Grappling with Governance: The Emergence of Business Improvement Districts in a National Capital

Abstract

Business improvement districts (BIDs) constitute a relatively new mode of urban governance in which business and property owners pay surtaxes for collectivized, privatized maintenance and development services in their respective neighborhoods. Although they are typically considered an innovative means of improving urban areas-or at the very least a benign intervention of business owners to draw new consumers-the case of Washington, D.C., shows that BIDs are also an increasingly entrenched neoliberal institution promoted by state restructuring and interurban competition. Given local conditions, such as a permissive legislative environment and fragmented governance, the proliferation, size, and influence of D.C.'s BIDs pose concerns about institutional accountability, socioeconomic inequality, and sustainability of services. Using a mixed-methods approach that integrates urban governance theory, performance metrics, and interviews with BID and D.C. government officials, this study finds that Washington's BIDs have promoted revitalization but also pose concerns about limited public

Keeping the Doors Open: Commercial District Management Organizations

“…7, No. 6;2014 While not all DDAs have a significant income stream from the incremental growth in the tax base, most Authorities can count on steadily increasing revenues. Even when the DDA's primary function is financing capital improvements with revenue bonds, continued growth of the tax base will generate increasing annual revenues.…”

“…7, No. 6;2014 services provided by the BIAs appear to be complementary to, rather than competitive with, city services and solve the free-rider problems experienced by more generalized business organizations such as Chambers of Commerce (Billings & Leland, 2009). …”

“…Some studies have found that BIAs are associated with reduced crime rates and increases in the value of property; they have also been found to be efficient providers of services, (Ross & Levine, 2001;Symes & Steel, 2003;Hoyt, 2006;Lewis, 2010), in some cases more effectively than local governments (Traub, 1996). The www.ccsenet.org/ibr International Business Research Vol.…”

“…Michigan DDAs are allowed to use revenue bond financing, reducing the time required to initiate expensive capital improvements (Weber, 2003;Sands et al, 2007). DDAs provide a wide array of services, including capital projects, marketing, economic development, maintenance, parking/transportation, public policy advocacy, regulation of public space, security, and even social services (Huey et al, 2005;Lippert, 2007;Lippert & Sleiman, 2012;MacDonald, 1996;Lewis, 2010).…”

Resource orchestration as a source of competitive advantage for cities

“…The prevalence of collaboration in BID-government relationships might not be surprising, because quite often the two parties share the common purpose of economic revitalization. However, the few studies that have analyzed BID-government relationships usually neglect the public side and focus on the private dimension of the partnership (S. Grossman, 2008 paradigms that examine all for-profit and nonprofit organizations involved in public policy making and service delivery to offer a better understanding of the type of relationships and power differentials among BIDs, between government and BIDs, and the centrality of BIDs in relation to other actors (Lewis, 2010;Morçöl & Patrick, 2006;Morçöl, Vasavada & Kim, 2014;Morçöl & Wolf, 2010;Morçöl & Zimmermann, 2006). Morçöl et al (2014) found in their longitudinal case study in downtown Philadelphia that the director of the BID, the city council, and mayors were the most central actors in the governance network, with the BID director being more central than other legally sanctioned actors.…”