What is seen in articles like this, not necessarily a criticism, is the concept that the money PDC disperses comes from some sort of pot at the end of the rainbow. Property taxes pay for urban renewal. And those that can pass taxes on do. Urban renewal tends to benefit developers at the expense of property owners.

Even though property owners other than home owners, e.g., commercial or rental housing, can benefit from urban renewal, blight removal, they can and do pass on their risk to lessees. Only the developers have a no risk position.

This is another situation where property owners have become the banks for businesses: “. . . the neighborhood could benefit from PDC’s loan programs for businesses in urban renewal areas. Several businesses are ready to expand, but few lenders are willing to loan money.”

The fact that private capital is unavailable ought to be a sign that the project is not financially feasible. Urban renewal does well when blight is eliminated, but not so well when the sole goal is to aid and bail out developers or provide expansion seed money for businesses.

Governments, especially local governments and their agencies like PDC, are incapable of operating in the financial and economic realm of the business world. As the mayor and PDC continually make clear – politics is not a business attribute..

What does one call a governmental system whereby the government and its politics determine the business and economic environments? Where the source of money used to support business comes from its citizens and residents? It certainly is not capitalism or free enterprise.