Business Improvement Districts and the recession: Implications for public realm governance and management in England

‘But who’s going to pay for it?’ Contemporary approaches to green infrastructure financing, development and governance in London, UK

“…By acting as conduits for the business community, BIDs hold a position of trust or 'GI champions' within development debates (Jones & Somper, 2014). BIDs in London have thus extending their economic remit to establish GI as a comparable resource to grey infrastructure enabling the aesthetic and ecological quality of the physical environment to be prioritised, although benefits remain localised (De Magalhães, 2012). BIDS are potentially positioned as holding greater prominence compared to CSR due to their directed organisational tenure within their respective communities.…”

“…Evidence from other European cities (see Davies & Lafortezza, 2017) highlight comparable challenges, however, it was suggested that the growing consensus of support for GI in London is a reaction to knowledge sharing promoting GI within strategic and project-based development activities. This, as discussed above, was considered part of a longer term strategy to meet institutional objectives and ensure GI delivery (De Magalhães, 2012;Firehock, 2015). Thus, a quid pro quo of trade-offs is evident whereby alternative funders have bridged existing approaches to meet their needs whilst ensuring institutional support can be maintained (Campbell, 1996).…”

Business Improvement Districts: A Systematic Review of an Urban Governance Model towards City Center Revitalization

“…In its essence, the BID model is simultaneously a new form of urban governance [3] and a retail-led urban regeneration initiative. Business owners of a delimited area are required to pay a tax; depending on the country, it may be mandatory for other agents to contribute to what is going to be further redistributed to the area (through a set of activities and services) to improve the economic viability of that same area [4]. BIDs are enacted after democratic elections, in which the majority of business owners vote positive on the execution of a BID for a usual period of five years.…”

“…In terms of governance, local entrepreneurs and key private and public stakeholders are involved in the pursuit of the common goal of town centre revitalization. In this framework, the term 'revitalization' is linked with an increase in the vitality and viability of a given area, particularly relevant in the UK urban policies from the 1990s onwards [4,5]. In this context, vitality refers to the footfall in a given area and viability refers to the economic performance and profitability of businesses.…”

Contracting out publicness: The private management of the urban public realm and its implications

“…There is enough research demonstrating how alternative forms of public space provision and management had gained ground in the UK (De Carmona 2009, De Magalhães 2010). Concern with their impact has been reflected in recent UK policy debates: the creation of BIDs less than 10 years ago and the debates about their role (see De Magalhães 2012); the Greater London Authority's 2010 investigation into the management of publicly accessible space in London which concluded with the need to secure that access to public space is as unrestricted and unambiguous as possible; the House of Commons All Party Parliamentary Group on Land Maintenance 2009, which looked at the impact of the transfer to private management of green areas in new housing estates in Scotland; the Portas Report (Portas 2011) on the health of town centres and its proposal for 'super BIDs' taking over a large part of the responsibility for the management of town centres . To this should be added the on-going impact of cuts in local government budgets and the challenge these pose to the quality of many public services and the consequent need for their re-shaping.…”