Business Improvement Districts and Contemporary Local Governance

Abstract

Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) have become an increasingly prevalent method for contemporary public management and economic revitalization. BIDs are private non-profit organizations established primarily in urban areas to deliver public services and improve economic conditions by imposing additional assessments on property owners. This dynamic allows improvement districts to serve as quasi-public entities inextricably intertwined with local policy measures and government officials, while concurrently operating as private organizations. This paper begins by providing an introduction outlining the role BIDs play in modern local governance, followed by a brief overview of the historical progression of improvement district implementation in cities. The contemporary state of debate surrounding the efficacy and implications of BIDs on local governance is then reviewed, while discussing the impact of recent research on the field of study. It concludes by reflecting on proliferation of improvement districts as an entity for modern public service delivery, as well as suggesting future directions for research pertaining to BIDs.

Keywords

business improvement districts local government public management urban politics public-private partnerships

Business improvement districts (BIDs), also referred to as community improvement districts (CIDs) or special service areas (SSAs), are quasi-governmental organizations comprised of residents and property owners within a geographically bounded area who impose an additional tax upon themselves to carry out various measures of improvement in the district. BIDs are typically governed by an elected board of directors consisting of community residents, property owners, and public officials, which are authorized by local governments to carry out public services within their boundaries in accordance with state legal policies (Morçöl and Wolf 2010). This allows improvement districts to serve as quasi-public entities that are interconnected with local policy measures and government officials, while simultaneously operating as private organizations. These attributes warrant BIDs to be a reflection of the contemporary shift in economic development strategies and the role of local government toward integration of public-private partnerships (Salamon 2000).

Consequently, the establishment of BIDs across urban areas requires scholars and practitioners alike to review the theoretical and applied implications of improvement districts on issues that include local governance, urban management, community development, and economic revitalization. The popularity of improvement districts in contemporary public affairs is indeed a measuring stick for not only their viability, but the state of modern public administration. Improvement districts are a departure from the norms of local governance, and offer methods to improving the quality of urban life through the combination of public and private actors (Briffault 1999).

The proliferation of BIDs requires continued analysis of their place in towns and cities today. As municipalities continue to contend for jobs and tax revenue, cities are increasingly looking to restructure the ways in which they finance infrastructure spending and deliver services to residents and property owners (Stahl 2013). Many communities are turning to improvement districts as a popular form of public-private partnership to enhance local governance and manage economic revitalization, but this also requires a unique form of hybrid management (Grossman 2010). These aspects empower improvement districts to combine the roles of public and private actors to address the struggle for public funding and advance community development efforts.

As a result of the attention that improvement districts have received in recent years, these organizations have attracted scholarly debate surrounding their relationship with citizens, local governments and urban management efforts. Improvement districts have been lauded for efficiently delivering public services, providing an innovative spark to the process of addressing community needs, funding capital improvement projects, and reducing crime in public spaces. Conversely, improvement districts have been castigated for limiting democratic accountability, reducing public sector transparency, restraining residents’ social capital, and increasing socioeconomic inequalities within communities. The continued deliberation pertaining to the role of BIDs in community development and economic revitalization will therefore be central to the direction of local governance going forward.

Historical Progression of Business Improvement Districts

The establishment of BIDs dates back to 1970, when the first BID was implemented in Toronto, Ontario, Canada (Houstoun 2003). Since 1970, this number has risen to over 800 in the United States and Canada (Morçöl et al. 2017). More recently, the improvement district model has spread to cities across the globe in sovereign states that include the United Kingdom, Germany, Sweden, South Africa, and Australia (Peyroux, Pütz, and Glasze 2012). In the United States, socioeconomic changes taking place in cities beginning in the 1980s were paramount in shaping the future trajectory of BIDs in urban spaces. Increasing patterns of suburbanization and manufacturing decline during the 1980s and 1990s resulted in the deterioration of urban neighborhoods throughout the United States. As residents and jobs began to leave cities, tax revenue to support public services begin to diminish as well. Shifting demographics and federal economic policies that disintegrated funding for urban areas resulted in cities searching for a new model for urban management.

As a result of the changing demographic and economic factors facing local government, improvement districts became a natural option for many urban communities to support during this time. One of the primary aspects of BIDs that allowed them to attract community supporters was the ability to address the particular needs of distinct neighborhoods and communities within cities. Particularly in larger cities, BIDs allow commercial areas outside of the central business district to articulate the needs of property owners and tailor organizational efforts accordingly (Briffault 1999). This flexibility created an opportunity for urban neighborhoods to design and implement supplementary services for public spaces more expediently than previously possible (Mallett 1994).

Improvement districts are also part of a larger movement in modern local governance. Citizen demand for innovative approaches to community development requires local government to redevelop the structure of public management (Hambleton 2000). The challenges of a changing global economic structure are requiring local government to respond to the shortcomings in federal ability to address localized issues by incorporating public and private actors into matters of social and economic development (Rhodes 1997). BIDs are a form of public-private partnership that follows this methodological and theoretical transfer from traditional urban management to contemporary urban management that values innovation and expedient service delivery.

Another driving element of this shift in managing communities and urban spaces focuses on economic development and job creation, in addition to public service delivery (Harvey 1989). The ability for BIDs to provide an increased revenue stream for community development projects and services, while bypassing many of the regulation placed on the public sector, created an attractive model following the loss of jobs and tax revenue for many urban areas. Creative entrepreneurship, which has increasingly driven the organizational goals of improvement districts (Mitchell 2009), has been utilized within modern public-private partnerships. While there has always been an inherent possibility of falling short of benchmarks during the development and implementation of public policy measures, the idea of innovative prospects for revitalizing communities by blurring the lines between the public and private sectors is a primary example of how BIDs are bridging the gap between the roles of public and private actors to address changes in towns and cities in recent decades.

The increasingly competitive nature of development in urban areas requires novel forms of public management and local governance to address the distinct needs of residents and business owners (Lloyd and Peel 2008). In Atlanta, the improvement district model has transformed transportation networks by restructuring roadways to reduce traffic congestion (Ewoh and Zimmerman 2010) while in Los Angeles improvement districts have augmented public spaces through the provision of additional security and sanitation services (MacDonald, Stokes, and Bluthenthal 2010). Many of these changes have been in response to the distinct needs of individual communities, and data from New York City has exhibited the form, function, and operating practices of BIDs fulfill different function dependent on their relative size (Gross 2005).

In New York City, the Grand Central Partnership business improvement district in Midtown, Manhattan has an annual assessment budget of nearly $13 million, and represents 826 individual businesses. The Grand Central Business Improvement District is one of the largest improvement districts in the world, and covers an area primarily comprised of high-rise, multi-family housing complexes, as well as high-end business and real estate that includes the Metlife Building, the Chrysler Building, and Grand Central Terminal (Grand Central Partnership Business Improvement District 2020). In contrast, the 180th Street Business Improvement District in Jamaica, Queens has an annual assessment budget of approximately $75,000 and represents 27 businesses. The 180th Street Business Improvement District focuses upon co-existing with the residential community, which is comprised primarily of single-family homes, and funding is primarily allocated toward reconstructing area roads, improving technological access for district non-profits, and reducing graffiti on area buildings (180th Street Business Improvement District 2020).

While interlacing the roles of the public and private sectors has provided an innovative aspect of community development and economic revitalization, scholars must address the pertinent function that improvement districts serve in the changing landscape of public management. Evaluating the developing legal and political authority of BIDs to this point is an important element for analyzing the trajectory of formal roles that districts carry within communities. As improvement districts have expanded to cities throughout the United States, state laws and local policies have created divergent organizational structures from one state to another (Morçöl and Wolf 2010). Thus far, there has been little consensus on the specific role BIDs should play within the greater communities in which they are established, the accountability they have to community residents, and how to measure standards of transparency in their organizational decisions.

The geographic expansion of improvement districts in recent years has reflected the changing urban landscape and necessities for managing post-industrial cities. Over the span of five decades BIDs have developed from a concept into a globalized framework for achieving community development and economic revitalization in hundreds of cities. However, as BIDs continue to propagate across urban spaces community initiatives, laws, and public policy measures will need to continue to change along with BIDs to sustainably manage these public-private partnerships. In addition to the requisite initiatives, laws, and policies necessitated to follow the development of improvement district, these organizations have also required scholars to conceptualize the implications of BIDs on wide array of areas that include public management, local governance, economic revitalization, and community development. Improvement districts were originally established to address the dynamic needs of towns and cities, and thus far have continually progressed to shift away from traditional public management and reflect the growing confidence in public-private partnerships.

Business Improvement Districts: Boost or Barrier?

Business Improvement Districts have quickly become a central aspect to urban development and economic revitalization (Flinders 2005; Unger 2016). As a result, BIDs are the cornerstone of contemporary public-private partnerships taking place in urban spaces. This proliferation has led to BIDs receiving both support and praise among scholars. It has been argued that BIDs have helped efficiently deliver necessary public services to communities, respond to the specific needs of business owners and resident, and reduce crime in public spaces (Brooks 2008; P. Cook and MacDonald 2011; Hochleutner 2003; Mitchell 2001). However, some scholars also contend that BIDs limit democratic accountability, reduce public sector transparency, restrain citizens’ social capital, and increase socioeconomic inequalities within communities (Gorodnick 2000; Kennedy 1996; Lavery 1995; Lewis 2010).

The relative autonomy and efficiency with which BIDs are able to operate is a major aspect of their appeal for many supporters (Briffault 1999). By operating as private entities BIDs are able to bypass many of the bureaucratic regulations that local government officials are required to abide by, allowing BIDs to carry out projects more expediently. In terms of increasing community property values to provide financial returns to property owners and residents, this efficiency on the parts of improvement districts is particularly attractive (Pack 1992; Morçöl et al. 2017). However, it has also been posited that this efficiency comes at the expense of reducing democratic accountability to residents of urban areas (Zukin 1996). As opposed to the one person, one vote framework of electing local government officials, BIDs can be insulated from the residents of district to a greater extent since many are led by an organizationally appointed or elected Board of Directors.

Proponents also point to the firm financial footing on which BIDs operate (Siegel 1992). Improvement districts are able to create a consistent revenue stream that is similar to local government property taxes (Morçöl and Wolf 2010). The assessment revenue obtained by the BIDs are able to provide supplementary funding to local taxes, allowing communities to provide additional services and financing for development projects. Other revenue sources for improvement districts include programmed events, fundraising, contracting, parking, and grants. In New York City, over one quarter of improvement district revenue comes from these sources annually, on average (“NYC Business Improvement District Trends Report” 2020). During fiscal year 2018, the Coconut Grove improvement district, located just south of downtown Miami, received over $733,000 in revenue from parking fees, comprising over 40% of the district’s revenue (“Coconut Grove Business Improvement District Annual Report” 2018). The Downtown DC business improvement district in Washington, DC received $2.2 million in federal grant funding and contributions in 2018 to improve resources to reduce homelessness (Downtown DC Business Improvement District 2018).

As BIDs have evolved, scholars have acknowledged that improvement districts have been able to successfully regenerate and improve urban areas, while simultaneously illuminating how these districts can be seen as a concern by residents and community groups for shifting responsibilities of local government to private organizations (Steel and Symes 2005). It has been widely discussed how BIDs reflect a contemporary shift toward the privatization of many responsibilities in local governance previously seen as the authority of public actors (I. Cook 2009; Morçöl and Zimmermann 2006; Peyroux, Pütz, and Glasze 2012; Unger 2016; Ward 2007). Despite scholars sharing similar observations pertaining to the shifts in local governance that improvement districts reflect, there is disagreement surrounding whether this move toward certain aspects of privatization is a net positive or negative for communities, as well as how to conceptualize BIDs as actors in public management that occupy both the public and private sector (Morçöl and Zimmermann 2006)

The organizational independence through which BIDs are able operate has been argued to demonstrate the success of public-private partnerships and institutional innovation (Briffault 2010). Mitchell (2009) has posited that improvement districts achieve an important objective in public management by specifically filling the gaps between the public and private sectors by accomplishing distinctive tasks that each sector could not achieve on their own. This is supported by the Grossman’s (2008) assertion that improvement districts are an encouraging sign of creative entrepreneurship and inventive management in contemporary cities.

Research carried out by Caruso and Weber (2006) contrasts other scholars’ conclusions supporting the accountability and innovation that BIDs provide by finding that residents and local government officials have minimal oversight of BIDs, while pointing out that improvement districts are able to use public funds to pursue private agendas. MacDonald et al. (2013) also concluded that BIDs have the ability to act without the full consideration of resident interests as a result of being neither wholly private nor public entities. Lewis (2010) observed that BIDs can be successful in promoting urban revitalization, however they concurrently pose concerns that include intensifying socioeconomic and spatial inequalities, weakening municipal government, and restricting democratic accountability. It has also been shown that there is particular difficulty establishing BIDs in economically challenged areas and neighborhoods with large immigrant populations (Lee 2016), reflecting how wealthier neighborhoods may be at a particular advantage for successfully implementing the BID model.

Notably, a major point of contention pertaining to BIDs has been discussion surrounding issues of accountability. It has been difficult for scholars to move toward a consensus on the issue as a result of divergent sentiment on how to define and measure accountability. Hochleutner (2003) argues that the modest geographic area in which BIDs operate limits concerns surrounding their accountability while oversight by local government officials and unique organizational structure make them sufficiently accountable to business owners, property owners, and residents, and also points out how improvement districts are more accountable to residents than other alternatives for governing sub-local districts. However, Schaller and Modan (2005) point out that board members that lead BIDs are purposefully insulated from public accountability and democratic channels of accountability since they cannot be voted out of office by community residents. Mitchell (2001) contends that even though residents are unable to democratically elect BID boards, the property owners and representatives that comprise the boards ultimately seek to achieve the same goals for development as residents, offsetting the lack of democratic selection for board members.

Morçöl and Wolf (2010) discuss the difficulties of pinning down exactly who BIDs are accountable to, pointing out that local government, residents, business owners, visitors, and the homeless are all groups to which improvement districts could theoretically be held accountable. This illuminates the reality that scholars seeking to address the same issue of accountability pertaining to BIDs, can arrive at divergent conclusions as a result of to whom they argue improvement districts should be accountable and what their responsibilities should encompass. The concept of accountability is also difficult as a result of the public and private roles BIDs play in communities, since they are legally permitted to operate under state and local laws and generally provide annual reports to local governments, but are simultaneously insulated from many community members and wield certain governmental authority, despite operating as quasi-governmental entities.

Many scholars have been proponents of the shifting popularity toward BIDs as engines for urban development and revitalization, while filling a needed gap between the public and private sectors (Grossman 2008; Hochleutner 2003; Justice and Goldsmith 2006; Mitchell 2009). In addition to this, it has been relatively unchallenged that BIDs are can act more efficiently than local government at times and provide additional services that communities would not otherwise receive, with many studies that point to negative impacts of BIDs still finding that they are able to augment community services, at least to a limited extent (Lloyd et al. 2003; Pack 1992; Steel and Symes 2005). However, many scholars have pointed out that the benefits provided by BIDs are either limited or create greater issues for communities such as threatening democratic accountability, exacerbating socioeconomic inequalities, reducing residents’ social capital, and privatization services that should be the responsibility of local governments (Garodnick 2000; Kennedy 1996; Lavery 1995; Lewis 2010; Steel and Symes 2005). Overall, research to this point generally reflects that BIDs have the ability to augment public service delivery, reduce crime, and provide economic revitalization in urban communities, however these outcomes have the possibility of coming at the expense of reducing democratic accountability and transparency, limiting residents’ social capital, and contributing to economic inequality.

Conclusions and Future Implications

Improvement districts have become a prolific aspect of public management in towns and cities since the 1980s. As BIDs extend to cities not only throughout the United States, but across the world, they will require scholars to continue analyzing the implications of BIDs on wide array of areas that include public management, local governance, economic revitalization, and urban development. The rising prominence of BIDs has drawn debate among scholars surrounding their influence on urban neighborhoods and local government. Thus far, research has remained mixed in its analysis of improvement districts. BIDs have received praise for inducing innovative thinking into public management, filling a needed gap between the public and private sectors in community development, augmenting public service delivery, reducing crime, and revitalizing economic conditions. Alternatively, improvement districts have been criticized from the outcomes of other studies for contributing to social and economic inequality, reducing democratic accountability, transparency and residents’ social capital, and privatizing public services.

Based on the current body of research, it appears that improvement districts are able to provide additional services that local governments would otherwise be unable to administer, such as additional sanitation and security measures, as well as achieving economic growth for certain segments of the community, particularly commercial property owners. However, it is also evident that these districts are not a magic bullet for all communities and areas that are most in need of community development and economic revitalization are likely to have smaller budgets and less political leverage than larger, wealthier districts. Additionally, it is important to note that BIDs will require a new set of standards for analysis and measurement since they occupy a space placed distinctly the public and private sectors. Future research must focus specifically on four key aspects pertaining to BIDs, which includes discerning to whom districts should be accountable, what standards should be utilized to measure the performance of improvement districts, the extent of formal license improvement districts should have in public management, and determining the qualities of communities that are best served by improvement districts.

This paper discussed the difficulties scholars reach when attempting to address what constitutes accountability and to whom BID should be accountable. Communities are comprised of various groups, which at times have divergent interests and distinct needs. BIDs provide a range of services and hold varying degrees of governmental authority, but their place between the public and private sectors contributes difficulty in terms of determining accountability. Public actors are designed to be accountable to the electorate, which encompasses each person within a given jurisdiction they represent, while private actors are designed to be accountable in terms of their bottom line (Mulgan 2000). Determination of to whom BIDs should be accountable will both assist in determining the role of BIDs in communities, as well as they place in the spectrum between the public and private sectors.

Discerning to whom BIDs should be accountable will also assist in developing accurate standards for performance measurement. Studies pertaining to BIDs have measured their effect on issues such as crime (Hoyt 2005; Macdonald et al. 2013), property values (Ellen et al. 2007), and tourism (Ratcliffe and Flanagan 2004), however if scholars, practitioners, and policy makers are unable to reach consensus on who BIDs should be accountable to we will be unable to determine if they are sufficiently and successfully serving those they are designed to benefit. Since BIDs are authorized under state law in the United States, organization structures and legal framework for districts differ in cities dependent on the state in which they are established. This can contribute to the difficulty for scholars to analyze the extent to which BIDs hold formal authority in public spaces. Today, analysis of the formal authority that improvement districts carry in communities is primarily confined within individual cities and states. While improvement districts across the United States are not uniform in their structure and the sub-national laws which apply to them, future research must continue to analyze the political, social, and economic implications improvement districts.

It will also be necessary to determine through future research which communities are best served by BIDs. Thus far, BIDs have generally been seen as either a solution or hindrance to urban areas without much consideration for differences between individual cities and neighborhoods. Can BIDs sufficiently and successfully serve the needs of all communities? Are BIDs only viable in certain communities or cities? Questions such as these will need to be addressed going forward. As BIDs are becoming increasingly prolific and influential in urban areas, scholarly research pertaining to their influence on public management, local governance, economic revitalization, and urban development will continue to be necessary.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Dan Ziebarth

References

180th Street Business Improvement District. 2020. Programs and initiatives. http://www.180thstreetbid.com/programs-initiatives (accessed March 11, 2020).

Briffault

Richard

. 1999. A government for our time? Business improvement districts and urban governance. Columbia Law Review 99 (2): 365–477.

Briffault

Richard

. 2010. The business improvement district comes of age. Drexel Law Review 3 (19): 19–33.

Brooks

Leah

. 2008. Volunteering to be taxed: Business improvement districts and the extra-governmental provision of public safety. Journal of Public Economics 92 (1): 388–406.

Caruso

Gina

Weber

Rachel

. 2006. Getting the max for the tax: An examination of BID performance measures. International Journal of Public Administration 29 (1–3): 187–219.

“Coconut Grove Business Improvement District Annual Report.” 2018. Coconut Grove Business Improvement District. https://www.coconutgrove.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Exhibit-A-Annual-Report-FY-17-18.pdf (accessed March 11, 2020).

Cook

Ian

. 2009. Private sector involvement in urban governance: The case of business improvement districts and town centre management partnerships in England. Geoforum 40 (5): 930–40.

Cook

Philip

MacDonald

John

. 2011. Public safety through private action: An economic assessment of BIDS. The Economic Journal 121 (552): 445–62.

Downtown DC Business Improvement District. 2018. State of downtown. https://www.downtowndc.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/SOD-2018.pdf (accessed March 11, 2020).

10.

Ellen

Ingrid Gould

Schwartz

Amy Ellen

Voicu

Ioan

Brooks

Leah

Hoyt

Lorlene

. 2007. The impact of business improvement districts on property values: Evidence from New York City [with comments]. Brookings-Wharton Papers on Urban Affairs, 1-39. New York City, New York: New York University, Wagner School of Public Service.

11.

Ewoh

Andrew

Zimmerman

Ulf

. 2010. Public-private collaborations: The case of Atlanta metro community improvement district alliance. Public Performance & Management Review 33 (3): 395–412.

12.

Flinders

Matthew

. 2005. The politics of public–private partnerships. The British Journal of Politics and International Relations 7 (2): 215–39.

13.

Garodnick

Daniel

. 2000. What’s the BID deal? Can the grand central business improvement district serve a special limited purpose? University of Pennsylvania Law Review 148 (5): 1733–70.

14.

Grand Central Partnership Business Improvement District. 2020. Our neighborhood. https://www.grandcentralpartnership.nyc/our-neighborhood (accessed March 11, 2020).

15.

Gross

Jill

. 2005. Business improvement districts in New York City’s low-income and high-income neighborhoods. Economic Development Quarterly 19 (2): 114–89.

16.

Grossman

Seth

. 2008. The case of business improvement districts: Special district public-private cooperation in community revitalization. Public Performance & Management Review 32 (2): 290–308.

17.

Grossman

Seth

. 2010. Reconceptualizing the public management and performance of business improvement districts. Public Performance & Management Review 33 (3): 361–94.

18.

Hambleton

Robin

. 2000. Modernising political management in local government. Urban Studies 37 (5–6): 931–50.

19.

Harvey

David

. 1989. From managerialism to entrepreneurialism: The transformation in urban governance in late capitalism. Geografiska Annaler. Series B, Human Geography 71 (1): 3–17.

20.

Hochleutner

Brian

. 2003. BIDs fare well: The democratic accountability of business improvement districts. New York University Law Review 7:374–404.

21.

Houstoun

Lawrence

. 2003. Business improvement districts. Washington, DC: Urban Land Institute.

22.

Hoyt

Lorlene M.

2005. Do business improvement district organizations make a difference? Crime in and around commercial areas in Philadelphia. Journal of Planning Education and Research 25, (2) :185–199.

23.

Justice

Jonathan B.

Goldsmith

Robert S.

. 2006. Private governments or public policy tools? The law and public policy of New Jersey’s special improvement districts. International Journal of Public Administration 29 (1–3): 107–36.

24.

Kennedy

David

. 1996. Restraining the power of business improvement districts: The case of the grand central partnership. Yale Law & Policy Review 15 (1): 283–330.

25.

Lavery

Kevin

. 1995. Privatization by the back door: The rise of private government in the USA. Public Money & Management 15 (4): 49–53.

26.

Lee

Wonhyung

. 2016. Struggles to form business improvement districts (BIDs) in Los Angeles. Urban Studies 53 (16): 3423–38.

27.

Lewis

Nathaniel M

. 2010. “Grappling with governance: The emergence of business improvement districts in a national capital. Urban Affairs Review 46 (2): 180–217.

28.

Lloyd

M. G.

McCarthy

John

McGreal

Stanley

Berry

Jim

. 2003. Business improvement districts, planning and urban regeneration. International Planning Studies 8 (4): 295–321.

29.

Lloyd

M. G.

Peel

Deborah

. 2008. From town center management to the BID model in Britain: Toward a new contractualism? In Business improvement districts: Research, theories and controversies, ed. Morçöl

Goktug

Hoyt

Lorene

Meek

Jack W.

Zimmermann

Ulf

, 161–96. New York: CRC Press.

30.

MacDonald

John

Stokes

Robert

Bluthenthal

Ricky

. 2010. The role of community context in business district revitalization strategies: Business improvement districts in Los Angeles. Public Performance & Management Review 33 (3): 436–58.

31.

MacDonald

John

Stokes

Robert

Grunwalt

Ben

Bluthenthal

Ricky

. 2013. The privatization of public safety in urban neighborhoods: Do business improvement districts reduce violent crime among adolescents? Law & Society Review 47 (3): 621–52.

32.

Mallett

William

. 1994. Managing the post-industrial city: Business improvement districts in the United States. Area 26 (3): 276–87.

33.

Mitchell

Jerry

. 2001. Business improvement districts and the “new” revitalization of downtown. Economic Development Quarterly 15 (2): 115–23.

34.

Mitchell

Jerry

. 2009. Business improvement districts and the shape of American cities. New York: SUNY Press.

35.

Morçöl

Goktug

Hoyt

Lorlene

Meek

Jack W.

Zimmermann

Ulf

. 2017. Business improvement districts: Research, theories, and controversies. New York: Routledge.

36.

Morçöl

Goktug

Wolf

James

. 2010. Understanding business improvement districts: A new governance framework. Public Administration Review 70 (6): 906–13.

37.

Morçöl

Goktug

Zimmermann

Ulf

. 2006. Metropolitan governance and business improvement districts. International Journal of Public Administration 29 (1–3): 5–29.

38.

Mulgan

Richard

. 2000. Comparing accountability in the public and private sectors. Australian Journal of Public Administration 59 (1): 87–97.

39.

“NYC business improvement districttrends report.” 2020. New York City Small Business Services. https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/sbs/downloads/pdf/neighborhoods/fy18-bid-trends-report.pdf (accessed March 11, 2020).

40.

Pack

Janet

. 1992. BIDs, DIDs, SIDs, SADs: private governments in urban America. Brookings Review 10 (4): 18–22.

41.

Peyroux

Elisabeth

Pütz

Robert

Glasze

Georg

. 2012. Business improvement districts (BIDs): The internationalization and contextualization of a “travelling concept.” European Urban and Regional Studies 19 (2): 111–20.

42.

Ratcliffe

John

Flanagan

Sheila

. 2004. Enhancing the vitality and viability of town and city centres: The concept of the business improvement district in the context of tourism Enterprise. Property Management 22 (5): 377–95.

43.

Rhodes

Rod

. 1997. Understanding governance: Policy networks, governance, reflexivity and accountability. Philadelphia, PA: Open University Press.

44.

Salamon

Lester

. 2000. The new governance and the tools of public action: An introduction. Fordham Urban Law Journal 28:1611.

45.

Schaller

Susanna

Modan

Gabriella

. 2005. Contesting public space and citizenship: Implications for neighborhood business improvement districts. Journal of Planning Education and Research 24 (4): 394–407.

46.

Siegel

Fred

. 1992. Reclaiming our public spaces. City Journal 2 (2): 35–45.

47.

Stahl

Kenneth

. 2013. Neighborhood empowerment and the future of the city. University of Pennsylvania Law Review 161 (4): 939–1008.

48.

Steel

Mark

Symes

Martin

. 2005. The privatisation of public space? The American experience of business improvement districts and their relationship to local governance. Local Government Studies 31 (3): 321–34.

49.

Unger

Abraham

. 2016. Business improvement districts in the United States: Private government and public consequences. London, UK: Palgrave McMillan.

50.

Ward

Kevin

. 2007. Business improvement districts: Policy origins, mobile policies and urban liveability. Geography Compass 1 (3): 657–72.

51.

Zukin

Sharon

. 1996. The cultures of cities. London, UK: Wiley-Blackwell.