Business Improvement Areas and the Justification of Urban Revitalization: Using the Pragmatic Sociology of Critique to Understand Neoliberal Urban Governance

In this paper, we propose and develop the concept of “socio-economic hygiene” to denote the ways in which neoliberal Western urban space is spatially regulated and re-oriented towards consumption in a way that reinforces social exclusion. By connecting genocide literature with that of urban sociology, we parallel “socioeconomic hygiene” with “racial hygiene” in order to highlight similar sociological motivations and spatial tactics within both regimes. This includes the enforcement of a binary within which dominant and subordinate identities are constructed; the naturalization of the “Other” either through biology (in the case of racial hygiene) or place (in the case of socio-economic hygiene); and the micro-political enforcement of ideological genocidal/neoliberal tenets “on the ground,” translating ideology into practical social cues. We conclude by tracking how sociological strategies of “hygiene” have moved from racial and biological features to features of place and socioeconomic status, and how BIDs, resembling genocidal states in certain ways, use these strategies to continually justify their own existence.

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Out, Damned Spot: Socio-economic Hygienic Practices of Business Improvement Districts

Business Improvement Districts (BIDs), as public-private partnerships have proliferated in the U.S. and globally as a means of revitalizing downtown central business. This study examined the potential of a BID enhancing a downtown central business district, in western North Carolina. The article reports on the process town officials activated to determine if a BID was right for their town and the outcomes of the process. The process included gathering information about downtown businesses via a survey to provide feedback to the town officials in charge of the proposed BID to maximize input for the plan and estimating the economic benefits the proposed BID would provide to both residential and commercial property owners and tenants. The business owner survey results aligned very closely with programs most BIDs provide to local businesses and property owners. Findings from the economic analysis revealed that a BID would be of value in enhancing retail sales growth and increasing property values. Based on the results of the study, town officials voted to approve the BID.INTRODUCTIONBusiness Improvement Districts (BIDs), as public-private partnerships have proliferated in the U.S. and globally as a means of revitalizing downtown central business districts (CBDs) (Billings & Leland, 2009; Ewoh & Zimmermann, 2010; Grossman, 2008; Hoyt, 2006; Mitchell, 2001, Ruffin, 2010). "Described by The Economist as potentially 'the best hope of getting parts of America's cash-strapped cities working again,' business improvement districts (BIDs) are generating a great deal of excitement among city governments and urban policymakers around the world" (Ellen, et al., 2011, 1). The BID concept aims to promote and harmonize best practice in both urban management and tourism destination management. "Many of the characteristics that make a district a great place to visit - a variety of restaurants, cinemas, nightclubs, bars, cultural facilities, a walkable environment, attractive public places, and a feeling of safety - also make it a great place to live.. .as the visitor and residential markets tend to complement each other" (Ratcliffe & Flanagan,2004, 394).According to the International Downtown Association (IDA) 2010 BID census report, all but two U.S. states have at least one BID, with an average of 20 BIDs per state. The median population size for U.S. cities with a BID is 102,804 people. BIDs exist across four continents and in 16 countries. The IDA report states that the total number of BIDs is 1,002 and that North Carolina has 51 BIDs, ranking 6th in the U.S. (Becker et al., 2011). The IDA currently functions as a central repository for information about BIDs for policy entrepreneurs around the globe (Hoyt, 2005). In performing the 2010 census and survey for the International Development Association (IDA), researchers needed to create a set of criteria for defining a BID. The criteria in the IDA survey and census included that the district be authorized by local and state government with a mandatory fee structure, be a public-private partnership where the government collects the tax but a non-profit management entity controls how much is collected and how the money is spent, and the district must perform traditional BID services such as cleaning, security and marketing (Becker et al., 2011).PURPOSE OF THE STUDYThe study was initiated by the City of Asheville, North Carolina, the Asheville Downtown Association. To preserve this city and all the efforts that have gone into the period of revitalization since the 1990s, the Downtown Asheville Master Plan proposed a Business Improvement District (BID), similar to special districts that exist in many cities around the world. The desired goals for downtown Asheville focused on the continued healthy growth and evolution of the central business district, in order to continue increasing the strength of the regional economy. To reach the maximum potential of economic benefits, the BID should determine the exact needs of business and property owners and follow through on providing these requested services. …

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Estimating the Economic Benefits a Business Improvement District Would Provide for a Downtown Central Business District

Urban Authenticity as a Panacea for Urban Disorder? : Business Improvement Areas, Cultural Power, and the Worlds of Justification

This Essay, written for a conference entitled “Business Improvement Districts and the Evolution of Urban Governance,” examines the relationship between innovations in urban governance and the recent urban resurgence. Whether business improvement districts (BIDs) have played a role in that resurgence is part of a larger inquiry about the causes of local economic growth and decline. This Essay begins by providing some background to the debate about BIDs, suggesting that BIDs have played a less significant role in urban governance than either proponents or detractors have sometimes asserted. It then makes some tentative efforts to describe the connections between BIDs and the urban resurgence in places like Philadelphia, arguing that those connections are not particularly robust. Finally, the Essay suggests caution when attempting to draw causal connections between governance and economic outcomes. It is not at all certain that good governance matters to local economic growth. Other factors may be more significant. If that is so, then the current competitive model of city growth and decline that seems to dominate thinking about urban law and policy is far too simplistic.

Does Governance Matter? The Case of Business Improvement Districts and the Urban Resurgence

This paper is a review of Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) from the perspective of property occupiers. The issues that property occupiers should consider when analysing the potential benefits that a BID could deliver are identified and reasoned. The differing approaches to BIDs in the UK and North America are contrasted, and occupiers are alerted to the need to think differently in these locations — especially in respect of ‘voting power’. The ‘property cost paradox’ is also explored. This leads on to the relative merits of involving property owners — in addition to occupiers — in the strategy and funding of a BID in the UK.

Business Improvement Areas and the Justification of Urban Revitalization: Using the Pragmatic Sociology of Critique to Understand Neoliberal Urban Governance

References

Out, Damned Spot: Socio-economic Hygienic Practices of Business Improvement Districts

Estimating the Economic Benefits a Business Improvement District Would Provide for a Downtown Central Business District

Urban Authenticity as a Panacea for Urban Disorder? : Business Improvement Areas, Cultural Power, and the Worlds of Justification

Does Governance Matter? The Case of Business Improvement Districts and the Urban Resurgence

Maximising occupier value from business improvement districts

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