“Rail Line Drives Utah Development” trumpets an article in Sunday’s New York Times. The article tells of a $140 million mixed-use development being built along a Salt Lake City-area light-rail line.
It took me less than five minutes to find what was really driving this development. If you’ve been reading this blog for long, you should be able to guess it: tax-increment financing. Specifically, $24.6 million in infrastructure subsidies and $7.8 million in housing subsidies.
If I had first visited Houston thirty years ago, I probably would have hated it. And even today, I probably wouldn’t want to live in Houston, simply because I don’t like big cities. But I came to Houston last week prepared to like it, and in fact I loved it.
Probably my brand new Garmin Nuvi GPS helped, as I was able to avoid the frustration I always have of trying to find my way around new cities, or almost any city but Portland, which I know all too well. It didn’t hurt that the American Dream Coalition’s assistant director, Kathleen Calongne, did all the driving. And of course, in two days, I was only able to see a small slice of this giant city.
