This basically answers some of the other questions raised in this and the New Era thread. Amazon doesn't need the incentives, but by throwing out the RFP to over 200 communities they got a bidding war. I don't think that NYS will get the return on its investment because LIC has already been blowing up in the last decade, as you note. Newark was on the shortlist, but NJ didn't have the capacity to throw in $1.2 billion.
The gentrification "concerns" are valid, but all Amazon is going to do is speed up what was already happening on the western ends of Queens & Brooklyn.