Gentrification and Tax Increment Financing: The Road to Mixed-Income Communities?

This paper examines gentrification, its causes and consequences, and illustrates how Tax Increment Financing (TIF) can be used to promote neighborhood change. This process will be analyzed using the Logon and Molotch (1996) theory of the city as a growth machine. The use of TIF has the potential to create successful mixed-income communities; however, it also can be used to displace current residents and create benefits not for the residents, but rather for local elites who stand to benefit from growth.