Land Lines October 2018

Features

Photograph shows the side of a blighted building on a city street with crumbling paint, graffiti, and a broken store sign. A new bus drives down the street nearby. Credit: Eric Bowers.

The Hidden Costs of TIF

Reconsidering a Vaunted Economic Development Tool

Since its inception in the 1950s, tax increment financing has taken hold across the United States as a popular public-finance mechanism. But critics say this approach favors the private sector, while diverting funds from public schools and other municipal needs.

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A man wearing a blue jacket and jeans walks along a paved or graveled pedestrian way, with several tiny homes on either side of the way. The homes are one-story tall and not much wider than their front doors and the roofs are peaked in the middle. Other people are seen walking further down the way and entering and exiting the homes. Credit: Low Income Housing Institute

Housing the Homeless

Booming Cities Address the Growing Crisis in Their Streets

By Kathleen McCormick

In prosperous U.S. cities, the lack of affordable housing is fueling a homelessness crisis some have called the worst since the Great Depression. Cities are responding in a variety of ways—converting motels in Los Angeles, building tiny home communities in Seattle, and encouraging unusual public-...

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