The Case of Business Improvement Districts: Special District Public—Private Cooperation in Community Revitalization

Abstract

Business improvement districts (BIDs) are distinctive, formalized partnerships between the public and private sectors operating as subgovernmental units at the local level. There were more than 650 BIDs in the United States in 2008 and an estimated 1,500 worldwide. BIDs are special districts designed to bring together public, private, and civic actors to achieve comprehensive community revitalization, economic development, and quality-of-life improvements in primary business and mixed-use areas. Such partnerships appear to allow the public sector to enjoy more vigorous entrepreneurship, while allowing the private sector to utilize public authority and public processes to achieve economic and community revitalization. BIDs are unique because they are authorized by local ordinance but tend to be managed by private and nonprofits entities that function as publicly oriented public-private partnerships. This paper explores how BIDs dissolve public-private dichotomies to create new hybrid capacities for mutually beneficial community and business development. Performance concerns arise as BID managers employ bridging forms of public management that explores, identifies, and crafts marketplace as well as community values to revitalize a sense of destination and place in traditional and nontraditional business districts. The BID movement may provide new tools for describing public entrepreneurship in public administration necessary to bridge special interests and formulate sustainable social and economic networks.