How effective is TIF anyway?
"The answer, like life itself, is complicated. But David Merriman, a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, takes a stab at it in a new report for the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. After reviewing available research on the implementation and impacts of TIF, Merriman concludes that the mechanism, while helpful in some ways, leaves a lot to be desired.
“In the end, it can be a valuable mechanism,” he said. “It’s not something I’d like to get rid of—but it deserves a lot of scrutiny because public sector dollars are being re-routed into a different task, away from general purpose funds.”
