Subsidizing Corporate Chains May Cause Sprawl

"Do they foster sprawl, moving jobs out of cities, away from the workers in most need, and into better-off suburbs with little poverty, joblessness or affordable housing?"

"Of 86 subsidized corporate relocations in Minnesota between 1999 and 2003, involving 8,200 jobs and more than $90 million in government payouts, four-fifths were outbound from the Minneapolis-St. Paul urban core. People of color and transit-dependent workers lost out; more affluent, less racially diverse areas gained, registering increases in jobs that were five times that of the central cities."

"The findings add a new spin to the debates over suburban sprawl. People usually cite such factors as crime and declining quality of urban schools. Now it turns out that state governments, or localities acting with state permission, are actually shelling out taxpayers' money to accelerate outward the shift of jobs."