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As New Jersey’s second largest city, Jersey City has experienced a surge in urban redevelopment and new development, particularly its downtown wards closest to New York City. Situated on the Hudson River directly across from downtown New York City, Jersey City is an ideal location for New Jersey developers and realtors to redevelop in order to attract New York City’s financial sector employees and individuals desiring more living space at lower rental or mortgage costs. In other words, downtown Jersey City exemplifies urban gentrification. In the last twenty years, several public policies helped spur waterfront development to attract potentially wealthier residents. In an effort to lure developers and investors, Jersey City officials relied heavily on municipal tax abatements to offset increasingly high property taxes. So after two decades, has Jersey City demonstrated that Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILOT), tax abatements and other tax policy incentives are in fact feasible in terms of the following questions: What have been the implications of these policies? Who benefited from and who was marginalized from these policies? This paper examines the rising concerns surrounding tax abatements and other pro-development tax policies. By examining a medium sized city like Jersey City, this case study is especially useful in understanding the significant issues and shortcomings with urban redevelopment tax incentives. Too often these incentives benefit a political and financial elite at the economic expense and loss of political rights of long-term residents and renters.