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You're being downvoted, but you're not wrong. Under the guise of things like public-private partnerships, public money is increasingly funneled to private inter
by rezonetheburbs 7y ago
You're being downvoted, but you're not wrong. Under the guise of things like public-private partnerships, public money is increasingly funneled to private interests. Look at the humble TIF. Does your city need a big-ass stadium that won't actually help development or build community? Cool! Let's draw a border around several blocks and capture all of the tax increases for 20 years and then give it to a private company. Once that's over, the company can collect on the next boondoggle while everyone wonders why their city is a decaying, boring place to be, ultimately resulting in demolition of the stadium.
This cycle repeats forever.
- carapace 7y ago"humble TIF"? What's that?
- OrangeMango 7y agoTax Increment Financing. A city designates a geographic zone and all property tax money collected in that zone above a certain baseline amount goes into an account that is separate from the city budget account. The city then spends that money on development as they so choose. Some places allow it and some don't. Some places abuse it and some don't. But in general you can expect TIF money to be given directly to a developer to encourage them to build something within that zone. One of the big problems is that that extra money is diverted away from the city budget for 20-30 years. The area I live in used to be inside a TIF (it expired). During that time, only about 10% of my property tax money went to the city. We had overcrowded schools getting 10% of the money they normally would have received. The library got 10% of the money it normally would have. Some of that TIF money went to build a basketball stadium. In a final gesture of goodwill (I guess), when the TIF expired they spent the final ~$40 million in the TIF account on an elementary school.
- carapace 7y agoThanks. Also, wow.