Measuring the effectiveness of redevelopment laws in California

Thesis (M.P.P.A., Public Policy and Administration) -- California State University, Sacramento, 2010.The debate on the effectiveness of redevelopment agencies at mitigating blight and the adequacy of redevelopment accountability laws in California evokes a crucial question about redevelopment: Are the current laws that are meant to improve accountability effective? The powers of RDAs are extremely broad and controversial providing them significant levels of autonomy despite being allowed to exercise eminent domain and generate large sums of money through TIF. This thesis will analyze redevelopment in California, discuss the perspectives of key stakeholders regarding a particular Legislator's goals for authoring redevelopment accountability legislation, and whether the Legislator met those stated goals. Upon interviewing key stakeholders, I found that while the legislation made clear and substantive changes to redevelopment law, the recent economic downturn and the relatively short amount of time that has passed since the bills took effect, made it difficult to adequately measure its effect.Public Policy and Administratio