival compared to 35 per cent who opposed it. Support for the deal spanned all ages, socio-economic and racial demographics. Among Amazon's most prominent opponents was high-profile congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, whose congressional district borders Long Island City.