For city planners and urban researchers, streets are critical topics. When a street lacks sidewalks and enables cars to speed through unimpeded, it undermines community structures, because pedestrians and neighbors cannot find spaces in which to interact and engage, nor can small retail shops and service providers count on walk-in traffic. In a sense then, crowded city streets are a positive feature; if parking is at a premium, more people likely walk, and narrow streets force drivers to move more slowly. But in recent years, the prevalence of Amazon (and other) delivery trucks has meant that such streets become, for notable stretches of time, completely impassable. Storefronts are blocked while drivers drops off packages, and such inconvenience could prompt potential customers to skip a visit. Furthermore, in using these roads—which represent extremely valuable resources for companies that rely on delivery offerings—Amazon and other companies essentially get a free pass. Building and maintaining roads generally gets paid for by taxes and fees obtained from parking or moving violation tickets. But corporate taxes usually do not go to local municipalities, so local customers and retailers essentially are subsidizing Amazon’s use of public resources, like roads. In addition, many cities allow big delivery companies, including Amazon but also FedEx and UPS, to pay a discounted rate for any parking tickets they accrue (if they even receive tickets). In New York City for example, these discounts amount to about $750 million—money that could fill a lot of potholes. So should companies be paying for their use of public resources, as well as for the societal damages they create for neighborhoods and communities? Or is that simply the cost of convenient delivery? 

Sources: Christopher Caldwell, “Something Has Changed on City Streets, and Amazon Is to Blame,” The New York Times, August 17, 2023