Nobody needs to breakdown Edmonton's CRL program as many have heard the public officials with their monorail Simpsons pitch before. It isn't revolutionary one bit. The USA is full of Tax increment schemes that all ended up blowing up in the public's face.
There is mountains of examples and research that TIFs don't work. You just take development that would of happnes anyhow and channel it to a certain area (with an large subsidy attached that was not needed). All that could of been achieved with zoning changes for the cost of a council meeting.
I know Tax increment financing well as I've done research on the matter. Projects all in the rust belt, many I visited, none have made money or hit their original targets.
A few examples:
Philly:
http://planphilly.com/articles/2013/...-than-expected
Detroit and multiple examples in Michigan:
http://www.mlive.com/politics/index....ng_author.html
And no... Edmonton's plan isn't any smarter, It is all the same bogus cloud math when used with these things.