It's pretty shrewd, when you think about it. There's the obvious benefit of closing a facility that's not making money. There's also some longer term benefits. If any city tries to see what they can get from Amazon, they can shift their business elsewhere at a moment's notice. Moreover they've demonstrated that they will do just that, so fewer cities will be willing to call Amazon's bluff.

From our perspective this doesn't seem like a big deal. The commerce is going to move from different locations, but it's still going to move. Amazon treats cities like they're subcontractors. That's the way of things.