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Abstract
Because of their growing numbers and the increasingly significant roles they play in providing urban services and influencing public policymaking, Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) have become a challenge to the conventional conception of public administration. Their origins lie in the United States' foundational privatism and the corporate origins of American governments. Many urban services were provided privately until the Progressive movement turned them into what has come to be known as public services. But between the privatization movement that began in and has been accelerating since the late 1970s and the academic advent of public choice theory, BIDs have arisen as a new form of “private government.” As they expand their menus of services, often including land-use planning, and approaching more general-purpose government status, BIDs have begun to raise issues of accountability. This has become a problem for public administration theory, and there is a need to expand the notion of public administration to encompass these growing forms of governance. This article contends that the best way to capture the role of BIDs in the metropolitan governance process is network governance theory, which takes into account not only the many and various local governments but also the numerous nonprofit and for-profit organizations participating in this governance process.
Acknowledgment
We acknowledge the contributions and comments made by Patricia Patrick, Paul Hubler, and Beverly Cigler during the writing of this article.
Notes
8. Houstoun (2003, 3–8).
9. Hoyt (2003) Hoyt also makes a distinction between BIDs and BID-like organizations on the basis that the former uses self-assessment as its primary funding mechanism, whereas the latter relies on sources like voluntary donations and funding from governments. In her international survey of BIDs and BID-like entities, Hoyt found that there are BIDs in the United States, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa. She also found that “BID-like” entities exist in Japan, Belgium, Germany, Holland, and the United Kingdom. Although this distinction is valid for analytical purposes, we should also note that it has a shortcoming as well. As our research in the United States shows, there are BIDs that operate solely on voluntary contributions but act very much like the ones that use self-assessment as their primary source of funding (e.g., the University City District in Philadelphia) and there are others in Georgia that use (or “leverage”) government funds at rates that are much larger than their self-assessments. See Morçöl and Patrick (in this issue) and Morçöl and Zimmermann (in this issue).
11. Houstoun (2003, 68).
12. Houstoun (2003, 19).
13. See Hoyt (2003) for a listing of countries in which BIDs or BID-like entities operate. We should point out that there are variations in the structures and functions of BIDs and BID-like entities in different countries. Lavery (1995), for example, mentioned that the BIDs in the United States are initiated by private businesses, whereas the comparable entities in Britain, called “town center managements,” are funded by governments. Also BIDs in the United States have larger functions and responsibilities.
14. Houstoun (2003, 2) cited sources that estimate the total number of BIDs in the United States and Canada around 800. Ross and Levine (2001, 244) cited the estimates of 1200 BIDs in the United States. Some researchers do not count entities whose main source of revenues is not self-assessment.
15. Ross and Levine (2001, 244).
18. Warner (1987, 178–190).
19. Suburban BIDs are prominent particularly in fast-growing states like Georgia. See Morçöl and Zimmermann (in this issue).
20. Lavery 1995.
22. Lynd R.S.; Lynd, H. M. Middletown; Harcourt Brace: New York, 1929 Lynd, R.S.; Lynd, H. M. Middletown in Transition; Harcourt Brace: New York, 1937. Hunter, F. Community Power Structure; Anchor Books: Garden City, NY, 1963/1953. Hunter, F. Community Power Succession: Atlanta's Policymakers Revisited; University of North Carolina Press: Chapel Hill, 1980.
23. Dahl, R.A. Who Governs? Democracy and Power in the American City; Yale University Press: New Haven, CT, 1961 Polsby, N. W. Community Power and Political Theory; Yale University Press: New Haven, CT, 1963.
24. Logan, J.R.; Molotch, H. L. Urban Fortunes: The Political Economy of Place; University of California Press: Berkeley, 1987 Molotch, H. L. The City as a Growth Machine. American Journal of Sociology 1976, 82, 309–331. Stone, C. N. Regime Politics: Governing Atlanta, 1946–1988; University Press of Kansas: Lawrence, 1989. The differences between Molotch's and Stone's conceptualizations are important for a general theory of urban politics, but they are not significant for our purposes in this paper.
25. Stone (1989, 6).
26. Monti (1999, 260).
27. for examples of this phenomenon, see Morçöl and Zimmermann (in this issue).
28. See Morçöl and Zimmermann (in this issue).
29. Warner (1987, passim).
30. Warner (1987, 4).
31. Monti (1999, 245–246).
32. Monti (1999, 248).
33. Monti (1999, 250).
35. Judd (2003, 20).
36. Judd (2003, 7).
37. Monti (1999, 13).
38. Monti (1999, 13–14).
39. Source: The State of New York General Municipal Law, Article 19-A: Business Improvement Districts (effective: Sept 5, 1989).
40. See Morçöl and Patrick (in this issue).
41. SeeWolf (in this issue).
42. See Meek and Hubler (in this issue).
43. For a discussion, see Morçöl and Zimmermann (in this issue).
44. BIDs are typically defined in state laws as organizations of commercial property owners. In some states, such as Pennsylvania, older laws did not exclude residential property owners from BID assessments, and led to some confusion in the interpretations of laws and complications in BID operations. The inclusion of residential properties in BID assessments is an exception, rather than a rule. For a discussion of the developments in Pennsylvania, see Morçöl and Patrick (in this issue).
45. See the other papers in this issue for examples.
46. See Morçöl and Zimmermann (in this issue).
48. Briffault 1999; Ross and Levine (2001, 245).
49. For the details of the points made in this paragraphs see Morçöl and Zimmermann (in this issue); Morçöl and Patrick (in this issue); Wolf (in this issue); and Meek and Hubler (in this issue).
50. See Morçöl and Zimmermann (in this issue).
51. See Briffault 1999
52. See Meek and Hubler (in this issue).
53. See Wolf (in this issue).
54. See Morçöl and Zimmermann (in this issue); Morçöl and Patrick (in this issue); Meek and Hubler (in this issue); and Wolf (in this issue).
55. A major case of BID termination in Pennsylvania happened in 2002 The Allentown Downtown District Authority, the first operational BID of the state, was terminated with the approval of both the property owners and the newly elected mayor.
56. Briffault 1999.
57. Governor's Center for Local Government Services. Municipal Authorities in Pennsylvania, Department of Community and Economic Development, Harrisburg, 2002.
58. Briffault 1999; Mitchell, J. Business Improvement Districts and the “New” Revitalization of Downtown. Economic Development Quarterly 2001a, 15 (2), 115–123; Mitchell, J. Business improvement districts and the management of innovation. American Review of Public Administration 2001b, 31 (2), 201–217.
59. These services are not necessarily “traditional” if we go further back to the foundation of American cities, as we did in the introduction of this article. They are traditional in the sense of the Wilsonian/Weberian public administration (See Frederickson, H. G.; Smith K. B. The Public Administration Theory Primer; Westview: Cambridge, MA, 2003).
60. This is a product of the Progressive Era reforms. The first zoning ordinance was passed in New York City in 1916; before that time land-use decisions were left, laissez-faire, to the private sector. In the 1920s public land-use laws swept the country, especially in the wake of the final Supreme Court decision in Euclid v Amber, 1926 (For a full discussion of this landmark case see Rutherford H. Platt, Land Use and Society: Geography, Law, and Public Policy, Revised Edition; Island Press: Washington, DC, 2004.) So, one can argue that with the new strategic planning authority of BIDs has merely given back the private sector what it used to have.
61. We gathered the information about the Philadelphia Community Court from the following public documents of the Center City District: the website of the BID (www.centercityphila.org, accessed 1/20/04) and Financial Statements and Independent Auditors' Report, Center City District Foundation, December 31, 2002 and 2001. We gathered information about the Atlanta Community Court from the Atlanta Downtown Improvement District's (ADID) website (www.centralatlantaprogress.org/CapAdidInitiatives.asp, accessed 3/9/04) and some further details from www.georgiacourts.com/courts/atlanta_community.main.html, accessed 8/13/05). The Atlanta Community Court was established by city judges as a division of the Municipal Court with strong support from Central Atlanta Progress (which operates ADID); it deals with “quality of life crimes”—prostitution, disorderly conduct, panhandling, and low-level drug offenses—with an emphasis on “restorative justice, drug court, mental health court, homeless court, re-entry court initiatives, community re-development, family reunification, benefits procurement, and family court”; it is not clear what role ADID plays in the court beyond its “foundational support.” We gathered the information about the other community courts in Cabrera's report to the City of San Francisco Board of Supervisors (Cabrera, G. Legislative Analyst Report—Community Courts Model and Feasibility of Implementation in San Francisco, March 13, 2001; http://www.sfgvo.org/site/bdsupvrs_page.aspid = 4809, accessed 11/15/2004 and at the following websites: http://www.comunityjustice.org, accessed 1/12/2004. Cabrera mentioned two other courts in Portland, about which we could not find any further information. He also described the courts as if they were operated directly by “the community,” and did not emphasize the direct roles BIDs play in running them In Portland, Oregon, there are four community courts. We could not determine the nature of their relations with BIDs (Source of information for the courts in Portland: http://www.co.multnomah.or.us//da/cc/faq.php, accessed 1/12/2005).
62. See Briffault 1999 for a legal discussion of the equity issues.
63. Briffault 1999.
64. Reese, K. ‘Dollars-and-Sense Solution’. Georgia Trend 2001, November. 17 (1), 55–58.
65. Donahue (1989, 39).
67. Frederickson; Smith, 2003, 207
68. Molotch, 1976; Stone 1989
69. Kickert, W.J.M.; Klijn, E.H.; Koppenjan, J.F. (1997). Managing Complex Networks: Strategies for the Public Sector; Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage; O'Toole, L.J. Treating Networks Seriously: Practical and Research-Based Agendas in Public Administration. Public Administration Review 1997 57(1), 45–52; Frederickson, H.G. (1999, December). The repositioning of American public administration. PS, 701–711; Agranoff, R.; McGuire, M. Collaborative Public Management: New Strategies for Local Governments; Georgetown University Press: Washington, DC, 2003.
70. O'Toole, 1997.
71. Frederickson, 1999.