TIF, Greenfields, and Sprawl: How an Incentive Created to Alleviate Slums Has Come to Subsidize Upscale Malls and New Urbanist Developments

Abstract

Economic development incentives are an obscure subject, receiving little news media attention. One, however, has provided colorful fodder for many a newspaper. "Created to combat sprawl, tax breaks now subsidize it," moaned the Kansas City Star. "Yuk! Ick! A Farm!" chided the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. "Oh, those blighted suburbs," editorialized the Des Moines Register.