Behind the dry-as-dust name is a powerful (and controversial) tool for financing urban redevelopment. Here’s a quick guide to understanding TIF.
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Urban development professionals, neighborhood activists, and diligent readers of local newspapers have very likely come across the term “Tax Increment Financing” (TIF). Whether all of these groups understand what it means is another matter.
This mechanism for financing redevelopment is a powerful and controversial force in American urbanism. Every state except Arizona currently allows it, as does the District of Columbia, and it has become the most popular incentive tool for economic development in the United States as the federal government has decreased its urban development spending. TIF plays a role in megaprojects such as Chicago’s Lincoln Yards and Amazon’s HQ2 in Arlington, Virginia, as well as in smaller-scale neighborhood improvements, affordable housing, and transit projects.
CITY LAB
BENJAMIN SCHNEIDER
OCT 24, 2019