The federal government approved Arizona’s "opportunity zones" this spring. Opportunity zones allow developers who invest in low-income areas to get tax breaks; the provision was included in the tax cut bill approved by Congress late last year.
Arizona’s opportunity zones are generally in the northern and western parts of the state, although there are also some along Arizona’s eastern border.
But Vanessa Brown Calder doesn’t think opportunity zones, or “o-zones” will have the desired effect of helping to revitalized economically depressed areas.
Brown Calder, a policy analyst at Cato Institute, thinks this program will not necessarily help the people it’s intending to help.