I am not usually one for risky high expense projects, but they can work in some circumstances. London Docklands has worked and transformed the economy of London. At first people said it would not work and for the first 10 years that looked correct. Middlesbrough has a lot of land close to the Town Centre and the railway station that for many years has been relatively empty. It was an industrial area and an area of poor housing. An area that not many visited unless going to see the transporter. In a similarly way London Docklands was empty for 15 years and even before that an area few people visited. Docklands needed big investments to create the right conditions for others to come in. The Government pumped a lot of money into the DLR and give grants to early developers. It must have been a strange and difficult place to live for the early yuppies and they met aggression and negativity from a number of the local residents who felt they were pushed out. There were few amenities for the yuppies, but now the area is quite expensive to live and virtually a new City has been created.
I know Middlesbrough is not Docklands and Middlesbrough does not have an overcrowded prosperous area close to it, but it also has some initial advantages, such as better initial transport links and close to a decent university for IT and digital resources.