It wouldn’t draw all the exurbanites but since many of the people moving to the exurbs are from the city, Polish and Mexicans looking for their first home, the dream, it may go long way in keeping folks in the city proper. Like the article said a policy to end arrears would help curb the type of mega sprawl Ive seen out west by Sugar Grove and conversely the suspended taxes on inner urban redevelopment could really help to. As for people fearing living amogst poor minorities, the concentration of poor people into an area with few jobs and plagued by gangs and social ills can could very well be mitigated via gentrification. Very few of the people living there own there property and rely fon absentee landlords ( slumlords?) that live out of state and collect section 8 vouchers. Allowing the market to rule could break the government slum system in place and for those who do own property the gains would be tremendous allowing them to certainly move into a new economic class, in other words, wealth creation. For those that dont own the options would be to move or take advantage of some of the new jobs created by resettlement and become renters.

Lower property taxes would be another incentive but wouldn't draw people from the exurbs. It would draw people who would be willing to live around poor minorities from elsewhere in the area.

And please "West Side"

I highly doubt taxes are preventing developers from building houses in those "blighted" areas on the west side. A more likely reason is crime, drugs, gangs, poverty, etc etc.

In the past 10 years plenty of development occurred in the city, it just didn't occur in areas dealing with the issues I mentioned above.