Fulfillment prophecy

This chapter examines the entrepreneurial land development strategies a small suburban municipality undertakes to ready land for an industrial corporate tenant. Amazon announced the construction of a large-scale fulfillment center in Markham, Illinois – a five-square-mile community of 12,000 south of Chicago, in 2020. Historically, Markham’s development and expansion had been fueled by infrastructure investments and single-family home construction. In a post-industrial and neoliberal context, Markham, and similarly situated communities, have turned to entrepreneurial strategies to facilitate development. These strategies perpetuate a form of “land as revenue” governance, which comes with a set of tradeoffs, tensions, and politics inherent to their use. Fully understanding these processes requires examining the full history of the redevelopment site in the context of racialized uneven development and regional change. This case raises important questions about how land development decisions are made and who reaps the benefits and bears the costs of these strategies.