Now that activists in New York City successfully chased Amazon and its “HQ2” plan out of New York City, there is a new challenge: Can the organizers and elected leaders who successfully blocked the kind of economic development they opposed bring about the kind of economic development they want?
That was a question that Cheyenna Weber, general coordinator for the Cooperative Economics Alliance of New York City, was wrestling with in New York City hours after Amazon announced on Thursday that it was canceling a planned complex in Long Island City, Queens that they said would bring 25,000 jobs to the area.
CEANYC offers support and advocacy for a sprawling group of cooperatives and other community-based enterprises that exist under the umbrella of the “solidarity economy.” It’s a particularly robust ecosystem—a 2017 directory lists 2,000 enterprises and orgnizations—that operate based on such values as worker democracy, sustainability, social justice and mutualism. “New York City is unique in that there is every type of solidarity economy entity going on here,” she said, from community food gardens to daycare cooperatives. “That density and diversity don’t exist anywhere else in the country.”
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