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Business Improvement Districts in the United States: Private Government and Public Consequences
This book examines how privatization has transformed cities, particularly through the role of Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) in the revitalization of America’s downtown. These public-private partnerships between property owners and municipal government have developed retail strips across the United States into lifestyle and commercial hubs. BIDs are non-profit community organizations with the public power to tax and spend on services in their districts, but they are unelected bodies often operating in the shadows of local government. They work as agents of economic development, but are they democratic? What can we learn from BIDs about the accountability of public-private partnerships, and how they impact our lives as citizens? Unger explores these questions of local democracy and urban political economy in this age of rampant privatization and the reinvention of neighborhoods.
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Business Improvement Districts in the United States: Private Government and Public Consequences
This book examines how privatization has transformed cities, particularly through the role of Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) in the revitalization of America’s downtown. These public-private partnerships between property owners and municipal government have developed retail strips across the United States into lifestyle and commercial hubs. BIDs are non-profit community organizations with the public power to tax and spend on services in their districts, but they are unelected bodies often operating in the shadows of local government. They work as agents of economic development, but are they democratic? What can we learn from BIDs about the accountability of public-private partnerships, and how they impact our lives as citizens? Unger explores these questions of local democracy and urban political economy in this age of rampant privatization and the reinvention of neighborhoods.
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Business Improvement Districts in the United States: Private Government and Public Consequences

Business Improvement Districts in the United States: Private Government and Public Consequences

by Abraham Unger
Business Improvement Districts in the United States: Private Government and Public Consequences

Business Improvement Districts in the United States: Private Government and Public Consequences

by Abraham Unger

Overview

This book examines how privatization has transformed cities, particularly through the role of Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) in the revitalization of America’s downtown. These public-private partnerships between property owners and municipal government have developed retail strips across the United States into lifestyle and commercial hubs. BIDs are non-profit community organizations with the public power to tax and spend on services in their districts, but they are unelected bodies often operating in the shadows of local government. They work as agents of economic development, but are they democratic? What can we learn from BIDs about the accountability of public-private partnerships, and how they impact our lives as citizens? Unger explores these questions of local democracy and urban political economy in this age of rampant privatization and the reinvention of neighborhoods.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9783319812465
Publisher: Springer International Publishing
Publication date: 05/04/2018
Edition description: Softcover reprint of the original 1st ed. 2016
Pages: 206
Product dimensions: 5.83(w) x 8.27(h) x (d)

About the Author

Abraham Unger is Assistant Professor of Government and Director of Urban Programs at Wagner College, USA, and Senior Research Fellow at the Carey Institute for Government Reform. Unger is a member of the Staten Island Borough President’s Strategic Policy Advisory Committee.

Table of Contents

1. Privatization in the Neighborhood .- 2. The Structure of Bids: Public-Private Hybrids .- 3. The Real Lives of BIDs .- 4. How BIDs Behave: Publicness and Privateness in BID Organizational Life .- 5. DSBS and BIDs: Advocacy, Not Oversight .- 6. Epilogue.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“Abraham Unger’s penetrating examination of business improvements districts provides a long overdue look at the theory and practice of growing reliance upon private-public partnerships in running American cities. Probing how private partners of government actually behave once they take on governmental ambitions and purposes, he finds that their public spiritedness is often uneven and highly dependent on local leadership effort. It is a major contribution to our understanding of the new urban politics.” (Paul Kantor, Professor Emeritus, Political Science, Fordham University, USA)

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