Gobsmackingly poor deals made by city and town politicians are par for the course, and why https://www.strongtowns.org/ should be prerequisite reading for any council member, mayor, or board member approving deals that impact their community.

It's easy to look at a glossy project 2-pager and only see the immediate tax revenue.

It's much harder to glean a nuanced understanding of future financial burdens from a given project. No company will have any incentive to be forthright with that information.