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Abstract:
Community improvement districts (CIDs) in Georgia are business improvement districts (BIDs) with a difference: They are constitutionally established autonomous local governments, though entirely run by the districts' leading property/business owners, mostly real estate and banking interests. Like BIDs they assess themselves but, as governments, they are also able to leverage large sums of state and federal monies for substantial infrastructure construction and improvements. In metropolitan Atlanta, CIDs arose first in response to an excess of success in suburban commercial nodes that required large-scale capital investments and transportation improvements. In the business-friendly political climate of Georgia they are strongly supported by the officials of the counties and city within which they are located, though there are some differences between CID and local government relations from county to county and especially the city. The autonomous legal status of CIDs and their ability to leverage public money create problems for their accountability to local governments and general publics. As they expand their activities more in the direction of general-purpose governments, and as more CIDs are established, their accountability problems and their implications for democratic governance will come more into focus.
Notes
1Although they were established separately in two counties of metro Atlanta, DeKalb, and Fulton, Perimeter CIDs operate in the same business activity center and they have a joint management team.
2. Molotch, H. L. The City as a Growth Machine: Toward a Political Economy of Place. American Journal of Sociology 1976, 82(2), 309–331. Urban Fortunes: The Political Economy of Place J. R. Logan; H. L. Molotch, Eds.; University of California Press: Berkeley, CA, 1987.
3. For a more extensive discussion of the history of BIDs and the conditions of their creation in the United States see Morcol and Zimmermann in this issue. There are similar entities in Canada and other countries, but they are different from the BIDs in the United States in many ways; they are beyond the scope of our discussions in this article.
4. There is a separate section in the Georgia State Constitution (Section VII) under Article IX, which covers counties and municipal corporations. In other states, the most common legal forms BIDs take on are public authorities, local government sub-units, and nonprofits. See the other articles in this issue for examples.
5. See Morçöl and Zimmermann (in this issue).
6. We were aware of the discussions or actual CID formation processes in the Buford Highway area, another one in Gwinnett County, and the Northlake shopping area. We followed the developments in these cases, but did not include them in our study.
7. We intend to discuss the information we gathered in response to the other questions in other publications. The complete list of questions is available from the lead author of this article upon request.
10. Garreau, 1991, 172.
11. Our interviews with the executive director and a board member of ADID confirmed this.
12. In our interview, John Sullivan, a founding board member of both Perimeter CIDs, said that the state legislators who sponsored the legislation to create the CIDs advised the business leaders to incorporate them separately to avoid inter-jurisdictional conflicts. The two CIDs are managed by the same professional team.
13. The power Central Atlanta Progress wielded in Atlanta city government from the 1940s through the 1980s is richly detailed and adroitly theorized in Stone, C.N. Regime Politics: Governing Atlanta, 1946–1988; University Press of Kansas: Lawrence, 1989.
14. The websites of the CIDs and their parent organizations were linked at the time of our study, and the services of these two types of organizations, as they were announced at the websites, were not easily distinguishable. Our interviews confirmed the close relations between the organizations.
15. In our interviews, we inquired about the differences in sunset provisions. We could not gain any systematic understanding from the responses. It seems that the different provisions were passed at different times in response to the requests that came from the business leaders and their lawyers.
16. The interviewee suggested that the real reason was political. We were unable to learn the details of the story.
17. The description in this paragraph is based on our interviews with Lanie Shipp and Skip Spann, respectively the director and founding board member of the Town Center Area CID.
19. Georgia State Constitution, Article IX, Section VII, Paragraph II.
22. The Town Center CID lists “Establish land use policies to encourage desired land use patterns” as one of its objectives. The CID's land-use plans were developed in open recognition by and collaboration with the state government. The Marietta Daily Journal reported: “Last week Georgia planning and transportation officials were on hand at Kennesaw State University for the official unveiling of the Town Center Area Community Improvement District Roadmap, a 25-year master plan that integrates transportation, land use, and certain guidelines for future development in the expanding area” (Joyner, A. P. Community Group Launches Mall-Area Plan, B1, 6/28/04).
26. See Briffault, 1999; Ross and Levine, 2001, 245.
27. See Briffault, 1999.
28. Stephens, E. CID Businesses Self-Tax to Fund Improvements, Atlanta Business Chronicle 2001 (September 7), 3C. Reese, K. Dollars-and-Sense Solutions. Georgia Trend 2001 (November 1), 55–59.
30. Stephens, 2001, 3C.
31. DeKalb & Fulton Perimeter CIDs' Strategic Implementation Plan 2003–2007: Focus on the Future. 2002 (November 20).
32. Burns, M. Cumberland-Area Parkway Opens. Marietta Daily Journal 2003 (November 20), B1/B4.
33. For a discussion of the distribution of state funds between suburbs and cities, see Monti, D. J. The American City: A Social and Cultural History; Blackwell: Malden, MA, 1999.
35. Reese, 2001, 56. See also Grillo, J. Doing It Themselves: Atlanta's CIDs Have Their Own Plans for Solving Traffic Woes. Georgia Trend 2002 (November), 90.
36. Some of our interviewees told us that there is an informal network of CIDs in metro Atlanta. Their representatives meet occasionally to discuss their common problems and develop strategies to influence public policy. The leaders of Georgia's CIDs do not seem to be eager to join national organizations, such as the International Downtown Association (IDA), however. In our interviews, only the director of the Atlanta Downtown Improvement District mentioned that he was a member of IDA.
37. Atlanta Regional Commission. State of the Region Report. 2004 (November 10).
38. Saporta, M. Midtown, Downtown Become One Town. Atlanta Journal-Constitution 2004 (November 8), F3.
39. Burns, N. The Formation of American Local Government: Private Values in Public Institutions; Oxford University Press, New York, 1994, 12.
41. This issue may come before courts in the coming years. As precedent we can cite that in 1990 a U.S. District Court ruled that Seattle's multipurpose “Metro” district, with its appointed members, violated equal protection of citizens' voting rights. (see Ross, B. H.; Levine, M. A. Urban Politics: Power in Metropolitan America, 7th Ed.; Thomson Wadsworth: Belmont, CA, 2006, 426.)
42. Metro Atlanta's traffic, sprawl, and air pollution problems are reported and discussed in a number of sources. These sources include Lacayo, R. The Brawl over Sprawl. Newsweek, 3/22/99, 44–48; Pedersen, D., Smith, V. E.; Adler, J. Sprawling, Sprawling … Newsweek, 7/19/99, 22–27; Bullard, R. D.; Johnson, G. S.; Torres, A. O. Sprawl City: Race, Politics, and Planning in Atlanta; Island Press: Washington, DC, 2000.
43. Warner, S. B. Jr. The Private City: Philadelphia in Three Periods of its Growth, 2nd Ed.; University of Pennsylvania Press: Philadelphia, 1987. Monti, 1999. Hall, Sir P. Cities in Civilization; Weidenfeld & Nicolson: London, 1998.
44. Hall, 1998, 612.
45. Hall, 1998, 6.
46. Molotch 1976; Logan and Molotch 1987.
47. Molotch, 1976, 311.
48. Logan and Molotch, 1987.
49. Logan and Molotch, 1987, 32.
50. Salamon, L. M. The New Governance and the Tools of Public Action: An Introduction. In The Tools of Government: A Guide to the New Governance; Salamon, Lester M., Elliott, Odus V. Eds.; Oxford University Press: New York, 2002; 1–47.