Wal-Mart

Paying for Progress

It is a difficult place to be, in between fertile and fading. Urban areas - parts of Birmingham included -- that were once 'hot spots' are now 'not-so-much-spots'. Businesses have a hard time staying afloat because people have left or are shopping someplace else. But increasingly, developers see green in those places as local governments pony up to lure business back. As WBHM's Steve Chiotakis reports, tax incentives and infrastructure improvements are carrots in a new kind of economic development model.