This article presents an o verview of the burgeoning literature on business improvement districts (BID) by highlighting its historical underpinnings, identifying the economic and political factors that explain its transnational proliferation, and demonstrating how the model varies within and across nations. It also provides a balanced review of the key debates associated with this relatively new urban revitalization strategy by asking the following questions: Are BIDs democratic? Are BIDs accountable? Do BIDs create wealth-based inequalities in the delivery of public services? Do BIDs create spillover effects? Do BIDs over-regulate public space?

The Business Improvement District Model: A Balanced Review of Contemporary Debates

This progress report reviews recent research on the role that disorder plays in fostering democracy. Disorder can be a powerful tool in fostering democracy because it highlights the conflicts, the agonism, that are inherent in democratic politics. More than a form of government or a set of outcomes, democracy can be conceptualized as a process through which agonism is expressed and action is taken. Yet agonism disrupts what seem to be settled relationships and practices, as new people, voices, and ideas enter the public sphere. Research in political geography has examined material and virtual spaces for public address in which groups struggle to expand, and in some cases reorder, democratic publics.

Political geography: democracy and the disorderly public

https://isiarticles.com/bundles/Article/pre/pdf/18100.pdf

Town centre management models: A European perspective

Community groups and urban forestry activity: Drivers of uneven canopy cover?

The built environment is not exclusively influenced and shaped by the traditional supply-side and governmental (local and central) authorities. The financial sector has a significant influence on the built environment during the planning, construction, management and refurbishment stages. In particular, it exercises considerable influence on the realization of sustainable development principles in relation to an array of issues: climate change (mitigation and adaptation), energy efficiency, the closing of material cycles, and design and urban development quality. The major actors among financial stakeholders are differentiated and their various roles, interests, motives and options for influencing property and construction markets are analysed. The drivers are identified for increasing financial stakeholders' motivations and actions as positive agents for sustainable development in the built environment. The focus is on specific policy documents, instruments, products and mechanisms along with the support...

Engaging financial stakeholders: opportunities for a sustainable built environment

This chapter discusses the importance of retail vis-a-vis activity in downtowns. It presents a tier diagram to position and measure business improvement district (BID) activities. The chapter provides a synoptic and macroscopic explanation of retail-oriented BID practices in both Canada and the United States. The organizational and financial systems create the foundation that underlies the success of the BID model. In general, BID security activities are similar, though the crime and safety monitoring systems vary considerably across organizations. The chapter offers a set of recommendations for improving the relationship between BID and retail-related activities. In exploring the relationship between retail and downtown revitalization, the argument presented in the chapter is that retail and downtown economies are agglomeration economies. In the long term, interaction of the commercial and consumer environments creates brand and place equity, which supports sustainable economic development while promoting an environment complementary to the downtown’s export economy.

Devika Gopal-Agge

Papers

The Business Improvement District Model: A Balanced Review of Contemporary Debates

The BID Model in Canada and the United States: The Retail-Revitalization Nexus