Social movement coalitions and the struggle for regulation: the spatial politics of e-commerce logistics in Greater New York City

Scott B. Martin and Nikko Bilitza

Chapter 13 in Unpacking Global Amazon, 2026, pp 321-356 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: This chapter explores two community/environmental/labor campaigns in Greater New York City seeking to set limits on Amazon's unconditional, rapid expansion with heavy costs to public health and environmental standards and implications for labor standards. The first successfully scuttled a deal to open an Amazon Air hub at Newark Airport while the other pushed for regulation of “last-mile warehouses” and secured City Council approval for a new zoning approval process that is under final rule-making in the City. The authors compare the action frames, coalition-building dynamic, and larger cultivation of officeholder support of the respective campaigns. They also liken the company strategy of non-engagement with critics in these two campaigns to its flailing response to the 2021 oppositional campaign against the proposed “Amazon HQ2” in Queens. The conclusion notes the seeming inability of Amazon in these local domains to overcome local opposition and suggests contingent limits to Amazon's “platform power.”

Keywords: Social Movement Coalitions; E-commerce Logistics; Environmental Justice; Platform Power; New York City; Amazon; Corporation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
ISBN: 9781035380442
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.elgaronline.com/doi/10.4337/9781035380459.00026 (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 403 Forbidden

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:elg:eechap:25133_14

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.e-elgar.com

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Chapters from Edward Elgar Publishing
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Jack Sweeney ().