Business Improvement Districts and the Shape of American Cities

Business Improvement Districts and the Shape of American Cities

JERRY MITCHELL

Business Improvement Districts and the Shape of American Cities

SUNY series in Urban Public Policy

C. Theodore Koebel and Diane L. Zahm, editors

BUSINESS IMPROVEMENT DISTRICTS AND THE SHAPE OF AMERICAN CITIES

Jerry Mitchell

STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK PRESS

Published by STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK PRESS, ALBANY

© 2008 State University of New York All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY www.sunypress.edu Production, Laurie Searl Marketing, Anne M. Valentine

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Mitchell, Jerry, 1956– Business improvement districts and the shape of American cities / Jerry Mitchell. p. cm. — (Suny series in urban public policy) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-7914-7309-2 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Central business districts—United States. 2. City planning—United States. 3. Urban renewal—United States. I. Title. HF5429.3.M58 2007 307.3'33160973—dc22 2007007877 10

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Contents

One

The Shape of City Places

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Two

Historical Connections

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Three

The BID Approach

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Four

The Organization of Innovation

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Five

Making a Difference

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Six

Evaluating Evaluations

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Seven

The Prospects for BIDs

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Notes

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Index

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ONE

The Shape of City Places

CITIES CHANGE, yet remain the same. This simple observation is the key to

everything that ever has or ever will occur in cities. Inevitably, cities have moments of ascendancy, interludes of stability, periods when they barely survive, and occasions to recreate themselves in order to flourish and prosper again. New York City, for instance, soared with the advent of office towers, department stores, and mass transit at the turn of the twentieth century, sank into the despair of poverty, crime, and suburban flight at mid-century, only to rise again as a hub for finance, entertainment, and tourism at the dawn of the twenty-first century. Human affairs—economics, diseases, demographics, and public policies—cause cities to change, as do natural occurrences—tornados, earthquakes, and sunny days. Yet even as these variables play out in the course of history, there is at least one feature of cities that withstands the effects of time, namely, the central gathering points that furnish cities with their character and sense of community. Whether it is Copley Place in Boston, Pike Place Market in Seattle, the Riverwalk in San Antonio, Little Italy in San Diego, Clark Street in Chicago, the Strand in Galveston, the Nicollet Mall in Minneapolis, or Times Square in New York City, cities of all sizes and shapes have special places that endure as life evolves in and around them. Ask anyone where they are at and most anyone will know, even though people may disagree on their exact size and shape, or precisely what they should be called (a downtown, the central business district, main street, a plaza, a square, a pedestrian mall, a public place, or something else). A city would not be a city without these places, even when new architecture appears, even when one generation views them differently than another, and even when the public uses them less. Sprawling retail stores and spacious shopping malls have certainly traumatized thousands of central business districts, yet most of these districts survive, albeit struggling at times, but still surviving. 1

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Throughout history, cities have always had central assembly points for commerce, politics, worship, and pleasure. Surveying three thousand years of history, Lewis Mumford concludes in The City in History: Its Origins, its Transformations, and its Prospects that relatively well-defined gathering places have been vital to cities because they have encouraged a civic spirit to coalesce and flourish.1 A strong sense of place encourages economic activity and the emotional attachment to special spots may elicit the willingness of individuals to be taxed and regulated on behalf of others.2 Public places establish a common identity among diverse populations and are storehouses for social memories because they frame the lives of innumerable people and outlast generations.3 Although robust locales are not always associated with overall city prosperity, they provide the communal attachments that permit residents and nonresidents alike to enjoy the good times and weather the bad ones. The constructive steps it takes for people to form interesting locations are redoubled by the positive effects the very places have on those who shaped them, as well as for those who come after. For example, the evocative streets of Charleston, South Carolina, have survived and thrived because of the collective effort in the 1860s to keep the city intact as other cities were destroyed during the Civil War, followed by the collective decision in the 1960s to emphasize historical preservation as other communities were ripped apart by urban renewal projects. Obviously, the aim of every city is to progress, to continue to be a good place to live, work, shop, and visit. Jobs, health, security, affordable housing, transportation systems, and educational opportunities are some of the essential ingredients in this effort, but if history holds true, an equally fundamental way to move cities forward is to economically and socially develop their business districts, neighborhoods, and other special places in a manner that does not unnecessarily alter their unique character and staying power. This is manifestly a difficult balancing act, one that has vexed cities around the world throughout history. The temptation is to rebuild what exists for greater profit in good times and to demolish what exists out of frustration in bad times. It is truly a challenge to improve the places that need to remain the same.

 The prospect for America’s cities is on an upswing again after several decades of persistent suburbanization and years of thinking the best days for cities were long gone. There is an emerging recognition that central business districts and main streets are important to civic life, commercially viable, and socially engaging. Compared to the monotony of the shopping mall experience and the prospect of endless stopping and starting on infuriating roadways, city places contribute to the enjoyment of life, whether it is through the

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pleasant experience of viewing distinctive architecture or the simple pleasure of walking outdoors while shopping. The upsurge is palpable. It is now commonplace for local governments to have quality of life programs that focus on reducing street crime, eliminating graffiti, and enlivening streetscapes. Most state and local governments offer tax incentives to assist downtown retail businesses, provide grants for historical preservation, issue bonds for the construction of center city sports stadiums, and create enterprise zones to reclaim blighted areas. The federal government has appropriated millions of dollars to local empowerment zones to support a comprehensive social and economic renaissance in rundown neighborhoods. Nonprofit civic associations and community development corporations (CDCs) are changing both big cities and small towns by refurbishing city parks, rejuvenating waterfronts, and restoring historic buildings. With and without government support, private businesses are engaged with cities, reclaiming retail outlets, constructing residential housing, and opening new markets for products. Simultaneously, a host of innovative financial and administrative public-private partnerships have materialized to make city renewal truly a reality, such as real estate investment trusts, local tourism councils, and business improvement districts (BIDs). Among the various initiatives at the local level, BIDs are especially significant because they are designed to independently shape the unique places within cities. BIDs put into practice the idea that cities can progress by aggressively developing business districts and other special locales economically and socially, yet in a manner that keeps them intact. The attraction to BIDs is that they exist primarily to make particular places attractive—safer, cleaner, and more marketable. BIDs have caught on. Since the 1990s, they have been accepted by community leaders from across the political spectrum and embraced by Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York City, as well as hundreds of other large and small communities in forty-eight states (Wyoming has no BID legislation and South Dakota’s cities have yet to create any BIDs). BIDs have been featured in the pages of the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the weekly papers of small towns. Cities around the world are latching on to BIDs—from Buenos Aires to London, from Johannesburg to Toronto. City planning and urban affairs books refer to the contributions of BIDs, doctoral dissertations explore their influence, and web sites detail their activities. Every year conferences and seminars examine BID operations and educate BID advocates and managers. Who knows how many consulting firms have been put together to make money by assisting business and community leaders in getting BIDs up and running. The emergence of BIDs supports the conviction that city places should be, and can be, significant once again.

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 BIDs are similar yet different. Most BIDs are called BIDs, the name used herein, although in some places they go by other names (for instance, special service areas in Illinois or special improvement districts in New Jersey or community improvement districts in Georgia). All BIDs have a local orientation, yet no two BIDs provide identical services because each is focused on the particular problems and issues in its own area. In small communities there may be only one BID operating, such as in Grass Valley, California, Waterloo, Iowa, Patchogue, New York, or Red Bank, New Jersey. In metropolitan areas, multiple places may exist, each with its own improvement district and idiosyncratic mixture of uses. The District of Columbia has a BID located next to the national mall, another close to the U.S. capital, one situated in the Dupont Circle neighborhood, another in Georgetown, and one more in the Adams Morgan commercial area. It does not matter, however, if a BID is in a small town or one among many in an urban area because the perspective is generally the same—the prosperity of specific locales is the key to the general improvement of cities. BIDs are distinctive in that they are both a place-based designation with official borders and a bureaucratic mechanism for providing services. Geographically, a BID may encompass anywhere from a few blocks and a smattering of properties to a mile of streets and hundreds of structures. The typical district embraces both private and public uses. There are usually banks, restaurants, variety stores, and law offices, as well as government offices, community parks, museums, and residences. BIDs almost always have spaces that are open to public activities—from farmer’s markets and sidewalk sales to Christmas parades and protest marches. In sharp contrast to shopping malls, BIDs contain amenities—sidewalks, bus shelters, parks, and the like—with free access for anyone (with or without a justifying purpose), at most any time of the day or night.4 BIDs thus manifest a civic character—multiplicities of self-interested pursuits are tolerated and collective practices and rituals are permitted, if not encouraged.5 Times Square in New York City is perhaps the ultimate example; it is managed in part by the Times Square Alliance, and its responsibilities include picking up the litter left by millions of fun-seeking tourists every day and dropping the Tiffany ball each New Year’s Eve for the enjoyment of millions of cheerful celebrants and billions of television viewers. Legally, a BID is a professionally-managed organization whose purpose is to improve a locale using funds from mandatory special taxes or fees paid by property and/or business owners in a designated area. Authorized by state legislation, a local government is normally responsible for establishing a district, collecting the assessments, and then transferring the funds over to the BID to use as it sees fit. The managing agent for a BID is usually a nonprofit organization, although in some cities public agencies and public-private partnerships may be responsible for a BID’s operation. The governance of a BID is the

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responsibility of a board comprised of various combinations of property owners, businesses, and government officials. The management of a BID is the job of a paid administrator who oversees a small full- and part-time workforce of mostly sanitation workers and security guards. Although constrained by legal statutes and government procedures, BID governance and management is characterized by considerable latitude about how best to improve city spaces. BIDs accomplish two important objectives: first, they fill in the gaps between the public and private sectors by accomplishing tasks that each sector is unable to accomplish alone, such as nonstop trash collection and cooperative marketing; and second, they offer an influential voice for civic places that can be heard by public officials, businesses, and the public. By being part service delivery mechanism and part political advocacy group, BIDs are expected to take care of the small details and champion the big goals that will efficiently and effectively improve the overall character of city places. As BID workers are giving visitors directions to a tourist site, the BID manager may be meeting with city officials to encourage the relocation of new businesses to the area. An example is the Center City District (CCD) in Philadelphia. Established in 1990, the CCD represents over 2,000 property owners, commercial tenants, and employers in downtown Philadelphia. Through supplying supplemental security, hospitality, and promotional programs to an eighty-block area, its purpose is to make the downtown of the nation’s fourth largest city clean, safe, and attractive. Financed by self-assessments on the downtown property owners, as well as grants and other income, the CCD has a budget of well over $10 million. Its tasks include clearing debris from streets, preventing street crime through the presence of its own security force, and aggressively advertising the center city throughout the region. Through multimedia advertising campaigns, one of its marketing strategies is to highlight the comparative advantages of downtown life over the suburbs. Other BIDS engage in similar activities: • The Alliance for Downtown New York operates a BID in lower Manhattan in New York City. Covering the Wall Street financial district, the Alliance provides an array of services: providing funds for retailers to upgrade their storefronts, operating a jitney for downtown workers, and showcasing the area as a place to work, live, shop, and dine. • Central Atlanta Progress seeks to make downtown Atlanta safe and clean, to increase the number of local jobs, and to promote the development of housing. To improve safety, the downtown district has a fifty-person Ambassador Force, which provides street patrols for security and conducts a hospitality campaign for conventioneers, visitors, and residents. • The Downtown DC BID in Washington D.C. provides supplemental cleaning and security services to an area of over 100 blocks and more than

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800 properties; works with businesses on a consistent program of signage; develops promotion materials to better inform the public about downtown D.C.; and enforces a zero tolerance policy toward graffiti in the area. The Downtown Community Improvement District in Kansas City was established in 2003 to provide security, public maintenance, and landscape improvements in the central business district. Led by a seventeen-member governing board, its aim is to create a friendly, inviting atmosphere for those who reside and work downtown. The Historic Third Ward Association is responsible for BID #2 in the area adjacent to downtown Milwaukee. The BID comprises over 350 business and 400 residences and is listed as a national historic district. The BID supports the conversion of manufacturing and warehousing structures into commercial enterprises and residential dwellings. The Hollywood Entertainment District spans an eighteen-block stretch of Hollywood Boulevard and is funded by over 200 property owners. The BID provides security, cleaning, and marketing services. The purpose is to maintain the area as a tourist destination and as an inviting location for business investment. The Downtown Mesa Association works on behalf of 300 commercial properties and 600 business owners in the town center of one of Arizona’s fastest growing communities. It generates and provides downtown information and research, works with the local police department on security issues, and attracts new businesses to the area.

The general aim of BIDs is to put public places within cities on the same footing as the private places outside them—shopping centers and strip malls. The effort is to effectuate a culture in which Americans recognize the potential of cities to accomplish social aspirations and to improve the human condition. When people “see beyond the pathology of cities and notice improvements in [the] quality of their lives,” former Milwaukee Mayor John O. Norquist notes in his book, The Wealth of Cities: Revitalizing the Centers of American Life, they also begin to “notice the excitement, beauty, and value of cities.”6 If nothing else, the fact that BIDs spend so much capital on public places sends an important message about the commitment of government and business to city life. The mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg, has declared: “BIDs are a proven example of how public/private partnerships can promote economic development.”7 It is certainly noteworthy that the more than fifty BIDs located throughout the five boroughs of New York City collectively spend well over $50 million annually on marketing, cleaning, and security services.8 In the Big Apple and elsewhere, the belief is that BIDs have the administrative flexibility and enough funding to shape cities in meaningful ways, to help bring about a true civic epiphany.

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 BIDs are contemporary creations yet they are married to a distant past. The paradigm for BIDs is the ancient Greek agora, the preeminent civic space. Although BID managers and workers rarely pose philosophical questions to tourists and never referee nude wrestling matches in open-air gymnasiums, they promote the same kinds of ideals and practices that made the Greek agora a special locale. The Greek agora (gathering place), was the heart of Athens and other city states in the second century BCE.9 Comprised of gymnasiums, shady colonnades, temples for the gods, and parks with elegant statues of the leading citizens and heroes of the time, the agora was the centerpiece for political meetings, law courts, religious festivals, and theatrical and athletic competition. Unplanned, yet geographically distinct, the agora was “a jumble of crowded downtown streets and irregular open spaces where shrines and alters, public buildings and monuments stood in the midst of workshops, market stalls, and taverns.”10 The marketplace of the agora supplied every need and met every desire. All kinds of local and imported food were available: wine, chickpeas, beesting puddings, myrtle berries, raisins, olive oil, and lamb. The shops included barbers, cobblers, and perfumers. There was an ichthyopolis, were fish could be purchased, the cycloi for fruit, and the himatiopolis for clothes. There was even a place where stolen goods could be bought and sold—the kerkopes.11 Occasionally “the haunt of the dregs of the populace,” the agora nonetheless accomplished the highest aims of civilization—encouraging human encounters, stimulating commerce, enhancing civic participation, broadening viewpoints, engendering self-government, and harmonizing the individual’s inner and outer self.12 Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and other philosophers of the time developed western thought along its paths. There is even a compelling claim that democracy was born and bred in the Athenian agora.13 Remarkable as the essence of the civic experience, the ancient agora is also of considerable consequence because it illustrates the staying power of a public place in the ebb and flow of history.14 From its heyday in the second century BCE, the Romans under Sulla in 86 BCE sacked the agora in Athens. It recovered five decades later when the Roman statesman Agrippa moved several old temples to the site, rebuilt the existing structures, and erected the Odeon, a grand concert hall on its axis. Later on, the Romans added a colonnaded collection of shops that sold wares from around the Mediterranean. Then, in 267 CE, the Heruli overran Athens and the agora’s structures were stripped for their stone. Rebuilt as a housing complex in 400 CE, the area was devastated again less than two hundred years later and habitation gradually ceased. In the tenth century, the Church of the Holy Apostles was built in the agora. Short-lived as a place of worship, the area was overrun by invaders in 1204 and laid desolate for several centuries. In the 1930s, the agora was excavated to reveal many of the temples and columns from antiquity. As

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irony would have it, the agora was transformed into its present condition as a tourist destination, a favorite gathering spot for people from around the world as they descended from the wonders of the Parthenon with digital cameras and camcorders in tow. The Greeks were certainly not the first and were definitely not alone in their pursuit of civic space. The Chinese, Egyptians, Japanese, Mayans, and Ottomans also developed prosperous centers of community life, equally resplendent with marketplaces, places of worship, and palaces for sovereigns. Nonetheless, the Greek agora is a good starting point for considering the development of similar places in the tract of history. In first century western society, the agora was replicated in Rome’s Forum, which added to the Greek ideal of innovative architectural forms and the republican system of government. The Forum contained the Roman Senate, as well as hundreds of grand temples, several banking facilities, and some of the first churches in Rome. The Forum was abandoned in the seventh century when the Vandals vandalize its structures and pilfered its wealth. For decades, the Forum was in ruins, a pasture for cattle to feed. It was rediscovered when Napoleon ordered the excavation of its remains in the early 1800s. Revitalized as a tourist attraction like the Greek agora, the Forum has regained its splendor by being a place to stroll among the marble vestiges of the marvels of western civilization. After Rome’s fall, the agora took the form of medieval fairs and markets in the environs of cathedrals, castles, and commercial ports. It arose again in the Renaissance of the fifteenth century when ruling families and merchant guilds in Bruges, Krakow, Florence, Seville, and other cities fashioned the piazzas, plazas, and market squares that provided centerpieces for art, literature, music, and architecture. In the golden age of Dutch culture of the seventeenth century, Amsterdam, Leiden, Utrecht, and other cities turned their public places over to the play of children so that their behavior could be scrutinized “in light of their incipient citizenship in the commonwealth.”15 By the eighteenth century and the Age of Enlightenment, a newfound philosophy of cosmopolitanism—combining consumerism, public education, eclectic architecture, religious tolerance, and democracy—formed multiple centers of civic, religious, and commercial activity along the Royal Mile in Edinburgh, La Rambla in Barcelona, and the Champs Elysees in Paris. In the nineteenth century, London’s Great Exhibition of 1851, held in Hyde Park’s Crystal Palace, laid out the cornucopia of consumer goods that could be produced by art and industry— introducing a new form to business districts—the department store.16

 Americans joined the progression of city history late, but it did not take long for them to develop thriving agoras in the business districts of Chicago, Philadelphia, New York, and San Francisco, as well as along the main streets of hundreds

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of other communities. America’s business districts prospered and expanded, not only in terrain, physical height, and architectural exuberance, but also in the consciousness of millions of people who experienced firsthand the excitement and beauty of city life.17 Listen to anyone who lived or worked in a big city in the first half of the American century and they will grow excitedly nostalgic when recalling the exciting department stores, offices, restaurants, theaters, and street life that existed at the time. New York’s Times Square, for instance, was a central gathering point for liveliness and culture, the location of an entertainment extravaganza and an assortment of gaudy signage. In the smallest of towns, Main Street was the heart of the community, a synonym for the soul of American life and the focus of countless books, plays, and movies. The good times were short-lived. Paradoxically, it was when America’s empire reached an apotheosis—its cities figuratively and literally collapsed in a tornado of technological and sociological events. From the 1950s onward, the trinity of modern existence—cars, highways, and single-family houses— propelled people and businesses away from many cities. One business district after another was left to wallow in poverty, crime, and neglect. From New York’s Times Square to Seattle’s Pioneer Square there appeared a jumble of seedy smut shops, dilapidated buildings, forlorn streets, and an eclectic assortment of n’er-do-wells lingering on dark street corners. City leaders tried to thwart the decline with urban renewal projects and social service endeavors, but to little avail. By the 1970s, shopping centers and strip malls located in distant fields and accessible only by cars dominated the physical and cultural landscape. The city places that had once been exciting and inviting were seemingly transformed overnight into an anachronism in many minds. But all was not lost. Optimism abides in the lessons of history—cities and city places tend to rise, fall, and rise again. Like the ancient Greek agora, the Roman Forum, or the European market square, the possibility has always existed that America’s main streets and central business districts might live to see a better day. And perhaps that day is coming closer. BIDs and an assortment of other economic development initiatives symbolize a newfound interest in the special locales within cities. The message of the BID phenomena is that businesses, consumers, and tourists can be persuaded to rediscover why people of many creeds and nationalities have tended throughout human history to gather in close confines in one way or another. The expectation is that the places within cities can be revitalized to arrive at what Malcolm Gladwell has called the tipping point, that is, when the value of an old idea is recognized and transformed into a new fad.18

 The challenge for BIDs is how to help make the renewal of cities a reality, to tip them into prosperous modern agoras. The key word is “help” because no

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one organization or program will ever hope to be the sole catalyst for the revitalization of complex civic spaces. A collective endeavor is required involving a mixture of public, private, and nonprofit initiatives. Along with programs and public administration, shifts in the values and opinions that guide society are essential. The American dream may have to become less about large cars, expanding concrete, single-family dwellings, super-sized stores, and consumer democracy. Simultaneously, it may have to become more about pedestrian activities, dense residential districts, small shops, and civicminded projects.19 From the perspective of BIDs, there are some heartening developments. The exteriors of suburban shopping malls are increasingly viewed as uninviting eyesores with potentially unsafe parking lots.20 The insides of malls are equally dismal—more boring than exciting—if you have been to one of them you have been to them all. Whether frightened or jaded, consumers are spending less time in malls and the number of trips has declined.21 The amount of money spent in malls is also decreasing and there is an emerging impression that malls have lost their allure.22 In fact, some 300 malls around the country have been shutdown since the 1990s, and experts predict that of the remaining 2,000 malls nearly 400 may be on their way to extinction.23 Things are so bad for a few struggling strip malls and office complexes that they have been attracted to the BID concept and created self-assessment districts to further their commercial potential. In tandem with mall malaise, there is a weariness with senseless sprawl and endless commuting on gridlocked roads not only to work but also to merely buy a loaf of bread. Bowling alone is the phrase coined by Robert D. Putnam as a metaphor for the depressing isolation of a commuter society built around forlorn highways and detached single-family housing.24 It has become commonplace for suburban lifestyles to be made light of in literature, photography, film, and music. Malls and cul-de-sacs are more uncool than cool in many minds. In the same vein, there are a host of skillful gadflies and professional screeds who spend all of their waking moments ranting and rallying against the perceived hideousness of the American landscape—repetitious commercial strips, housing with garages for front doors, tacky billboards, polluted waters, and seemingly endless swaths of dull asphalt. One book from this genre, Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream, has predicated that the nation’s ecology, social fabric, and economic potential will eventually be destroyed if the pace of growth in the hinterlands does not slow considerably.25 In the context of dissatisfaction with suburban life, cities look better all the time. People are discovering that they like the variety and spirit of community provided by city life. Individuals from all walks of life are becoming more inclined to live near their jobs so they can walk to work and others have found shopping in a colorful downtown more interesting than roaming an

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antiseptic warehouse in a paved field. In one city after another, traditional downtown neighborhoods have been gentrified and old waterfronts reclaimed for public uses. A rising tide of immigrants has created a new workforce and a willingness to invest in start-up enterprises in central business districts. Tourists from around the world increasingly make city centers their favorite destinations to traipse about and photograph. Historic districts have multiplied, with well over 1,200 in existence, and many more in the works. To keep them up-to-date, real estate firms, such as the Rouse Company, have developed retail and mixed-use urban marketplaces, including Faneuil Hall Marketplace in Boston, South Street Seaport in New York, the Gallery at Market East in Philadelphia, Harborplace in Baltimore, Bayside Marketplace in Miami, Westlake Center in Seattle, and Pioneer Place in Portland. Under the banner of New Urbanism, cities such as Atlanta and Chicago are developing mini-towns, replete with wide sidewalks, ample street parking, neighborhood schools, and attractive loft residences above interesting retail stores. The level of commitment to cities is increasing and optimism is on the rise, yet problems persist. Many cities are still struggling, to say the least. Storefront windows are often shuttered with plywood instead of filled with sale displays. Updated Victorian lamps merely shine a bright light on extended spaces of emptiness. Criminal activity, racial segregation, and a crumbling infrastructure remain stubborn stumbling blocks. James Howard Kunstler, the author of The City in Mind: Notes on the Urban Condition, observes that the center of Detroit’s metropolitan doughnut has gotten larger and emptier instead of redeveloping . . . St. Louis is a virtual mummy’s tomb between its empty downtown and the West End . . . Baltimore has become a flyblown carcass . . . Buffalo looks as if it suffered a prolonged aerial bombardment . . . and, a giant vacuum cleaner seems to have sucked the populations out of Memphis, Nashville, and Little Rock.26

In Appleton, Wisconsin, a city with a BID, Kunstler found himself the sole pedestrian in the downtown one spring day because all of the commercial activity had been shifted as he put it, “to an asteroid belt of highway strips and architectural garbage five miles outside town.”27 Kunstler engages in hyperbole, perhaps, but nonetheless the point is made, there is a mere glimmer of progress in the renewal of communities of all sizes and shapes throughout the nation. One predicament for city places is that the nation’s largest retailers have not yet fully turned toward city places. It is rare for Wal-Mart to be located anywhere near a BID or a city center (although the mavens of Bentonville, Arkansas, have promised that more stores will be located in cities). It has thus far been the exception rather than the rule for big box stores—such as Best Buy, Home Depot, Ikea—to open in the close confines of central business districts.28

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If anything, the message of the retail giants is that the best way to make huge profits is to locate as far away from everything as possible. The wisdom of this strategy is in the numbers. Wal-Mart tops the list of all Fortune 500 companies with billions in revenues, its sales far surpass that of any nearby central business district, and its competitive power often puts downtown businesses out of business, not the other way around.29 Consumers likewise understand where their self-interest is best maximized. Given the choice between the fantastic array of products and cheap prices in supersized stores and the poor selection of products and expensive prices found in many downtown stores, smart consumers desire the former. Experienced shoppers know downtown stores are often unkempt and under stocked, while the distant Wal-Mart is usually clean and well-maintained. In most downtowns, there are few grocery stores, thereby constraining the capability of people to live downtown. Even eating in a central city is problematic because there is often no where to park. But then, many people have no interest in walking downtown or anywhere else for that matter, especially if the walking is in extreme cold or heat, in rain or snow. A sizable proportion of the American population wishes to drive to where they shop and to park as close to the front door as possible. An op-ed in the Minneapolis Tribune by former Minnesota State Senator Frederic W. Knaak put it this way: The economic success of this region (Twin Cities) is not in spite of sprawl, but to a remarkable degree because of sprawl. What makes the American economy, and this region in particular, thrive is our collective mobility that is the result of our road grid and lower density.30

In a culture fixated on movement, city places are essentially forlorn islands in a landscape of capriciousness. In Discovering the Vernacular Landscape J. B. Jackson writes that America is a country “where land and buildings are increasingly thought of in speculative terms, where families move on the average every five years, where whatever is old is obsolete, and whatever is obsolete is discarded.”31 In a Country of Exiles: The Destruction of Place in American Life, William R. Leach observes that the country “emerges more than ever as a transparency without a history and as a land of free-floating individuals without strong loyalties who view life as a theater of never-ending options.”32 David Brooks notes in On Paradise Drive: How We Live Now (and Always Have) in the Future Tense that where people reside is no longer a destination, but merely “a dot on the flowing plane of multidirectional movement.”33 Because nearly half the country is on the move at any point in time, it is difficult for BIDs or any other organization to build an enduring commitment to the improvement of any city place for any significant period of time. The bottom line is that customs and habits have not met up with the rhetoric of downtown revitalization. Business leaders are increasingly

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involved with placed-based city projects, there is much contemplation in the corridors of universities about economic development programs, and governments are becoming more engaged with inner cities through various policy initiatives, but it would be presumptuous to pronounce that America’s towns and cities have regained the level of vibrancy they had before everyone jumped in their cars and left for the countryside. In most places, the revitalization process is far away from the promise of revitalization.

 As BIDs go about the tough business of revitalizing and shaping city places it is important to understand what the BID phenomenon is all about. This is true for scholars and journalists who study and write about cities, for policymakers and policy advocates who work hard to shape city places for the better, and for anyone who believes cities should be symbols of inspiration rather than shrines to despair. There is much to study: • • • • • • • • •

Why have BIDs become a key device for revitalizing cities? What theory guides their operation? How are they organized and financed? Who is governing and managing them? Where can they be found? How are they shaping public places? What problems do they confront? How do we know whether they are successful or not? What does the future hold for them?

This book provides answers to these questions using both primary and secondary sources. Information has been gleaned from surveys of BID managers, interviews with those knowledgeable about BIDs, a review of BID web sites, and an examination of anything and everything that has been written about them in the past two decades. Through systematically organizing the extant information, the aim is to provide an unbiased description of BIDs that details key characteristics and places them in historical context and perspective. In doing so, the BID movement is used as a metaphor for thinking about how contemporary cities are revitalized. The assessment of BIDs mirrors what people think is appealing and worthwhile about cities. The specific ways BIDs affect particular places is indicative of the varied ways that cities may be transformed generally. The fact that BID activities are pertinent to so many fields of academic interest— architecture, business management, city planning, civil engineering, criminal justice, economics, history, law, political science, public administration, and

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sociology—says much about the complex nature of contemporary city development. It follows that the complex economic and social problems confronting BIDs are similarly faced by cities using something other than BIDs to revitalize their downtowns. The caricatures of BIDs—that they are too consumption-orientated, undemocratic, and unaccountable—are likewise criticisms of city administration in many policy areas. In the end, to know about the business of improvement districts is to appreciate how cities are changing yet remaining the same.

TWO

Historical Connections

BIDs EMULATE THE IDEALS of the ancient Greek agora—to produce thriv-

ing civic places that boast a diversity of uses and that allow for collective and individual experiences to flourish. Of course there were no BIDs in antiquity, or for that matter in the United States, until recently. The majority of BIDs first appeared after 1990. The factors leading to their emergence are multifaceted, varying from one place to another, but generally BIDs have arisen out of the unique evolution of cities on the North American continent and from the pragmatic approach to local governance that characterizes American democracy.

 BIDs were definitely not in the minds of James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin, and the other Founding Fathers. If the framers could have peered into the future, they might have scratched their powdered wigs over the financing scheme associated with BIDs, yet they would surely have gone along with the goal of making the commercial success of city places a vital element of democratic life. After all, private guilds had been the leading developers of many European cities and the pursuit of self-interest was expected to be the guiding principle of the American system. Living in the Age of Enlightenment, the city was viewed as a “sociocultural center, designed for spending time and money on enjoyments.”1 Civic humanism was expected to flourish in “the face to face environment of the tavern, coffee house, or exchange, in the company of companions drawn from different walks of life—gentry, clergy, soldiers, merchants.”2 This is not to declare that everyone had a charitable view of cities. Following the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who said men were “not meant to be crowded together in ant hills,” Thomas Jefferson similarly 15

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expressed displeasure with city life.3 Although Jefferson lived for many years in Paris, and was a student of Greek society, he wrote: “I view great cities as pestilential to the morals, the health and the liberties of man.”4 Another time Jefferson remarked: “The mobs of great cities add just so much to the support of pure government as sores do to the strength of the human body.”5 Jefferson preferred a rural existence, where the life of the mind could commune with nature. One could say he is the father of suburbia. Nonetheless, Jefferson concurred with his more city-minded compatriots in a preference for local selfgovernment, along with a rejection of mercantilism and its emphasis on centralized governmental regulation of trade and commerce. For Jefferson and other thinkers of the time, the accent was on the laissez-faire capitalism of Adam Smith and the belief that the invisible hand of the marketplace was the most economically propitious course of action for cities, just as it was for nations and states.6 In the economic climate of the 1700s, it was easy to trust the invisible hand in cities because most large places—Boston, Baltimore, Charleston, Philadelphia, and New York—were seemingly assured of their status as growing centers of trade and civic activity. Otherwise, the country was sparsely populated along the east coast with towns of a few hundred people whose nascent public squares provided the basic goods and services required by those living and working on farms and plantations in the rural countryside.7 Problems with human and animal waste on the streets were neglected, for instance, because public works had not yet become an obsession of cities.8 The main purpose of the colonial city was to be “a community of private money-makers and the first purpose of the citizen was the private search for wealth.”9 The early American city was a pedestrian city focused on market activities.10 There was a level of activity that today’s BID managers could only dream to replicate. Boston, with 16,000 people, had over 500 separate shops, and nearby Salem, with half the population of Boston, had nearly 200 stores.11 In Philadelphia, a few square blocks of the city center contained five colonial government offices, two doctors, thirteen hatters, eleven innkeepers, thirteen tavern keepers, ten bakers, twenty-nine shop keepers, ten carpenters, two silversmiths, two butchers, two bookbinders, fifteen shoemakers, eleven watchman, one watchmaker, printer, and a goat keeper.12 In the context of a burgeoning consumer society, the rally cry of the American Revolution was no taxation without representation, which was fostered by human avarice and the unwillingness to pay more for the importation and consumption of British goods, such as luxury paper and silver teapots. The first Americans joined together in city-based, nongovernmental associations and citizen militias to boycott British products, dump tea into Boston Harbor, and engage in violent battles with the King’s army. The pur-

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suit of American independence originated in town meetings where people came to complain about the costs of imported goods, led as much by merchants as by lawyers and politicians. A major objective was to make sure that colonial cities would thrive as marketplaces without the burden of foreign taxation and limits on trade with other nations. After the Revolutionary War, much study and debate went into the administrative structures established at the federal and state levels. By comparison, local governance was left to progress without clear guidance. The U.S. Constitution makes no mention of cities, and the Federalist Papers are silent with regard to the worth of local governmental structures.13 The thinking was that local administrations should be allowed to evolve in many different directions within a national framework built on individual freedom and limited government. This trial and error philosophy has democratic utility because when everything is an experiment—which presumes that nothing is ever known reliably enough to make it a conclusive basis for action—the judgment that some perceivers of a situation are right and others are wrong never has to be made. Action under conditions of disagreement thus become possible, since even parties in contention can collaborate in further experiment.14

In this context, BIDs exist today because there is little in the American democratic tradition to prohibit the development of innovative administrative devices within localities. A willingness to experiment with alternative forms of local public administration and community association helped kindle the spirit of American culture. When Alexis de Tocqueville traveled from France to the United States in 1831 and 1832 to appraise the operation of the nation’s new democracy, he observed: “In no country in the world has the principle of association been more successfully used, or applied to a greater multitude of objects, than in America.”15 Local government itself, he noted, was merely an association “created by law instead of by social agreement.”16 Although BIDs were not present when de Tocqueville journeyed, he nearly anticipates their emergence when he found in one place after another the invention of an association was the first step to resolving almost every local problem, whether it was to do with public safety, commerce, industry, morality, or religion.17 By freely-creating associations, Americans mirrored English tradition. Great Britain had a host of exclusive clubs and societies—from freemasons to occupational guilds to royal academies—and so it should come as no surprise that Americans, whose government is a byproduct of English mores, were likewise entranced by the need to join groups. When people cannot get what they want by individual effort, the easiest recourse is to put together an organization that uses joint means (money, staffing, etc.) to accomplish individual aims.18 BIDs, like many other political interest groups, “evoke the possibilities

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of collective action, but in way that retains social (as opposed to legal/bureaucratic or market) models of mediation among people, through language, norms, shared purposes, and agreements.”19 Historically, BIDs are the offspring of an enduring affinity for self-promoting organizations, one among many experiments with public administration designed to advance self-interested objectives in a manner that enhances the greater public interest. The character of BIDs is the nation’s character— an emphasis on civic humanism, a devotion to consumer markets, a belief in administrative entrepreneurialism, and an inclination to associate as the means to formulate and implement innovative local solutions to solve public problems.

 Many present-day BIDs operate in localities that first became prominent, numerous, and teaming in the 1800s as the country became a sought after destination for freedom-seeking people from all walks of life and from all over the world. The nation expanded from a few cities with over 50,000 persons in 1810 to more than one hundred cities in 1910.20 During this period, Milwaukee grew from 20,061 to 373,857 residents, St. Louis swelled from a population of 77,000 to over 687,000 (larger then its 2000 population of approximately 348,000 residents), and Los Angeles and Minneapolis each expanded from small villages into big cities.21 Most dramatically, New York City’s population increased from one-half million to nearly five million, after a surge between 1900 and 1910 of well over one million people, the largest boom it would ever see in any decade. What attracted people in such numbers? Religious persecution and ethnic conflict in Europe spurred immigration, but, more than anything, immigrants and rural migrants were drawn to the new jobs in manufacturing and commerce that coalesced in existing and new cities. People found out about these jobs from state and local governments that promoted their cities and towns in every venue possible. Chicago’s city officials, for instance, placed advertisements in European newspapers boasting of the money to be made in real estate and industry along side Lake Michigan.22 Private corporations likewise engaged in major advertising campaigns in Europe and in the rural south to attract workers to cities. Of note, Andrew Carnegie was a forceful proponent of immigration and of the technologies that made moving possible—more shipping lines over the ocean, improved rail tracks on the continent, and expanding highways and trolley systems within cities. It was during the age of rapid population growth that the concept of a downtown central business district took hold. The influx of people to cities required accessible places for everyone to work and live, as well as to social-

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ize, gather for holidays, and assemble for civic events. Newcomers were not only workers but also consumers, and they certainly needed places to purchase goods and services. Originally, the term “downtown” referred to the business district in lower Manhattan that was “down” from the residences in the “upper” part of the city. By the turn of the twentieth century the terminology had spread to business districts in many other cities, even if the district was east or west of residential areas.23 In the loosely formulated American lexicon, downtown was not so much a fixed definition or geographical designation, rather it was a concept that people had in mind when they thought about a collection of residences, taverns, offices, government buildings, houses of worship, cemeteries, statues, parks, and retail stores. In the second half of the nineteenth century, the department store became the heart of downtown—best exemplified by Marshall Field’s in Chicago, Macy’s in New York, and Wanamaker’s in Philadelphia. The typical department store took up an entire city block and sold staples, ready-made clothing, books, knickknacks, notions, and even exotic pets.24 To entice people to come in, window displays were crafted as theatrical productions and the main floors were like stage sets, often including live orchestras to provide background music for shopping. Newspaper ads, banners, huge signs, and the sponsorship of public events drove the public’s desire for consumer goods. John Wanamaker, the department store magnate, repeated one phrase over and over to anyone who would listen: “The time to advertise is all the time.”25 Even as new stores and increased marketing made downtown life appear exciting and tantalizing, people and businesses used mass transportation systems to move away from central places, thereby beginning the process of decentralization that would shape America’s cities for decades to come. Families moved because of overcrowding, to take advantages of the cheap space around cities in which to build housing, and to escape the pollution, noise, and other negative externalities of cities growing too fast for their own good. Retailers followed their clientele to create multiple business districts (or downtowns) within cities. Simultaneously, groups arriving from Italy, Ireland, Poland, and other countries organized themselves into separate ethnic enclaves shaped by their distinct language, food, religion, and habits (districts that continue to exist to this day, many of which are the responsibility of BIDs). Transportation and industry also created new cities. Denver, Omaha, Kansas City, and a host of additional small communities in the Midwest and West grew up along side railroad tracks and at junctures where agricultural commodities and factory products were processed and shipped. Company towns were established, distinctly organized around an industry and transportation node, such as the steal mills in Allentown, Pennsylvania and the textile mills in Lowell, Massachusetts. Most of these new communities followed the cartographic model of the nation by organizing streets in a grid pattern (which permitted the easy selling of land parcels). The center of town

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was a compact series of avenues and cross streets comprised of shops, offices, and entertainment venues.26 Main Street was usually the main drag—the new downtown. The improvement of downtowns—new streets, sidewalks, water systems, and sewers—was largely financed by mandatory special assessments on the properties abutting the improvements. The legal principle was that those who benefited from local improvements should pay additional taxes in proportion to their ability to pay. Special assessments minimized the unfair redistributive effects of general funding and made sure that property owners remained interested in the area around them, because they were responsible for the funding. In a historical examination of property taxation, Robin L. Einhorn, in her book Property Rules: Political Economy in Chicago, 1833–1872, found a consensus for the “principle that those who paid, those who owned ‘chargeable real estate,’ should also control services in which they were ‘interested,’ and control them in proportion to the value of the ‘interested property’ they owned.”27 This system worked well enough in Chicago, Cleveland, and other up-and-coming cites, yet it was abandoned when politically-connected property owners shifted their support to elected officials who proclaimed it was fairer to distribute the burden of public works improvements to the city as a whole through a general property tax system. Today’s BIDs pick up where cities left off in the nineteenth century. The theory and practice of the special assessment system for BIDs is nearly identical to the tax system used to fund public improvements in the formative years of American cities. Many BIDs operate within the original business districts and ethnic enclaves of cities that first emerged when the nation emerged. The architecture and social history of America’s early cities is a primary focus of the contemporary historical preservation movement, which many BIDs promote endlessly. The emphasis on marketing and public relations among BIDs is in keeping with the advertising mania first popularized by the nation’s first department stores. There is even a Victorian sensibility in the character of BIDs, such as an obsession with aesthetics and a quest to eliminate the contemptible aspects of city life.

 Most BIDs are infatuated with the visual attractiveness of city places. This attention to aesthetics revisits the City Beautiful and a grand effort initiated in the late 1800s to shape the development of America’s up-and-coming communities. The City Beautiful was a social movement that involved the use of neoclassical architecture, civil engineering, social planning, and civicminded volunteerism to herald the arrival of America’s cities in world history and to ameliorate the mundane problems plaguing communities that had grown too fast for their own good.

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Glaring inconsistencies were abundant in cities at the turn of the twentieth century.28 Streets were crowded with both shoppers and workers, yet they were also replete with petty criminals and vagrants. There were gilded mansions and theaters of unequaled architectural splendor, yet there were also innumerable tenements with unabashed squalor and hopelessness. Life was easier because of electricity and other inventions, yet inferior sanitation systems and poor public health practices led to epidemics of tuberculosis, cholera, and other diseases. New streets and trolley lines appeared, yet few parks or good sidewalks existed. Municipal administrators managed to build courthouses and provide police and fire services, yet almost every city government was plagued by corruption, patronage, and a generally unprofessional mode of conduct. Many people looked askance at these bourgeoning cities, including muckraking novelists such as Frank Norris and Jacob Riis and social reformers such as Jane Addams and Robert de Forest, and they resolved that there must be ways to make cities better.29 In the Progressive Era, at the turn of the twentieth century, reforms were instigated to eliminate public sector corruption through the city manager form of government, to improve housing conditions through public works projects, to educate children through public schools, to rectify hygienic problems through public health campaigns, and to bring about greater civic pride through beautification projects.30 As part of this latter effort, a major movement to make cities more visually attractive was adopted by city boosters. Drawing on utopian idealism made popular by such books as Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward, the supposition was that aesthetics could awaken a healthy sense of community among city dwellers, which in turn would inspire people to make their city a superior place to live.31 This idea underscored Frederick Law Olmsted’s exquisitely landscaped Central Park in New York City, which opened in 1859 and was quickly emulated in other cities.32 The more notable champions of downtown beautification were local women’s clubs, such as the General Federation of Women’s Clubs, established in 1890. Assuming a downtown housekeeping role, women sought to shape both the moral character and aesthetic sensibility of communities.33 Clean-up campaigns were organized by women and included volunteers filling potholes in the streets. The clubs advocated the placement of flower boxes in the windows of downtown office buildings, the policing of recreation areas to ensure that young people were acting responsibly, and the promotion of wide sidewalks in downtowns. In public forums and on speaking tours, city officials, architects, and business leaders were pushed by women’s groups to commit to cleanliness and to hold events emphasizing the importance of civic beautification. The event that truly heralded the City Beautiful was the Great Columbian Exposition held in Chicago in 1893. The mission of the exposition was to spotlight American ingenuity, illustrate the latest thinking in modern living, and

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prescribe a model for the design of cities. The director of construction for the exposition was Daniel H. Burnham, an architect and city planner. Burnham believed that beauty was the ultimate aim of urban design and that “order, system, and reserve” were the essential elements of city life.34 In the pursuit of municipal splendor, his goal was to place the United States in the pantheon of great powers through replicating the architecture of ancient Greece and Rome and the fashionable centers of Venice, Paris, Edinburgh, and other European cities. The Columbian Exposition was the fullest expression of Burnham’s value system. Put together by the leading architects of the time, such as Charles McKim and Louis Sullivan, the exposition was known as the “White City” because everything was painted bright white, including all of the uniformly constructed neoclassical buildings throughout the complex. At the center of the exposition was a resplendently landscaped main court designed by Frederick Law Olmsted that contained an expanse of green space surrounded by water and an array of Beaux-Arts structures. The entire site was spotlessly clean, had no poverty or crime, and used state-of-the-art sanitation and transportation systems. Standing in sharp contrast to the disorderly cities of the period, the twenty-seven million visitors to the exposition—nearly half of the American population at the time—carried back to their communities the White City as a model for city planning and a means to develop a sense of importance for where they lived. In the design of cities, history was the starting point for the City Beautiful. Many of the architects and artists associated with the City Beautiful studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, which led them to prefer architecture in the Greek and Roman tradition. Under the City Beautiful motif, neoclassical architecture was reflected in New York City’s municipal building, the Boston Public Library, and the St. Louis Art Museum. It was ensconced in the grand railroad stations of the era, including Union Station in Kansas City and Pennsylvania Station in New York. It was represented in almost exact replicas of the Greek Parthenon assembled in the parks of Nashville and Denver. It was spread throughout the county in local banks, post offices, and hospitals whose entryways contained Doric, Ionic, or Corinthian columns. The presence of Greek columns, elaborate friezes, iron pediments, golden domes, and landscaped esplanades were expected to instill such a high level of civic-mindedness in communities that all other social and economic problems would have to be resolved as matter of collective selfesteem. In the pursuit of civic pride, public and private funds flowed to parks, museums, libraries, fountains, boulevards, and public art to enliven business districts and streetscapes. In a fantastical revisiting of the environs of the Greek agora and Roman forum, it was common to locate a civic center downtown, usually including city hall, a public library, and an auditorium placed

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around a square or landscaped mall. Such developments took place in Cleveland, Dallas, St. Louis, Seattle, and on a lesser scale in hundreds of small towns around the country. In state capitals, such as Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and Providence, Rhode Island, neoclassical domed structures were built in the center of uniformly laid out parks and gardens, similar to the palace gardens found in Paris and Madrid. In Washington, D.C., Daniel H. Burnham and Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., connected the nation’s capital to the Lincoln Memorial through a landscaped open-air mall. In Kansas City, the Paseo was a long boulevard running through the city that was replete with elegant fountains, divided by distinctive parks, and consummated at its end point with a neoclassical Scottish mason lodge protected by two enormous statues of Egyptian lions. To herald its style, Kansas City assumed the moniker “City of Fountains.” In tandem with grand designs, the City Beautiful entailed a multitude of ordinary improvements to significantly improve the larger picture. Utility wires were placed underground. Streets were paved. Billboards were limited by regulations. Smoke abatement rules were imposed to improve vistas. Graceful street furniture was added to parks and streets. Elegant light fixtures replaced ugly utility poles. Small neighborhood parks were developed alongside boulevards and other roadways. Pedestrian pathways were designed to subtly blend trees into the man-made environment. Even waste disposal plants were housed in gracefully designed edifices.35 Colonel George W. Waring Jr., appointed the street-cleaning commissioner of New York City in 1895, developed the concept of modern refuse collection in the midst of the beautification craze. After he installed the first municipal sewer system in Memphis in 1879, he moved to New York and devised the idea of disposing garbage, rubbish, and ashes in separate receptacles. He oversaw the construction of the first municipal recycling plant to separate and resell salvageable materials. He established a Juvenile Street Cleaning League whose youthful members sought to inspire the community to keep the streets clean. He hired a corps of street sweepers to battle dirt and grime. The 2,000 sweepers under the Colonel’s command were known as the “white wings” because of their sparkling white uniforms, which were supposed to give them the status of nurses and doctors and to make them appear as clean as the city they were continually cleaning.36 To bring the City Beautiful to fruition, an altered political and administrative structure was required that brought together the public and private spheres of influence. Creative state legislation was enacted to strengthen the eminent domain powers of local governments. Innovative administrative agencies (such as park boards and municipal improvement commissions) were established to overcome the power of political machines. Novel grants of power were given to private entities to build railroad stations and other semipublic buildings. New cooperative associations were put together to

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share ideas and promote business districts, such as New York’s Fifth Avenue Association, which was established in 1902 to persuade city officials to widen streets, upgrade sidewalks, and remove riffraff from around stores.37 The energy of the City Beautiful lasted a couple of decades, yet the movement’s purposes and methods left an imprint of relevance for BIDs today. First, the idea that perception matters—that the way things look will affect their use and form an overall impression among citizens—has become an obsession for BIDs, as well as for an ever expanding collection of historical preservation agencies and community development groups. Second, the passage of special state legislation permitting the formation of unique publicprivate partnerships during the City Beautiful is akin to the process leading to the creation of BIDs and other contemporary quasi-government development corporations. Third, the belief during the City Beautiful that localities should take advantage of the lack of administrative definition in American democracy for the purpose of city improvement is essentially the same rationale for establishing BIDs. Fourth, the use of voluntary self-help groups and politically-independent maintenance associations to make physical enhancements within municipalities is similar to the autonomous organization of BIDs. Lastly, the day-to-day methods of the City Beautiful have been embraced by BIDs, such as the uniformed street sweepers employed by BIDs, which duplicate almost exactly Colonel Waring’s White Wing army.

 For all of the acclaim, the City Beautiful was short-lived. The physical symbol was the accidental fire that destroyed Chicago’s White City in 1894. Conceptually, the enthusiasm for grand aims of the City Beautiful was eroded by the emergence of an utilitarian mindset, the anti-European emotions engendered after World War I, and the turn toward consumerism as the focus of American society. The architect Cass Gilbert, who had designed the neoclassical U.S. Supreme Court building in accordance with the City Beautiful in 1905, changed his mind in 1909 and belittled beautification schemes at the annual meeting of the American Institute of Architects. Gilbert said: “Let us have the city useful, the city practical, the city livable, the city sensible, the city anything but the city beautiful.”38 The line of reasoning was that the City Beautiful was too much about frills, superficial details, empty cosmetics, and pink ribbons on lampposts.39 This lament was subsequently joined by the opinion that the City Beautiful catered to the tastes of the wealthy and required huge sums of public monies for projects that did not make enough difference in the lives of average citizens. The City Beautiful lost ground to a confluence of democratic and corporate aims: building no-frills office buildings wherein an increasingly bureaucratic society could work efficiently;

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devising orderly zoning plans that separated residences from the hubbub of commerce and the noise and pollution of manufacturing; establishing building codes that ensured the safety of structures and the protection of workers; and creating entertainment venues, such as movie palaces, that appealed to the mass public.40 After World War I, the nation turned its back on Europe and neoclassical design. A pervasive nativism seared American culture because of a fear among labor unions of the continued importation of cheap labor and an unease among business leaders that immigrants were fostering collectivist ideologies. With the passage of the Immigration Restriction Act of 1924, extremely low immigrant quotas were established, which effectively put an end to the explosive growth of cities (rural migration took up only part of the slack).41 At the same time, the burning passion for beautification projects emulating the ancients was largely extinguished. After the horrors of World War I and the failure of the League of Nations, mimicking the past glories of Western civilization seemed out of place, if not un-American. In her 1943 novel, The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand described the sentiment between the wars with her fictional architect Howard Roark’s scornful statement that the City Beautiful was about “who could steal best from the oldest source and from the most sources at once. . . . [I]t spread before the eyes of a new country every structural crime ever committed in all the old ones.”42 American cities experienced a range of cultural and physical ups and downs between the two world wars. The 1920 census revealed that the population majority had shifted from rural to urban areas, which led cities to assume a leading role in American culture. In the urbanized Jazz Age of the 1920s, Irving Berlin composed lively background music during a period when speakeasies and burlesque houses provided fun for denizens in zoot suits and flapper dresses. Department stores such as Bloomingdale’s, in New York, Marshall Field’s, in Chicago, Filene’s, in Boston, and Famous Barr, in St. Louis came into their own. The number of drug stores grew from twenty-five in 1900 to over 3,000 in 1927. There were over 1,000 new theaters in the country displaying a new consumer product—Hollywood films. Retailers modernized their storefronts to both increase sales and better advertise their wares. To facilitate the buying of goods and services, the country was awash with various forms of credit. A new industry of marketing professionals employed public opinion surveys and econometrics to spotlight trends, bolster sales income, and guide investments. One 1927 study from the Harvard Business School concluded that there may be “limits to the consumption of particular products,” but “no theoretical limit to general consumption possibilities.”43 But just as things were looking up, the Great Depression tarnished the portrait of a consumer paradise. Unemployment and poverty ravaged small and large cities. Bygone efforts to foster attractiveness in the fashion of the City Beautiful or any other style were vanquished by economic misfortune

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(New York’s Empire State Building was finished in 1929 and the Chrysler building in 1930, but were mostly empty). City governments lacked the resources to respond to the crisis and they turned to the federal government for assistance. During the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt, every solution became a federal government solution—national ownership, national financing, and national planning. Through FDR’s New Deal, the Public Works Administration constructed hundreds of schools, courts, bridges, power plants, and sewage treatment facilities, although mostly in a matter-of-fact manner intended to generate public jobs and solve immediate economic problems. Despite the economic downturn, bureaucratically-minded chain stores grew larger and took advantage of the economic troubles besetting independent merchants. The big chains included retailers Sears-Roebuck and F. W. Woolworth, grocers A&P and Kroger, and druggists Walgreen’s and People’s. Using the principles of organizational efficiency developed in the industrial sector, chain stores realized an economy of scale by locating similar stores in several cities. The chain stores had three advantages: 1) the purchasing of large quantities of goods allowed them to negotiate deals directly with manufacturers and eliminate the costs associated with buying from wholesalers; 2) the volume of sales gave them the financial wherewithal to hire highly-skilled managers and develop highly-mechanistic operations; and 3) the professional management of a database of large number of consumer behaviors offered them information about how to be innovative, such as through self-service isles and new product lines.44 With these advantages, chain stores soon dominated business districts. In the middle of the 1930s, they accounted for onefifth of all retail sales and 40 percent of all grocery sales in cities. F. W. Woolworth had over 2,000 stores, A&P 1,000, and J. C. Penny another 1,500. The success of chain stores was not to everyone’s liking, however. Although chain stores supplied a greater range of consumer products because they were more efficient and profitable, they also altered the balance of power in local communities by undermining the status of independent shopkeepers and small businessmen. Chain stores put competitors out of business through predatory pricing, they moved their profits from localities to distant corporate headquarters, they used facades that highlighted the store brand without concern for the existing architecture, and they relied on professional managers without any natural community ties.45 Opposition to chain stores was intense. Chain stores were called parasites and were said to be “sapping the life-blood of prosperous communities and leaving about as much in return as a traveling band of gypsies.”46 Spurred by such sentiments, over 200 anti-chain store tax bills were proposed in state legislatures around the country, including thirteen that became law. The major provision was for a tax on the number of stores created in a state. In 1935, at a time when the average profit of an individual store in a grocery

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chain was $950, Texas allowed chain stores a maximum of fifty stores within the state and imposed a $750 tax for every store over that number.47 These taxes were eventually blocked as chain stores challenged them in the courts and in the legislative arena through expensive lobbying campaigns led by the National Chain Store Association (which represented almost all of the major chain stores). Chain stores also thwarted local action by threatening to move their operations outside the taxing jurisdiction of cities (which did not happen, but was always a possibility). Whether the threat was real or not, cities could not take the chance during the Great Depression of losing any business, especially successful retailers that were helping cities to survive. In retrospect, the ups and downs between the two world wars substantially shaped city development and brought to the policy agenda many discussions that continue to this day. The chain store competition problem in downtowns has morphed into the problem of how downtown businesses can compete with Wal-Mart and shopping centers located on the outskirts of town. The argument of beauty versus utilitarianism has been transformed into an impassioned dispute about how to balance aesthetics and practicality in architecture and service delivery. The quandary about whether immigration contributes to or inhibits the progress of cities has shifted from European immigrants to Asian and South American immigrants. The propriety of using special taxes to punish chains stores has moved to a dispute over the wisdom of using special assessments, adopted voluntarily, to create BIDs and improve city places.

 Present-day BIDs contend with a pessimist view of cities that arose with prominence in the 1930s. In 1932, Frank Lloyd Wright’s The Disappearing City proclaimed the modern city had “grown so far out of human scale by way of commercial exploitation of the herd instinct that the human being as a unit is utterly lost.”48 Recalling Thomas Jefferson’s views and fully rejecting the City Beautiful, Wright declared the city was a “tumor grown malignant” and a “menace to the future of humanity.”49 He wanted to be rid of it and to use the automobile to scatter America’s population out “upon the whole surface of the nation.”50 Wright’s peculiar solution was something he called “Broadacre City” involving the use of America’s great expanse to allow families to live in quiet isolation on one acre of land. In each abode, with its recliners and toaster ovens, television would provide what public places had once provided: access to symphonies, operas, movies, lectures, and other forms of entertainment. In this self-contained utopia, everyone would be connected to each other by telephone and a massive highway system, which would connect to a centrally-located, but small district of schools, chain stores, and churches. Broadacre City was intentionally placeless, “nowhere, yet everywhere.”51

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Lewis Mumford, writing as a public screed, was also critical of cities. He saw them as the manifestations of a dehumanizing mechanization. In The Culture of Cities, Mumford argued that city residents were living in “a state bordering on the pathological” because they were “removed from the nature that is outside them and no less remote from the nature within.”52 He called the American city “the standardization of ugliness.”53 Less drastic than Wright, Mumford advocated moving city residents to “garden cities” on the periphery of metropolitan areas, modeled along the lines of Letchworth outside London. He wanted people to live with nature, but remain connected to the city for work and entertainment. Mumford especially liked the developments that had occurred in Forest Hills, Queens, in New York, and in Radburn, New Jersey. Both Forest Hills and Radburn were model neighborhoods with pedestrian paths, undulated roadways, and unique landscaping—essentially suburban agoras. Each was funded by mandatory assessments and managed by an association that maintained the areas, set construction standards, and determined who could and could not move in—the forerunner of gated communities.54 At the 1939 World’s Fair in New York, the wonder of film placed before the nation the destitution of cities and the splendor of the suburban ideal. Following the fair’s theme, “The World of Tomorrow,” The City used a documentary style to spotlight a future outside cities. Narrated by Lewis Mumford, the film portrayed central cities as polluted behemoths with crowded streets and harried denizens, while the places outside cities were depicted as idyllic enclaves with rolling parkways, pleasant office parks, and virile boys (all Caucasian) playing baseball in spacious greenery. Complete with Aaron Copland’s brooding music for cities and bucolic refrains for the suburbs, The City was seen by thousands of people searching for their destiny at the World’s Fair. It just so happened this was the same year The Wizard of Oz was released; the first color motion picture depicted Emerald City as multihued and fascinating, yet replete with machinations and fake rewards. Dorothy left Oz and returned to her true home in the country. The critique of cities and the push toward the places outside cities did not go unnoticed by business leaders. Some prescient businesses immediately seized on the opportunity and began to construct gas stations, motels, and outdoor picture shows far from the city center and accessible only by cars. In 1937, Richard and Maurice McDonald of San Bernardino, California invented the idea of mass producing and selling fifteen-cent hamburgers to people in cars at self-service drive-up windows located along newly developed expressways. The McDonald’s business model was an immediate success. It spawned replicas such as Dunkin’ Donuts, Burger King, and Kentucky Fried Chicken.55 In the midst of nascent suburbanization, the response of downtown businesses was to create nonprofit associations designed to protect and promote downtown interests. Examples included Baltimore’s Downtown Committee,

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the Downtown Association of Milwaukee, the Downtown Property Owners Association of Oakland, the Central Business District Association of Los Angeles, and the Main Street Association of Buffalo. Supported by the voluntary contributions of member businesses, downtown associations engaged in extensive marketing campaigns on behalf of business districts, while also lobbying for financial assistance and favorable legislation from state legislatures and city councils. To supply information for this effort, new national research projects were undertaken. For example, the Urban Land Institute’s Central Business District Council began panel studies of cities in 1949 to discover ways to improve city life.56 BIDs were not established as part of the policy initiatives in the years before and after World War II, yet the path was paved for their future development. For example, the Central Atlanta Improvement Association, created in 1941, became the Central Atlanta Progress in 1967, which turned into an improvement district in 1995. The essential difference between the early merchant associations and BIDs is that merchant groups were funded by voluntary contributions while BIDs are mostly financed by governmentmandated assessments. Otherwise, BIDs remain true to their advocacy roots by continuing to fight the battle of ideas on the behalf of city places. Many BIDs implicitly seek to return cities to the place they were in the 1950s when it was easy for downtown associations to extol the enjoyment of strolling downtown.

 World War II effectively put a hold on the kinds of development called for by Frank Lloyd Wright, Lewis Mumford, and the 1939 World’s Fair. The war effort shifted attention away from consumption and home life to fighting fascism and producing military supplies. A move to the suburbs was difficult because of gas shortages, a ban on new tires, and poor roads. After the war ended, the suburban ideal did not come back up immediately because returning GIs first worked and lived in cities. Here, for one brief shining moment, the fortunes of America’s cities rose again, but this time to even greater heights as the energies of the war production effort shifted to the domestic side of life. The postwar structures arising out of both large cities and small towns were functional, yet there was a high-level of architectural inventiveness, ranging from art deco and art nouveau, to Bauhaus and the international style.57 Downtown real estate prices soared and retail sales rose exponentially. Commercial activity erupted like nothing that ever been seen before in the history of cities, with a plethora of apartment houses, department stores, offices, restaurants, theaters, and pharmacies lining the streets. In 1952, a tensquare block area in downtown Minneapolis consisted of sixty-two taverns,

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seventy-one hotels or rooming houses, thirty-five restaurants and cafés, fiftynine manufacturing firms, forty-eight wholesalers, twenty-four pawn shops, nine clothing stores, ten furniture stores, two hardware stores, six drug stores, fifteen barber shops, and five office buildings, as well as numerous hot dog stands, and government buildings.58 The antichain store legislation largely forgotten and the abandonment of cities put aside, the department store had its last fling with phenomenal success, whether it was Dayton’s in Minneapolis, Macy’s in New York, Jones’ in Kansas City, Marshall Field’s in Chicago, or Hudson’s in Detroit. Chain stores were in heaven. F. W. Woolworth had over $700 million in sales in 1954, nearly twice that of 1940. All told, chain stores accounted for $3 billion in sales in the mid-1950s.59 These stores employed millions of Americans and established the nation’s standard of living. Writing in 1959, Godfrey M. Lebhar in Chain Stores in America, 1859–1959, observed the five and ten cent store made a special contribution to American life: By making available a wide range of merchandise at popular prices, [the chain store] has stretched the consumer’s dollar to the point where it has meant more things to more people—-more good things for better living, culturally as well as materially.60

The Woolworth’s lunch counter was viewed as a “shrine” (one of the reasons for its symbolic importance to the Civil Rights Movement) and a visit to downtown was an event of great consequence, especially for children.61 Consumerism blended well with entertainment and social pursuits—colorful facades, bright lights, and grand skylines were everywhere. One could visit the top of the Foshay building on Hennepin Avenue in Minneapolis, play pinball at one of the many arcades along Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles, or go to one of several new movie theaters around Times Square in Manhattan. Local neighborhood bars were nearly as important as grocery stores. Movie houses and nightclubs were packed. Downtown was where people purchased their first television, where important parades were held, and where the quintessential downtown marketer—Santa Claus—appeared annually. The postwar idea was that personal consumption served the public interest. The best form of citizenship was to acquire as many consumer items as possible. Lizabeth Cohen notes in A Consumer’s Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America that: wherever one looked in the aftermath of [the] war, one found a vision of postwar America where the general good would be best served not by frugality or even moderation, but by individuals pursuing personal wants in a flourishing mass consumption marketplace.62

The expectation was that city life would prosper through the selling and buying of a multiplicity of goods and services, which would also bring about

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greater affluence in the nation as a whole. The civic ideals of the City Beautiful were now entirely passé. Public parks and civic statues were given short shrift in the pursuit of more retail outlets and department stores. With every day a shopping day, the consuming public made America’s vibrant business districts and bustling main streets special in the 1950s.63 Frank Sinatra tunes were in the air. People dressed up to go downtown: men wore tailored suits and ties, their hair groomed, their persona shaped by a business-like acumen; women painted their lips with new shades of lipstick, wore gloves and high heels, carried fashionable handbags, and exuded an air of comfortable formality. The fashions, the music, and the multiplicity of shops all combined to shape city places into enticing, entertaining, and energetic agoras. In large- and medium-sized cities today, most BIDs market a nostalgia for the heyday of commercialism in American cities. If only everything could be like it once was, when one could amble along in the hubbub of streets, scan the assortment of shop windows, and eat lunch at a lunch counter shoulder to shoulder with other well-dressed Americans.64 The hope among BIDs is that a yearning for an experience like the 1950s will lead tourists and residents alike to revisit downtown districts. The ultimate goal is to once again approach the epoch when, as Ray Suarez put it, the “American city looked down on the rest of America from near-Olympian heights, at the zenith of its political and economic power.”65

 Ironically, it was the consumer revelry of the 1950s that led to the decline of cities. The major culprit was the successful sale of one consumer item—the automobile. Even though cars had been around since the turn of the twentieth century and had already impacted cities, with the elimination of trolleys tracks and the placement of parking meters along side streets, nothing can compare to the impact of the 1950s and 1960s in the abandonment of the cities, when cars became relatively cheap to buy and easy to use. The availability of automobiles provided the impetus for people to reconsider views from the 1930s that had been shelved during the war. Why not hope for something better than living in a cramped apartment in a noisy neighborhood on crowded, frequently dangerous streets? Why not take advantage of the dynamism and opportunities offered by the center city during the workday, and leave the city by car at nights and on weekends to a “peaceful rural place with shady paths, murmuring streams, and the hum of bumblebees over vaguely imagined flowers?”66 What was wrong with a fantasy existence, a return to life on the frontier where one could live in a spacious home with plenty of grass to mow, or if one could afford it, a grand English manor in a tree-shaded glade? Why shouldn’t everyone emulate the anticity

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philosophies of Thomas Jefferson, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Lewis Mumford and idealize nature and the experience of nature? What sense did it make to pay increasingly higher taxes and receive poorer services in a place where one’s dreams could not be truly realized? Why live somewhere where there was no driveway or garage to park your new car? The practical exigency was that Americans required space, not only for their new cars, but also for all their new consumer goods purchased with their newly-minted credit cards. A cramped apartment was not big enough for a house full of children and an assortment of appliances and conveniences— toaster, mixer, phone, family pictures, washing machine, record player, multiple televisions, lamps, stove, radio, vacuum cleaner, tables, electric fan, divan, recliner, toys, hot water heater, pots and pans, and an overabundance of packaged foods. A big house with a big garage and a big lawn made perfect sense in a burgeoning consumer society. Retailers were likewise drawn away from cities. Chain stores had reached their limit in adding more stores to more cities. What they needed was more selling space to expand their product offering and more parking spaces to accommodate their customers. During the 1960s the number of chain stores decreased while the total floor space of chain stores increased dramatically. Grocery stores were the first to realize that the expanding number of consumer goods required a larger store, which led to the birth of the supermarket.67 Cars and trucks made this move possible. By transferring to space outside cities, enlarging the square footage of their sale space, increasing their volume, using trucks with big trailers, and adding spacious parking lots, supermarkets gained as much as 83 percent of the market for foodstuffs in some cities. The handwriting was on the wall. Every other retailer soon followed suit by building large, aesthetically-challenged structures in places accessible only by cars and trucks. Shopping malls and strip malls soon dominated the landscape. There was also a cynical, less wistful reason for individuals and businesses to leave the city in the 1960s—prejudice and the fear of diversity.68 Judicial rulings, national legislation, and the rising potency of the Civil Rights Movement were bringing about an end to overt racial segregation—in schools, employment, entertainment, housing, transportation, and retailing. To avoid the disorder and sometimes violent conflicts associated with a major social transformation, many white middle-class city dwellers saw the suburbs as a place to isolate themselves from the troubles of people whose economic disenchantment and social anger were grounded in decades of bias. Unstated was the fact that many of the aspiring racial and ethnic groups provided the backbone—the work of janitors, cooks, and other service workers—that kept industry and commerce rolling along, thereby advancing the continued prosperity of a lifestyle being increasingly built around cars, rampant consumerism, and big houses in distant fields.

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The bottom line was that a mostly white, impatient populace wanted to move out of the city—and move really fast. State officials sought to please their constituents. But how to accomplish this? There were cars available to carry out the transition, but there were not enough homes in suburbia to accommodate millions of city dwellers. Moreover, there were no services in unincorporated areas, and most counties or small towns lacked the tax base, let alone the political wherewithal, to develop water and sewer systems, supply electricity, offer fire protection, and most important, build roads and highways. The conundrum was how to provide what individuals and businesses wanted without recreating the very cities that everyone wanted to escape from. The GI Bill, for instance, could assist war veterans to purchase homes, but what about everybody else? At this point, the American penchant to experiment with public administration came to the fore again. To create housing where housing did not exist, the federal government drew on the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) to provide low-interest mortgages for those purchasing new homes. First established in 1934, but truly dominant during the 1950s, the FHA was important because it provided not only the financial incentive for people to move to the suburbs, but also established the guidelines for what the suburbs should look like. Under the guise of uniform selection criteria and the need to prevent defaults, the FHA favored new locations at the expense of old ones; standardized residential subdivisions with houses that stood apart from each other; subdivisions with big lots, wide streets, few sidewalks, and homogeneous architecture; and places with economic stability (i.e., no blight or racial diversity). Community relationships were ignored, apartment housing was discouraged, and places inside cities were given a lower priority than those on the distant periphery. In short, the FHA worked with real estate developers to finance the construction of the suburban landscape. To get to the outlying homesteads, a new road network was needed. Part of the answer was for the Federal government to finance the construction of the interstate highway system under the pretext of national defense. The stated purpose of a massive, publically subsidized highway system was to evacuate cities in the event of nuclear war; the real consequence was to evacuate cities for the suburbs. At the same time, state governments went into their own road and bridge building frenzy, which benefitted highway contractors who lobbied heavily for more roads. Some of these transportation arteries were paid for with general obligation bonds and general tax revenues; many others were financed and constructed by government corporations. A government corporation—also known as a public authority or special benefit corporation—can independently issue tax exempt revenue bonds to finance the construction of roads, bridges, tunnels, and other public works. It repays the bonds by collecting tolls and then uses the success of one project to rationalize additional projects. Even though government corporations had been

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extensively employed by FDR’s New Deal public works projects during the 1930s, it was Robert Moses in New York and other administrators around the country who truly put these quasi-public agencies to work building the roads and bridges needed to bring everyone as fast as possible to the suburbs. For example, The New Jersey Turnpike Authority built a colossal highway system in the 1950s that efficiently emptied the populations of Newark, New York City, and Philadelphia into rural areas of New Jersey, swarming over hamlets that had existed since the American Revolution. With housing and roads taken care of, the only other issue was how to supply public services to areas that had none. The solution was for state legislatures to either amend existing statutes or to enact new laws permitting the creation of special districts.69 In 1942, there were 2,200 special districts. By 1972, there were 8,054. A special district is a quasi-independent governmental unit that allows the residents of an unincorporated area to agree to tax themselves to provide a specific service, such as the disposal of sewage or fire protection. Special assessments had been used to develop America’s new cities in the early nineteenth century, and so it made sense to use the same device to develop the new suburbs. Special districts are special for two reasons: first, they can accomplish tasks that cross city and county jurisdictional boundaries, and second, they are not beholden to existing governments because they are separately financed and governed by an independentlyelected board made up of constituents from the affected area. Find any suburban area in the country and there will be plenty of special districts. In metropolitan Chicago, over 300 overlapping special districts are still operating, confounding anyone who might like to understand government in the area. In the West, hundreds of water districts support life for the suburbs around Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Las Vegas. With all the pieces of the administrative puzzle in place, the suburbs were hastily shaped to meet the needs of a population fleeing from the center of America’s cities. With new construction techniques providing for the prefabricated assembly of inexpensive single-family housing, people thronged to newly developed places far from city centers, such as Levittown on New York’s Long Island, Creve Coeur near St. Louis, Collierville outside Memphis, Highland Park close to Detroit, and Littleton on the edge of Denver. Between 1950 and 1970, the population of central cities plummeted by more than 30 percent, while the population of areas outside cities skyrocketed by nearly 75 percent.70 The urbanized area of Washington, D.C. grew from 181 to 523 square miles and Miami from 116 to 429. In the South and West, houses were spread out over increasingly large swaths of land, accessible only by cars and livable only because air conditioning moderated the swelter of endless summers. In the view of Kenneth T. Jackson, in Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States, suburbia was the “quintessential physical achievement of the United States.”71

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There was an administrative lesson for cities in the process of highway construction and suburbanization. If government corporations could issue bonds to develop the roads around cities, why couldn’t these entities develop housing and reclaim blighted areas within cities? If special improvement districts could develop places outside cities, why couldn’t cities use a similar device to improve the places within cities? If the suburbs could be developed in a decade or so, why couldn’t old business districts redevelop in a similar time span? If malls could use mandatory assessments to fund maintenance and security arrangements, why couldn’t downtown business do the same? Simply put, why not put the successful techniques of suburbanization to greater use within cities? These ideas were first applied in Canada. In 1965, Toronto created a special assessment district within the Bloor West Village to counter the competition from a new shopping mall. About the same time, California enacted legislation allowing local governments to create improvement districts within cities to build parking facilities and other improvements. The first American BID was the New Orleans Downtown Development District (DDD).72 Established after Louisiana passed Act 498 in 1974, the DDD’s legal connection was to suburban special districts and quasi-independent government corporations. Similar to a special district, the DDD was funded by a special assessment on private, commercial, and retail properties in the downtown. The special purpose was to provide marketing, sanitation, and security services. Like a government corporation, the DDD could issue bonds when necessary and was governed by an appointed board made up of businesses leaders in the area. Although it is difficult to explain how innovations catch on, it did not take long for state governments from around the nation to allow their local governments to establish BIDs. As the 1970s turned to the 1980s, improvement districts emerged in Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York. The BID movement was underway.

 As BIDs were put in place, the mass exodus from cities continued unabated. Hundreds of “edge cities” appeared, comprised of glass-enclosed corporate office complexes and mammoth shopping centers, with enormous parking lots, sitting on islands along side massive expressway systems.73 This process was helped along by a larger shift in American society from a manufacturing to a paper economy. To the benefit of cities, the absence of belching industrial behemoths made them cleaner and less dreary, yet the service and information sectors were mobile and could be located almost anywhere, thereby leading families and businesses to disperse. In the new American landscape, there was little need for jobs or housing to be tied to a particular place. The dream of Frank Lloyd Wright was approaching reality. A centerless amalgam of split-level houses, monotonous strip malls, and

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drab office parks emerged outside Los Angeles and Chicago and along both coasts of Florida. The small New England towns that had existed since the American Revolution were traumatized by relentless competition with housing subdivisions and massive shopping malls. To facilitate the movement of cars in these areas, the same level of attention given to the beautification of city centers at the turn of the century was paid to the design of highways, expressways, overpasses, bypasses, and clover leafs. Some cities were destroyed in the process. For example, East Orange, New Jersey, a community once known as the Central Park of New Jersey, woke up one day and found its community quartered by two massive highways like a piece of meat on a butcher’s block. The suburban landscape was a sprawling landscape. There is no better example than Kansas City, ironically, a community that once made the City Beautiful the centerpiece of its city center. From 1960 to 1990, the Kansas City metropolitan population grew by 29 percent, yet the land area grew by more than 110 percent. In 1920, Kansas City had 8,405 people per square mile. In 1990, that had dropped to 2,147 people per square mile. Seemingly overnight, Kansas City had the most highway miles per person in the nation, the lowest mass transit usage of any major American city, and a downtown that was largely a necropolis of abandoned buildings and empty sidewalks. The city was less “the city of fountains” and more “a shrine to sprawl.”74 The same could be said for other places around the country, such as Tampa, Phoenix, Atlanta, Boston, Houston, Denver, Seattle, and of course Los Angeles. Between 1970 and 1990, the population of Los Angeles grew by 45 percent while using up an astounding 200 percent more land. But Los Angeles was merely keeping pace with national trends reflected by the fact that the U.S. population grew by 23 percent between 1970 and 1990, yet the number of vehicle miles traveled increased by nearly 99 percent. The fast-food outlet, supermarket, and box store catered to the demands of the automobile culture. Gas stations, convenience stores, and drive-ins quickly became the essence of daily life. McDonald’s and other franchise fastfood outlets feasted on suburban mores. Almost daily, replicas of replicas were spawned, so that there was at least one road on the outskirts of every city where almost every national franchise could be found. Driving down this road one would see one franchise after another—Burger King, Texaco, Taco Bell, Amoco, Domino’s Pizza, Jiffy Lube, Baskin Robbins, Wendy’s, Dunkin’ Donuts and then . . . an empty lot ready for the next structure. The aesthetics of buildings were no longer much of a concern to people passing by so fleetingly in cars. The only unique item was the huge signage needed to capture the attention of drivers. Otherwise, prefab buildings and garage-like structures were good enough if you could park in front and buy the necessary products. Everything was about use, following the dicta of Louis Sullivan, the prescient architect from the early 1900s, that “form should follow function.”75

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While malls, box stores, fast-food outlets, and suburban housing developments were expressly made for the car, city business districts designed for pedestrians and mass transportation could not accommodate wide thoroughfares, ample parking, and warehouse-sized shopping complexes. As businesses left the cities, the tax base shrank, services were cut back, and crime and blight became problems. This motivated additional businesses and shoppers to leave, causing the tax base to shrink even more, creating additional fiscal pressures on government, and leaving, in the end, nothing but vacant stores and empty streets. The big department stores were gone, such as R. H. White’s blocklong, five-story emporium in Boston that had operated successfully for over a century. Retail sales in central business districts that had accounted for almost 95 percent of all sales in metropolitan areas in the 1930s made up a mere 10 percent by the 1970s. In many cities it looked as though their business districts had been abandoned because of an outbreak of bubonic plague. Main Street was left to drifters and loitering teenagers. Downtown buildings were boarded up and left to decay with drooping facades and peeling paint. Sadly, the neoclassical structures of the City Beautiful resembled the Greek Parthenon after the Venetians shelled it in 1697. Without money for public services, graffiti and grime covered many structures, as well as the sidewalks, signs, and any trees that happened to survive. Schools withered, museums lost patrons, and statues were left to the pigeons. The marquees of grand theaters presented either pornography or exploitation films characterized by graphic violence, that is, if they had not closed down like Minneapolis’s 2,400 seat State Theater along Hennepin Avenue. The F. W. Woolworth chain that had dominated American cities for over five decades closed one store after another, eventually going bankrupt. William C. Baer, writing in The Public Interest in 1976, proclaimed “urban death—or at least neighborhood death—in the nation’s cities is coming to pass.” He said, “It may be hindered by expertise, deterred by cajolery, impeded by charismatic leadership, and delayed by simple faith; but it will come.”76 Governments tried to stop the decline, but to little avail. Large-scale urban renewal projects and inner-city road development merely destroyed cities and made them less inviting. The problems were too daunting. Blight, poverty, and despair had taken root. Local governments could not rectify matters because many cities were nearly bankrupt, plagued by too much debt and not enough revenue from a declining property tax base. State governments were in a bind because political localities were divided between the suburbs and cities. Business initiatives—sidewalk sales and pedestrian malls—were too little too late because few people wanted to shop where there were not enough products by day and too much crime at night. Moreover, there was too much competition from bright and polished suburban shopping malls and modern-looking box stores with plenty of parking spaces and sheltered confines. To make matters worse, downtown associations faced

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declining membership bases and the difficulty of bolstering the spirits of their existing members in the midst of a car-crazy culture that proclaimed cities as the dismal cemeteries of some lost culture. In despair, however, there was some hope. Increasingly, the BID idea gained credence, even as cities spiraled downward. Confronted by the common challenges facing any interest group—the need to collect money from their membership and to keep their members engaged and energized—merchant associations in one city after another began to see the virtue of transforming themselves from voluntary social cooperatives into legally-sanctioned special districts supported by a special assessment on all the businesses or property owners in specific areas (nearly the same kind of arrangement that had led to suburban development). For example, the Old Philadelphia Development Corporation, established in 1956, became the Central Philadelphia Development Corporation in 1980, which evolved into the Center City District, a BID created in 1990. There were at least five reasons for voluntary merchant associations to become BIDs in the 1990s. First, it gave the associations a steady source of revenue without having to worry about “free riders” or spending precious time on fundraising campaigns. Second, it made sure that businesses would stay involved with any revitalization efforts in order to have a say where the assessments were spent. Third, the associations could join with quasi-government entities, parking authorities, or redevelopment agencies, and develop an even more coordinated effort toward fixing the problems in business districts. Fourth, the associations had the legal wherewithal to deliver services without depending on fickle, fiscally stressed city governments. Fifth, and perhaps most important, the responsibility for the development of city places was placed in the hands of those most interested—downtown businesses and their supporters.

 At the dawn of the twenty-first century, BIDs are now an important part of American cities—making a major contribution to the shape and character of downtown life. BIDs emerged from history to help make contemporary city places become once again like the ancient agora, like the first American cities, like the City Beautiful, like they were in the 1950s, yet in keeping with modern sensibilities. Drawing inspiration from the long-standing penchant for administrative experimentation in the American system, BIDs have been given the financial and managerial capacity to make a difference. The challenge for BID administrators is to improve city places in a manner that does not sacrifice what makes city places unique. The BID approach must avoid the mistakes of the past, take advantage of government policies, build on existing assets, and add more value to city life.

THREE

The BID Approach

BIDs IMPROVE the prospects of city places. Their approach has four elements: First, BIDs proceed from the assumption that small-scale planning is more sensitive to community needs than city broad-based land clearance and largescale redevelopment projects. Second, BIDs contradict suburban development and draw substance from the critique of suburban life and the popularity of growth management policies. Third, BIDs are part of a philosophy that administrative fragmentation helps rather than hinders the modern city. Fourth, BIDs are linked to the economic development policy mania in American cities and to the conviction that the public interest is best advanced through the entrepreneurial activities of public-private partnerships.

 The small-scale aspect of the BID approach is a reaction to the perceived futility of comprehensive planning to effectively address the plight of city places. Since the 1950s governments have undertaken all sorts of grand schemes to improve city places at one time or another, many which continue to this day. It would take several chapters if not several books to list them all, but for the sake of brevity six different solutions can be identified, most of which have not lived up to expectations. To consider these solutions is to gain an insight into how the BID approach is different. Solution 1: Auto Accommodation. At one time or another, American cities reconfigured their business districts to coddle cars, trucks, and buses. Early on, trolley systems were destroyed because they impeded the progress of cars. Buses became the primary means of mass transportation. Then, unattractive garages and dismal parking lots were built in and around business districts to house the expanding car population. And, of course, more roads, wider roads, 39

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and faster roads were built in and around cities by every level of government. The ultimate project was to construct an expressway smack through the middle of town, such as the central artery in Boston, I-45 in downtown Houston, or the Kennedy Expressway from Chicago’s loop. The assumption was that these road projects would efficiently carry the population in the distant suburbs back to town. This science fiction vision of city design conceived of metropolitan cities as a collection of multilevel intersecting concrete expressways weaving around stark skyscrapers of glass and steel. In small- and medium-size cities, where this science fiction blueprint was impractical, downtowns were turned into a series of one-way speedways, narrow sidewalks, and row after row of parallel parking spaces. By accommodating cars, business districts became acutely inhospitable places. Elevated expressways were ugly contrivances that jarred the senses. Speeding cars on one-way thoroughfares discouraged pedestrian travel, and therefore, served principally to further limit consumer activity. Although it was possible to move cars around, it was impossible to come up with enough places to park, unless much of business district was turned into a parking lot. Many of the so-called expressways were also half-baked efforts. One section of a road would be completed, but then a lack of funds made it difficult to complete the project. Driving around construction zones at five miles per hour in bumper-to-bumper traffic was all too common. Even when the roads were completed, they only added more cars to the mix and created the maddening gridlock that continues to this day. Perhaps most important, the construction of parking lots and roads required the demolition of houses, apartments, and small businesses, as well as the complete destruction of main streets in small towns, further depleting the very factors that made up a vibrant city. If anything, the growth of the automobile industry hastened the demise of the business districts. Solution 2: Auto Separation. A different tack was to divide the spheres in which cars and pedestrians existed. One technique was to build skywalk systems and underground concourses that could keep cars and people away from each other. Examples include the skyway systems in Minneapolis and Cedar Rapids, and the miles of underground shopping tunnels in Atlanta and Houston. Another method was to construct bypass roads and freeway belts around cities to lessen the impact of cars on local traffic within cities. Belt systems were used in such large cities as Washington, D.C. and Dallas, while highways expressly intended to bypass downtowns appeared in hundreds of smalland medium-size cities. Separating automobile traffic from business districts made things worse. The beltways and bypasses removed people further from the center city, which in turn, led to more gas stations and mall developments near the interchanges of the distant beltways and bypasses. When it came to skyways and

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concourses, there were few acceptable places to park to get to them. But even assuming a parking place could be located after driving around and around on frustrating one-way streets (a product of the previously mentioned effort at city design), it might then be necessary to transverse run-down areas to get to the redeveloped area. It did not help to build a parking garage as a connection device because of a general belief (and perhaps the reality) that such facilities were unsafe. But then, who really wanted to be in a skyway or tunnel in the first place? In City: Rediscovering the Center, William H. Whyte observed that such systems did protect people from the bad weather, but otherwise a concourse is a “dismal basement, no matter how you dress it up,” and a skyway is “a dull corridor, often empty and foreboding at its end point.”1 In 2005, Laura Miller, the mayor of Dallas, proclaimed the city’s pedestrian tunnels were “the worst urban planning decision that Dallas ever made.”2 Solution 3: City Center Malls. Some community leaders thought the best that could be done was to wipe the slate clean and start all over again. Tear down the old buildings, and then where everything once stood, build an enclosed mall, along with an attached parking garage. Drawing on federal urban renewal grants, combined with the revenues from municipal bond sales, various kinds of redevelopment authorities purchased large swaths of downtown properties using their eminent domain powers. They removed buildings, and then turned everything over to private mall developers. Many of these malls still exist, such as Colony Square in Atlanta, Main Place in Buffalo, Park Central Plaza in Denver, River City Mall in Louisville, Market Street Galleria in Philadelphia, Embarcadero Center in San Francisco, and Galleria Plaza in White Plains, New York. The problems with urban renewal are notorious. First, it was all too common for cities to quickly level huge expanses of property and then to leave the area vacant for years waiting for developers with enough money and good ideas to come along. For instance, it took Minneapolis decades to clear large swaths of downtown property that it had originally razed in the 1970s, which certainly did not do much for the growth of the area. Second, many cities had to go into debt to pay for redevelopment while also providing public services (police, fire, etc.), without the benefit of tax revenue from the property that cities had claimed for development. Nation-wide, total city debt skyrocketed in the 1970s and 1980s to the point that many cities were near bankruptcy. Third, massive redevelopment projects had a negative impact on the social fabric of city centers. Depression and a sense of helplessness resulted from moving families out of their homes and closing small business that individuals had worked for years to build.3 Fourth, historical landmarks were lost through urban renewal, which served to further diminish the character of public places. Chicago destroyed a third of its 300 historical landmarks and New York razed or ruined a fifth of its 250 historical structures, including the grand Pennsylvania Station from the City Beautiful era.4 Finally, it was never

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made clear why a downtown mall or enclosed concrete plaza would lead people away from the suburban shopping center or improve city places. Why drive in a mass of traffic to a downtown shoebox, often with insufficient parking, when one could go to a suburban mall and park outside the entrance? But even assuming that a visit to the downtown mall could be rationalized, why would anyone ever venture outside its climate-controlled confines to shop, eat, or do anything else on the nearby streets? Solution 4: Office Centers. Thinking that the service industry and information economy could save cities, many business districts turned to office buildings. Enamored with skyscrapers as phallic symbols of power and prestige, banks, insurance companies, and hotels located their operations in soaring towers within city business districts. These complexes were often separated from the rest of the city center and any of its problems. Some examples include Gateway Plaza in Newark, the Renaissance Center in Detroit, the IDS Center in Minneapolis, and the World Trade Center in New York City. In these and other places, the “International Style” of architecture that had been popularized in Europe took hold, along the lines of le Corbusier’s “Radiant City.” Glass boxes enclosed by uninviting concrete plazas were cheap to construct and operate, a final rejection of dowdy, bourgeois architecture dating to the City Beautiful. In this grand office world, the skylines of cities became picture postcards and excellent covers for annual reports. They became places to work on weekdays, but leave the rest of the time. In small towns where skyscrapers were not practical, main street was given to smaller-scale glass-shrouded banks, nondescript law offices, and motor vehicle registration bureaus. Elected officials were all too happy with office development because the property tax base was maintained and there were some excellent photo opportunities for ribbon cutting. The office complex approach may have looked good on postcards and brochures, but it made city streets dull places for human activities. Few office towers had anything other than a lobby on the ground level. “When you take a street away from ground level,” William H. Whyte wrote, “you take away what makes it work—such as the intricate mixture of people, the shops, the hustle and bustle.”5 In the evenings and on weekends, the office complex environment with its streets veiled in the shadows of skyscrapers became eerily silent and foreboding. Likewise, main streets in small towns became ghostlike when local offices closed for the day. And once the ribbons were cut, elected officials were in a constant state of dread that any economic slowdown would increase office vacancies, causing a precipitous drop in property tax revenue and leaving the city government to be blamed for the consequences. Solution 5: Social Services. To some observers, the problem was not about redesigning business districts, but instead the focus needed to be on amelio-

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rating the negative effects of inner city decline on the social fabric of cities. Beginning in the 1960s, billions of federal, state, and local dollars were poured into social programs and public housing projects. For example, the federal government supported the construction of over 2,000 inner city apartment complexes primarily for those with low and moderate incomes. Food stamps, heath insurance, and other social welfare programs were also intended to improve the lives of poor city residents. Community development agencies, housing authorities, and a host of nonprofit organizations assumed responsibility for implementing these programs, creating a massive bureaucratic system permeating every level of American society. Public welfare programs and the social welfare bureaucracy did little to improve the condition of the city. If anything social welfare policy contributed to making cities even more desolate places with monotonous, foreboding box buildings and tiresome regulations created by government bureaucrats. It was also the case that the funds intended for the poor and disadvantaged often ended up in the pockets of real estate developers and bankers. Mismanagement was rampant.6 For example, the head of the New York City Housing Authority was removed in the 1990s after she refurbished her office at a cost of $350,000, purchasing pink couches, pink chairs, and pink window blinds.7 Solution 6: Regionalism. Another approach, still ongoing, has been to coordinate the fragmentation of local governments and balance the needs of the city and suburb.8 Regionalists believe there are too many government entities inefficiently doing the same things, which is why cities and city places are having problems. It is simply irrational to have 19,000 municipalities, 16,000 townships, 15,000 independent school districts, and another 30,000 special districts. What is needed is to turn metropolitan areas into city-states, that is, regional conurbations that accomplish nearly the same aims as nations.9 Since it is extremely difficult to eliminate local units, the most common form of regionalism has been to form cooperative planning and revenue sharing systems among city and county governments with shared boundaries. The overarching objective of such cooperative agreements is to make regions competitive by combining the talents and resources of an area into a unified economic force.10 Given the number of variables involved, it is difficult to know whether regionalism benefits the suburbs more than the city or the city more than the suburbs or both equally. But, even if capturing the wealthy tax base of the suburbs does supply cities with more money, regionalism in and of itself fails to provide any set of guidelines about what to do with the funds, nor does it provide any implementation mechanism for making places within cities good places to live, work, shop, and have fun.

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 With few exceptions, the well-intentioned comprehensive solutions to the problems confronting city places did not work as well as expected.11 BIDs take a different tack. They are organizationally separate from traditional forms of city planning and political posturing. BIDs turn away from governmental solutions and toward cooperative public-private forms of service delivery, but without hiding the fact that it is the self-interest of the member businesses that give the BID its impetus. BIDs are less concerned with comprehensive, rational redevelopment plans and civic white elephants (like convention centers and big malls) and more concerned with piecemeal solutions that attempt to improve the small things in cities—eliminating gum on sidewalks, discouraging loitering, and installing pleasant facades on buildings.12 BIDs focus on sidewalks as well as streets, park life as well as office life, and social rules as well as social services. BIDs are unlike traditional government agencies that must compete with one another to obtain larger budgets. BIDs may operate homeless shelters and provide direct services to the disadvantaged, but BIDs are definitely not public welfare agencies. By fragmenting decision making in localities, they are the exact opposite of regionalism and more in keeping with the experimental character of public administration.

 The BID approach is not only different from previous solutions within cities, but it also stands in contrast to what has occurred outside cities. BIDs draw solace and inspiration from the increasing critique of the suburbs, the mounting attacks on sprawl, and the expanding enactment of growth management legislation. The suburban lament has grown with time. In 1985, William S. Kowinski remarked in The Malling of America: An Inside Look at the Great Consumer Paradise that those who shop and work in malls are like prisoners in a “timeless, placeless space, cut off from the outside and caught in an intense environment designed for purposes other than the maintenance of their sanity.”13 In 1993, James Howard Knustler noted in The Geography of Nowhere: The Rise and Decline of America’s Man-Made Landscape that the suburban landscape is “like television, violent and tawdry.”14 In 1994, Philip Landon observed in A Better Place to Live: Reshaping the American Suburb that it “is no coincidence that at the moment the United States has become predominantly a suburban nation, the country has suffered a bitter harvest of individual trauma, family distress, and civic decay.”15 In 1997, John Miller lamented in Egotopia: Narcissism and the New American Landscape that “America has turned its back on community, as community as traditional defined, and embraced the suburban cultural breeding ground of selfabsorption.”16 In 2000, Andres Duany, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, and Jeff

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Speck concluded in Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream that “it is difficult to identify a segment of the population that does not suffer in some way from the lifestyle imposed by contemporary suburban development.”17 Sprawl is viewed as a major problem for American society. Sprawl refers to scattered development beyond the edge of services and employment, where homes are separated by distance from work and commerce, as well from other pursuits, such as recreation, education, and religion. With few exceptions, cars are the only means to move from one zone of activity to another. What is wrong with sprawl? First, the increasing use of space fails to emancipate people, but instead it ensnares them in environment that they cannot easily escape. Sprawl traps them in their cars on bumper-to-bumper highways, traps them in neighborhoods distant from parks and schools, and traps them in their own minds with television for companionship at home and talk radio hosts as their best friends on the road. Second, sprawl exploits resources. It requires people to engage in unproductive long commutes for both work and leisure, consumes valuable farmland and forests, increases flooding, damages ecologically important watersheds, destroys species, and requires an increasing dependence on oil and gas supplies from nations ruled by callous dictatorships. Third, sprawl is expensive. The average family spends one sixth of its total budget on transportation, more than food, more than clothing, more than healthcare. Fourth, sprawl places inordinate demands on government. County governments have been obligated to take up where special districts left off and increase property taxes to pay for expanding police and fire services and the maintenance of roads, water lines, and sewers. Fifth, sprawl is unfair. It prevents the elderly, the disabled, children, and others without wheels to live a normal life. Sixth, sprawl is deadly. According to federal statistics, an adolescent suburban male is more likely to be killed by an automobile than a city teenager is to be killed by a gun.18 Seventh, sprawl is unhealthy. Rising rates of obesity and other health problems are associated with the sedentary habit of sitting in a car all the time and continually eating loads of saturated fat from fast food restaurants. Finally, sprawl is uncivilized. Instead of a positive civic discourse, the American lexicon is increasingly associated with such less than flattering phrases as road rage, roadkill, and rubber neck. Efforts have been made to slow sprawl. “Smart growth,” “limits to growth,” and other similar measures have been proposed, adopted, and implemented by hundreds of localities and several state governments. In 2000, twenty-three states put thirty-three statewide growth initiatives on the ballet for voter approval.19 In both proposed and existing laws the general effort has been to establish rules for the amount, rate, location, and quality of future development.20 For example, Florida’s growth management legislation requires cities and counties to adopt a future-land-use map denoting the density and intensity of residential and nonresidential uses permitted; New Jersey has employed tax incentives and land use regulations to encourage the

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movement of jobs and housing away from suburban areas to urban centers; and the City of Portland, Oregon has designated a greenbelt around the city where new commercial or residential development is strictly limited. For all its promise, there is a general sense of misgiving with growth management policy because it applies to metropolitan regions the same kind of rational, comprehensive planning that failed in many downtown districts. Certainly a drive through the sprawling commercial and residential landscape of Florida, Virginia, or Texas raises doubts about the effectiveness of these policies thus far. The principle flaw is that growth management policy typically focuses more on moderating the direction and character of growth than on limiting or stopping future development.21 One survey found only 17 percent of 586 growth measures had annual caps on growth, while the remainder merely controlled the pace of growth by setting space limits or restricting permissible uses.22

 It is all well and good to criticize suburban lifestyles, the malling of America, and widespread sprawl, but it entirely another matter to develop city places as acceptable alternatives. The problem is that downtown areas are not viewed in the most flattering terms, and the reality is that they have been left in such dire shape that it is asking too much for anyone to embrace them fully. Here is where BIDs and the contemporary city revitalization process come to the fore. BIDs are largely about making the places within cities better than suburbia. The BID approach puts city places in juxtaposition with the areas outside cities. BIDs are less infatuated with the replication of suburban lifestyles and more focused on preserving interesting structures and recreating the best features of the marketplace—in the manner of the Greek agora. They draw on the principles of mall management—the design and marketing of specific locales—but not to the point of eliminating civic uses. Many BIDs work from the premise that pedestrian, open-air city places with notable buildings and multiple uses have something better to offer than the homogenous, car-saturated streets of suburbia and the dull atmosphere of regional shopping malls. BIDs seek to entice those disenchanted with suburbia. BIDs do not have to be concerned with growth management because the growth boundaries of most downtowns are already well-defined.

 The BID approach is not only about doing things differently, it is also about implementing innovative theories and concepts. BIDs operate from the premise that taking care of small problems adds up to big results.

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The localized effort to improve city life was first promulgated in an influential book published in 1961—Jane Jacobs’ The Death and Life of Great American Cities.23 Jacobs’ book was written at a time when people were leaving in droves for the suburbs and Robert Moses was using federal urban renewal monies to destroy neighborhoods for the purpose of building roads and bridges. To say the least, Jacobs disliked urban renewal. Looking at where she lived in New York’s Greenwich Village, Jacobs concluded the best way for cities to thrive was to improve neighborhood life, one neighborhood at a time, one street at a time. She believed the emphasis of city planning should be on what makes cities work, what makes them livable, and what can be done to maximize their successes and minimize their failures. For Jacobs, the aim was to bring commercial and cultural diversity to public places, to consider the appearance of neighborhoods, to think about what makes people walk on streets, to look at why they live in particular locales, and to make everything work through a multiplicity of organizations and individual actions. One city may focus on the location of trees on streets, another may be concerned about reconstructing a landmark building, and some other place may try to develop a new housing complex. Jacobs argued that the essence of the city is “bits and pieces” that can be knitted together into a “fabric of use.”24 Jacobs’ put forth the proposition that the potential of center city renewal is directly related to the “freedom of countless numbers of people to make and carry out countless plans.”25 Following Jacobs, the supposition of BIDs and other development groups is that city places can be resurrected through a multiplicity of small-scale activities and neighborhood specific actions. The answer is not a downtown of concourses, malls, and office towers built around the needs of the automobile. Instead, the important things are the principles of community first discovered in the Greek agora, the pedestrian character of colonial cities, the aesthetic sense that made places interesting during the City Beautiful, and the popular enthusiasm that characterized business districts in the early 1950s. “The agenda,” as one downtown proponent put it, “is not reinventing streetscapes but retrofitting them with the amenities that make for the welcoming corner café, the handshaking world that keeps Main Street walkers from driving to the mall.”26 An adherent to the Jacobs’ philosophy, Roberta Brandes Gratz, in Cities Back from the Edge: New Life for Downtown, refers to this approach to downtown revitalization as “urban husbandry,” that is, a diverse collection of entrepreneurs working in small-scale organizations that are continually seeking alternative ways “to reinvigorate and build on existing community assets in order to stimulate a place-based rejuvenation.”27 Urban husbanders may be city planning officials, federal housing administrators, neighborhood organizers, private developers, preservation advocates, faith-based association members, social service providers, or BID managers. Among several places where

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urban husbandry has seemed to work already, Gratz points to Boston’s Newbury Place, Pasadena’s Colorado Boulevard, New York’s Soho, San Francisco’s South of the Market, Pittsburgh’s Hill District, and Savannah’s waterfront. In each of these places, development has been viewed an organic process. Gratz uses the analogy of a garden that has become overgrown with weeds and dying plants. The idea is not to tear everything from its roots and start over again, but instead the aim is to nurture back to life those plants that can survive, remove the problem weeds, and add new varieties of plants. “Urban husbandry,” according to Gratz, “considers existing life first, respects it, views it as an asset, not a problem, and determines with local users what remedies could improve things.”28 In a similar vein, Wayne Attoe and Don Logan in American Urban Architecture: Catalysts in the Design of Cities contend that city revitalization should be about “a sequence of limited, achievable visions, each with the power to kindle and condition other achievable visions.”29 Attoe and Logan identify these as “urban catalysts.” An urban catalyst might be a large project like a hotel, shopping complex, or transportation hub. It could involve small improvements, like a park bench, colonnade, or fountain. It might also entail the reclamation of a brownfield, the revitalization of a historic building, the development of a light rail transit line, or the destruction of an expressway. “The important point,” according to Attoe and Logan, “is that the catalyst is not a single end product, but an element that impels and guides subsequent development.”30 Even though the visions for the new urban center may be modest and incremental, “the impact should be substantial, in contrast to the large visions that have been the rule, with their minimal or catastrophic impact.”31 There is no grand plan for cities. History is the guidepost. After examining the spasmodic evolution of such places as the Hopewell mounds in ancient North America, the City Beautiful in Cleveland, and the garden city of Shaker Heights, Kenneth Kolson concludes in Big Plans: The Allure and Folly of Urban Design that the most well-conceived ideas about public spaces have been dashed by the “imperatives of human cussedness and whimsy.”32 Instruct people to walk along a path and they will invariably take a shortcut through the grass creating a new path. According to Kolson, the aim of city planning should be to exploit the “streak of perversity that functions as an imponderable constant in a world infested with variables.”33 People should be given the wherewithal to design public places by their own actions. This approach is perhaps best exemplified in Bryant Park in New York City where 2,000 movable chairs have been placed on the eight-acre lawn by the local BID, allowing people to gather where they want and to give the perception of movement in a static locale. City development thus mirrors modern culture and the global marketplace. Consider, for example, that the Internet has no overarching prescription. It is the product of millions of individuals and organizations each con-

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tributing their own interests, ideas, and principles to advance a loosely-coupled, progressive amalgam that more often than not enlightens and enriches the human experience. Other comparisons could be made to rap music, MTV videos, the stream of consciousness writing of David Foster Wallace, public choice economics, chaos theory, fuzzy math, and surfing television channels with a remote control. The loose formulation of the development process liberates thought and encourages innovation. Ideas are proliferating, brought to the fore by such organizations as the Center for an Urban Future, International Downtown Association, Project for Public Spaces, the National Trust Main Street Center, National League of Cities, and the Congress for the New Urbanism. The New Urbanists, for instance, advocate restructuring public policy and development to support the following principles: neighborhoods should be diverse in use and population; communities should be designed for the pedestrian and transit as well as the car; cities and towns should be shaped by physically defined and universally accessible public spaces and community institutions; urban places should be framed by architecture and landscape architecture and landscape design that celebrate local history, climate, ecology, and building practice.34

Likewise, The Center for an Urban Future, a nonprofit think tank, has focused on revitalization policies that improve the climate for small businesses and entrepreneurs, tap the immigrant population as well as academic and research institutions, and that support basic services with enough quality to entice the middle class to remain in the city and not leave for the suburbs.35 The diversity of ideas is matched by the diversity of people drawn to city places. A new generation of immigrants has come to old business districts because of less expensive rents and the ability to quickly meet public needs, whether it is Korean corner grocery or a Chinese take-out restaurant. Suburbanites are also coming back to the city, such as empty nesters whose children left home and left them nothing to do. Tourists from nations around the globe also traipse around developing downtowns looking for historical landmarks and places were celebrities once lived or dined. In fact, tourism is reshaping cities in fundamental ways as entertainment facilities now coexist in a symbiotic relationship with downtown corporate towers. Many restaurants cater to workers during the day and to out-of-town visitors and fun seekers in the evening.36 The renewal of city places has become a social leitmotif, especially popular among a new cadre of educated, wealthy citizens. “Bobos,” short for bourgeois bohemians, is the name given for baby boomers who grew up in the counterculture of the 1960s, became rich during the economic boom of the 1980s and 1990s, and found themselves seeking to successfully blend conformity with nonconformity. David Brooks notes in Bobos in Paradise: The New

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Upper Class and How They Got There that this group of citizens are by and large holders of advanced degrees and are wealthy beyond their wildest dreams, yet they are torn by the tension between “worldly success and inner virtue.”37 Consequently, they are forever attempting to integrate the bourgeois values of materialism, consumerism, and individual wealth with the bohemian values of creativity, environmentalism, and social consciousnesses. City places offer Bobos the best opportunity to consummate the reconciliation of competing value systems. For Bobos, downtown is hip and happening; the suburbs are the antithesis of chic; cul-de-sacs are abominable; the City Beautiful is beautiful again. For example, Union Station in Kansas City has been turned into a chi chi collection of restaurants. Purchasing a Victorian home is popular, as is living in an apartment next to a city park, where one can walk two Alaskan malamutes while sipping a latté from the nearby Starbucks. A Bobo might live in a loft over a pastry shop operated by Bosnian refugees and own an Internet business in the back of a pawnshop just off Main Street. Posing on a street corner, the guy tucks a $100 black turtleneck from Banana Republic into $5.00 dress slacks from a Salvation Army thrift shop, while his girlfriend combines a $1,000 black, backless slip dress bought at a trendy boutique with an olive Army cap purchased for a dollar from a street vendor. Increasingly, downtown is where Bobos go to exercise in a glass-enclosed gym, eat leaves in a former neoclassical bank building, and drink expensive coffees at a 1950s diner. The individuals who are shaping the places within cities have been named the “creative class” by Richard Florida in his book The Rise of the Creative Class: And How its Transforming Work, Leisure, Community, and Everyday Life.38 The creative class is largely made up of people who process information, including those who work in science and engineering, computers and mathematics, education, and the arts, design, and entertainment. Florida provides statistics that up to fifteen million workers, or 12 percent of the workforce, comprise the creative class.39 The creative class prefers city places that “offer a variety of economic activities, a stimulating environment and amenities for every possible lifestyle.”40 The contention is that cities such as Seattle, Washington, and Provo, Utah, have been revitalized because they have places of interest to the creative class—places that have often been developed by the members of the creative class themselves.41

 The people who govern and manage BIDs are disciples of Jane Jacobs and other public intellectuals who believe cities can best be developed by focusing on the small things that make up the larger picture. The leaders of BIDs are more often than not highly educated in urban planning and public administration and representative of Bobos and the creative class. They attend thought-provoking, information-sharing conferences put on by the

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International Downtown Association. BID leaders act on what they have read and heard by advocating for historical preservation or for changing the facades along a streetscape. With few exceptions, they are enthusiasts for city life and knowledgeable of the complexities of the local economic development policy environment. BID board members and managers know their way around city government and are supposed to understand how to best market business districts in a constantly changing environment.

 The last element of the BID approach is to connect BID activities with other economic development policy initiatives. BIDs are part of a progrowth coalition that emphasizes the significance of economic goals in cities and stresses the importance of increasing wealth as the answer to most public problems.42 Most BIDs advocate close interactions among businesses, governments, and supporting institutions such as landmarks commissions, community development corporations, and tourism bureaus.43 In any BID district, it is common for various other forms of economic development to be in place, such as enterprise zones and property tax abatement programs. BIDs are also coupled to the privatization movement in American government and the belief that privately managed services are of better quality because of profit incentives and the willingness to utilize creative strategies to bring about change.44 In short, BIDs work within an economic development policy arena encompassing the public, private, and nonprofit sectors. The federal government’s role is to supply cities with money through grants and aid.45 Grant programs support historical preservation, job training initiatives, childcare programs, health clinics, and public infrastructure improvements. For example, the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program supports the acquisition and construction of sewer and water systems, the rehabilitation of public housing, and the repair of bridges and sidewalks. In Ozark, Missouri, a $300,000 CDBG was used in 2004 to restore the quality of its city center sidewalks, which was credited with being the catalyst for changing the downtown area.46 State governments provide grants and loans as well, along with various forms of tax incentives and public expenditures. For instance, many states have enterprise zones that encourage private sector activity within cities, such as in Philadelphia, where there are twelve Keystone Opportunity Zones that exempt businesses from various taxes for up to twelve years. States are also relocating their offices and jobs from the suburbs back to city centers. For example, in 2,002, New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation moved its nearly 2000 employees to downtown Albany, after having its headquarters in the suburbs for over thirty years.47 Municipal governments offer tax abatements to businesses, low-interest development loans to nonprofits, and historical preservation grants to

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community groups.48 A popular device is tax increment financing (TIF), which allows a municipality to finance the development of a specific area by issuing tax-free bonds backed by the increased property tax revenue anticipated when private firms locate in the area. Chicago, for instance, has over 130 TIFs located in every area of the city. The nonprofit sector is also improving city places. In Comeback Cities: A Blueprint for Urban Neighborhood Revival, Paul S. Grogan and Tony Proscio detail how cities have relied on community development corporations (CDCs) to reawaken America’s most troubled neighborhoods.49 A CDC is a nonprofit organization set up by local residents to develop housing and provide neighborhood services, such as childcare, by leveraging federal grants, state and local housing programs, and private contributions. There are now over 2,500 CDCs in the nation. Between 1994 and 1997, CDCs built and restored nearly 250,000 houses and apartment dwellings in the United States.50 Grogan and Proscio contend that this massive housing investment has lured millions of people back to cities, which in turn has led businesses to create more shopping and employment opportunities.51 Working with the public and nonprofit sectors, the business community has become interested in city places again. Festival marketplaces, first begun in Boston’s Faneuil Hall, have become the rage of many cities.52 Aging department stores in New York, Chicago, and other city centers have been modernized by Federated Department Stores (the owners of Macy’s), which has involved the expenditure of well over $100 million on various refurbishments.53 In Manassas, Virginia, America Online opened a technology center not far from the old town center, which led to the renovation of many historical buildings and the opening of all sorts of shops and restaurants catering to its upscale, educated workforce.54 Willimantic, Connecticut, has attracted high-technology firms to a 300,000 square-foot thread mill that once was the city’s major employer, but closed in 1985 in the face of foreign competition.55 High-technology companies have similarly moved to the downtowns of Huntsville, Alabama, and Cincinnati, Ohio.56 Other communities, such as St. Louis, Missouri, and Yonkers, New York, have transformed old industrial buildings into lofts that attract residents to city places.57 In downtown Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the abandoned Pabst Brewery—comprising twenty-six historically-significant buildings in a seven-block area—is being revitalized into a combined entertainment and housing complex.58 In Detroit, the Kimberly-Clark Corporation, a company that specializes in historical renovation projects, has refurbished the downtown Book-Cadillac hotel, a Beaux-Arts building dating from the City Beautiful period.59 In Chicago, a public-private partnership is developing the notoriously blighted CabriniHeights area into a mixed-income residential neighborhood encompassing various kinds of homes and new schools.60 Many Midwestern cities have used casinos as the mechanism to make their communities more vibrant. The opening of the Isle of Capri casino in Booneville, Missouri provided enough additional tax

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revenues to pay for a major sprucing up of Main Street.61 Minor league baseball parks have sprouted up across the nation, such as in Memphis where nearly 13,000 people are drawn to each game and to the downtown area around the stadium.62 Hotel chains are seeing the virtue of locating in the center of cities. For example, a 197–room Lafayette Yard Marriott Conference Hotel was built in downtown Trenton, New Jersey, in 2002.63 Suburban restaurant chains, such as Chili’s and Applebee’s, are increasingly locating within cities, such as along Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn, and the River North area in downtown Chicago.64 New architecture is appearing, such as in Philadelphia, where a 435foot glass tower is under construction in the downtown business district.65 Even downtown Los Angeles, the city of sprawl, has seen its residential population increase and the development of several new pedestrian-friendly districts.66

 BIDs are an ingredient in the economic development policy mix. BIDs exist at the juncture of the public, private, and nonprofit sectors providing services and offering assistance that completes the overall development of city places. They attempt to avoid the past failures of government policymaking and to look better than the places outsides cities. BIDs are supposed to do the dirty work, such as scraping gum off sidewalks and rousting vagrants, while also helping to both set the local policy agenda and establish the city’s broad goals. BIDs cooperate with government agencies to provide loans and technical assistance to business. At the same time, they leverage the efforts of both private real estate developers and nonprofit organizations to build structures and revitalize city life.

 Overall, the BID approach is partly about a response to what went wrong in the past and partly about what people think is the best way forward in the future. The perspective of BIDs is summarized best in the mission statement of the Downtown Development District in New Orleans, the first such organizations in the nation and one of the more innovative (a job that has been made even more difficult after Hurricane Katrina): Our vision is of a downtown that is clean, safe, and vibrant both day and night. It is a city within a city that has something for everyone. There is a bounty of beautifully restored historic buildings, a thriving residential neighborhood, a bustling entertainment district, a prosperous and eclectic retail mix and a diverse business base made up of both entrepreneurial enterprises and corporate headquarters. It is the cultural center of our community and impresses visitors as a fascinating, well-managed, and wellmaintained city that is proud of its cultural diversity and rich history.67

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FOUR

The Organization of Innovation

BIDs ARE AN INNOVATION intended to improve the condition of city places by taking care of the small things that make up the larger picture. While not entirely new, it appears new for businesses to dig into their own pockets to pay extra for extra street cleaning, security, and other services normally provided by government. Governments do not normally employ the taxing power of the state on behalf of private interests, even if there is ultimately a public interest involved. There are few instances where nonprofit organizations deliver public services financed by privately-paid special assessments. It even seems a tad reckless for normally cautious commercial and civic leaders to trust enterprising entrepreneurs. Robert Walsh, the commissioner of New York City’s Department of Small Business Services said this about BIDs: “You have to have a collection of visionary property owners willing to pay a little extra to make something happen.”1 BIDs are uniquely conceptualized and individually designed to make a difference in struggling places. Idiosyncratic state laws, the experiences of city leaders, and the plight of specific business districts shape each and every BID. One BID may have a five-member governing board while another may have a fifteen-member board, one BID may cover twenty blocks and another one hundred twenty, and one BID may have a budget of a few thousand dollars and another may have millions of dollars to spend. Although experimental and individually distinct by necessity, there are similarities among BIDs. Fundamentally, any BID is a bureaucracy with many of the attendant characteristics of all bureaucracies—from a hierarchical structure and division of labor to fixed rules of conduct and the use of written documents. More specifically, there are seven common attributes among BIDs. They are:

1. recognized by law, 2. created according to a process, 55

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3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

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formed as an organization, financed by a special assessment, governed by a board, managed by one person, and reviewed periodically.

Within these categories, the distinctions among BIDs can be identified, and it is from an examination of these categories that a portrait emerges about how BIDs have been created to shape city places into modern agoras.

 BIDs exist because state legislation allows them to exit (except Washington, D.C., where local law provides the authorization). State laws are required because courts have ruled local governments are creatures of states, and state approval is necessary before local ordinances authorize new forms of governance.2 State statutes regarding BIDs are usually similar to the body of law dealing with special districts—the same entities that helped to create the placeless landscape in suburbia and to facilitate the desertion of city centers. Wyoming is the only state without BID legislation. South Dakota has a statute, although no city has adopted a BID. The level of detail in state statutes varies greatly. Arkansas has few BIDs, yet its statute goes on for page after page and includes language such as: the governing body shall appoint five (5) persons who shall be owners of real property in the district, or officers or stockholders of a corporation owning real property within the district, as commissioners, who shall compose a board of commissioners for the district.3

By comparison, Wisconsin has over sixty improvement districts, yet its BID statute is a mere three pages of relatively straightforward description. All state statutes offer a lesson in terminology. Not only do statutes define such terms as property owner, special assessment, and board, but they also state the name of the thing itself. New York, California, and several other states call their BIDs BIDs (the name used herein). Other states use different names to refer to the same thing. For example, in Illinois, they are special service areas; in Iowa, self-supported municipal improvement districts; in Maryland, commercial district management authorities; in Missouri, special business districts; in New Jersey, special improvement districts; in Texas, public improvement districts; and in Washington State, parking and business improvement associations. Additionally, some states have separate laws creating different types of districts with distinct characteristics. Both California and Oregon, for instance, have one kind of district supported by property owners through a tax levy and another kind paid

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for by business owners with a fee. When it comes to the titles of the organizations, no state prescribes that any particular organization use any special name, which means you can have the Downtown DC BID, the Alliance for Downtown New York, or Downtown Visions in Wilmington, Delaware. An important commonality among state statutes is that none of them put any limits on the number of BIDs that may be created in the state as a whole or within a particular community. The BID population in any state is entirely a result of the decisions made by local governments. Since no state conducts a census of BIDs, it is difficult to know with any precision how many exist in the nation. Moreover, new BIDs are created every year, existing ones are merged, and BIDs are established that never become operational. Even the definition of what makes a BID a BID varies according to the interests and perspectives of those doing the counting. To prove BIDs are sweeping the nation, BID advocates conveniently include voluntary merchant associations and even chambers of commerce in the rough estimates of the BID population. With hyperbole to spare, it is common to read and hear of 1,500 BIDs in the nation, 2,000, and even 10,000. The more logical number is between 500 and 1,000 (using a definition that every BID must be financed through a mandatory assessment or fee and there must be some indication that services are delivered on an ongoing basis). Six states lead the BID parade. California, Illinois, and New York each have more than one hundred BIDs, Wisconsin has sixty, New Jersey about fifty, and North Carolina around thirty. Most other states have between one and ten BIDs, depending on who is doing the counting and what is being counted. As of 2007, New York City had fifty-seven BIDs, more than any city. Other cities with multiple BIDs include Chicago with sixteen, Milwaukee with nineteen, Los Angeles with thirty-two, and San Diego with twelve. Why has the BID approach caught on in some places and not in others? First, some people in some places are probably more aware of and attracted to the ideas and principles that underlie BIDs. Psychologically, there are individuals who are comfortable with innovation and others who are resistant to change. Second, there are states that do not have enough cities with enough places where BIDs can be created. Kansas and Montana, for instance, will never have many BIDs because each has few large population centers. Third, a diffusion of innovation can occur where one community adopts whatever is happening in nearby towns because they want the same results or to compete with each other. The large number of BIDs in California, New Jersey, and New York is perhaps due to widespread mimicry. Fourth, cities in some states have been more inclined to rely on development methods other than BIDs. For example, Minnesota has hundreds of tax increment financing (TIF) districts but relatively few BIDs. Fifth, the process for creating BIDs is much more efficient in some places than in others. Undoubtedly, New Jersey has

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many improvement districts because localities can create them unilaterally without any formal petition process on the part of affected businesses. Sixth, older communities with older structures and fewer modern amenities may be more likely to use BIDs to achieve their revitalization goals.4 BIDs often fix aging infrastructures, such as by installing new street lighting or reconstructing sidewalks. Lastly, in areas where one BID after another has been established, people have learned how to successfully advocate for their creation and put them to work. As one public policy book put it: “we evaluate to learn, and we learn to implement.”5

 There is always a legal process for creating BIDs.6 Of course, like everything else in an arena where pragmatism reigns supreme, processes vary greatly from one jurisdiction to another. To simplify, the process usually begins when a group of property or business owners petition a municipal government to create a BID. This typically involves the submission of a plan that identifies the proposed BID’s financing formula, governance structure, scope of services to be provided, and geographical boundaries. The size and shape of a district may be determined by local zoning designations, geographical markers, common sense, and political support.7 To demonstrate support within a particular area, the results of a public opinion survey or focus group may be added to the plan. Once the plan is fixed, the proposed BID is reviewed by local government administrators. The city attorney may examine the plan for consistency with state and local laws, the planning or public works director may review the proposed geographical boundaries, the local assessor may analyze the legalities of the assessment formula, and other officials (city manager, economic development director, etc.) may set forth the timetable for consideration of the proposal by the city council and the affected property owners and businesses. In New York City, for instance, the Department of Small Business Services is responsible for working on the development of new BIDs and for guiding BIDs through the approval process.8 Once a BID plan has been vetted, it is usually submitted to a local governing body (i.e., city council) for formal authorization in an enabling ordinance. Following the contours of the initial plan, and observing state-level statutory requirements, the ordinance will legally prescribe the BID’s jurisdiction, financing, governance, and service responsibilities. After the ordinance is drafted, public hearings are normally held and those for and against the BID can express their opinions and recommend any changes. Additionally, many states require the distribution of a petition that offers an opportunity for those who pay the assessment to vote for or against the proposed BID. For example, a BID can be rejected in Wisconsin if a petition is signed by owners of properties representing more than 40 percent of the value of prop-

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erty to be assessed, using the same method of valuation specified in the initial operating plan. If rejected, the process stops at this point. If the outcome of the petition process is favorable, or when no petitions are required, the final step is for the local governing body to vote to adopt, or not adopt, the enabling ordinance. The processes for creating BIDs vary considerably around the country. There are plenty of odd state rules that range from effortless to arduous and that differ between states and within states. On the easy side, municipalities in New Jersey can create an improvement district without a formal petition process. In contrast, other states have erected major hurdles for the creation of BIDs. Georgia requires that 75 percent of property owners to agree to the creation of a BID. Even more extreme, Mississippi law requires at least 20 percent of the affected parties to start the process, which is followed by a meeting of the businesses where a majority in attendance must consent to every element of a proposed BID, and if all this was not enough, there is a final vote that requires 70 percent of the property owners to agree to create the BID. In California, the creation process is different for different types of BIDs.9 There are business-based BIDs that follow generally the simplified process previously described, and then there are property-based BIDs. These later BIDs are subject to Proposition 218, a voter initiative enacted in 1996, which requires mailing ballots to all property owners within the proposed district. If there is majority support among the ballots returned, weighted by the amount of assessment that the owners pay, only then can a proposed BID go forward for public hearings and a vote by the city council. Beyond these formalisms, the politics surrounding the creation of a BID often comes down to a contest between those who believe that a BID is the best means available to save a city place and those who loathe the idea. The proponents tend to have the upper hand because they are usually well financed and well organized. An existing or new merchant association will often take the lead in bringing out the good points about BIDs at every stage of the process. This advocacy body has an incentive to be successful because it is normal for it to assume responsibility for managing the BID once it is established. It is also commonplace for the proponents to be led by one or more respected members of the community, usually those with power and money. For example, a major supporter for the creation of the Times Square BID was Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, the publisher of the New York Times, whose offices are in the district.10 Those favoring a BID often hire a well-paid consultant to maneuver them through the thicket of legal issues and political machinations. There are several consultant firms that sell their experience in successfully establishing BIDs, such as HyettPalma and the Atlantic Group. State or local economic development offices may also play a role by publishing a guide for creating BIDs, championing the idea in various forums, and providing legal assistance for a plan that can be easily translated

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into authorizing legislation.11 In Los Angeles, the city offers seed money to assist in the development of the BID plan and to pay for the work associated with the petition process. Working with banks in a district, loans can be taken out against the future proceeds of a BID. In the promotion of a new BID, the overarching argument is that the development of collective places is an essential way to recognize the value of commercial and civic life—implicitly recalling the 1950s, the City Beautiful, and the ancient agora in Greece. In public proceedings, the supporters of BIDs usually draw on the language of economic development and civic husbandry as selling points. For example, mention will be made of all the wonderful things that BIDs can do—from cleaning streets, to marketing, to providing security, to developing a sense of shared responsibility among competing businesses. A pitch may be made to the private sector that that the additional assessment is an investment that will pay off in higher retail sales, more pedestrian traffic, increased property values, and an overall improved economic climate within specific city places. BIDs may be sold to the public as a way to improve city places without substantial government intervention and in a manner that does not require large-scale change. The suggestion may be put forth that BIDs complement other initiatives, such as the use of tax abatements and the development of historical landmarks. The public’s attention will often be directed to nearby areas that were once bereft of life and that have been seemingly resurrected after a BID was installed. Finally, the contention may be made that the best way to help implement a major event is through a BID, such as the BID in downtown Atlanta, formed prior to the 1996 Olympics.12 The opponents usually have fewer ideas and little, if any, organizational support or resources. In many instances, a small group of property or business owners, sometimes only one or two individuals, may lead the attack without being able to do anything more than express their opinions in public hearings and by buttonholing those responding to petitions. Their singular hope is that contrary opinions matter in a democracy. The arguments against BIDs are mostly in the vernacular of egalitarianism.13 The privatization of public places is sometimes made out to be a bad idea. The contention is that public places should remain public to minimize the likelihood that an individual or group might be excluded for one reason or another. Opponents imply that it is unfair to pay so much attention to business development in one place, the needs of residents may be ignored, and businesses outside the district may receive short shrift in city development. The point may be put forth that there is no incontrovertible evidence that BIDs are successful, there are only self-serving assertions of success made by BID advocates. Property owners may argue that they are already being taxed to provide city services. The BID assessment is seen as essentially a form of double taxation. Large business may assert that it is not fair for them

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to pay an additional assessment for services they may already be providing, while small businesses claim that it is too great of a burden on them to support the delivery of services that benefit larger businesses the most.14 In other words, it is not good to foster inequitable conditions in a community. It may also be suggested that there is not enough government control over how BIDs spend the funds gained from compulsory charges, and little, if any, oversight over their functions. In short, BIDs are labeled unaccountable. Finally, the point is made that taxes should be avoided, even if the taxes are minimal, even if they are not actually taxes, and even if they are well intentioned. This argument is in keeping with the original American rallying cry that any unfettered exercise of the government’s taxation power is an unwise practice, if not a dangerous threat to liberty. Another problem that must be overcome in creating a BID is a general sense that city places have died and can not resurrected by anyone, even with the best of intentions. For instance, in the debate surrounding the creation of a BID in Norristown, Pennsylvania, a long time owner of a furniture store opposed the proposed BID because he believed “It (the downtown) will never come back to what it was.”15 The nature of the political environment also has an impact on the creation of BIDs. A general civic malaise where barely 50 percent of the citizenry votes at the local level makes building either public support or opposition for something as arcane as a BID problematic. For those people who care deeply about local politics, it is not unknown for rationality to get lost in endless bickering over past wrongs, convoluted debates about who should make decisions, and squabbling about minor issues. Even when there is overwhelming consensus that a BID is a good idea, disagreements often break out over how assessment formulas are calculated, the boundaries of the district, the methods for deciding how the funds will be used, and the make-up of the governance structure. Legal challenges may have to be resolved and compromises reached point by point by point, which may reduce the scope of the district or change the assessment formula, thereby reducing the amount of funds available to accomplish the certain objectives and affect what occurs in the years to come. With few exceptions, putting a BID in place is slow, exceedingly slow. In New York City, it normally takes a minimum of three years for a BID to be organized, including nine to twelve months for the hearings, waiting periods, reviews, and opportunities for written protests, and another two years for the development of the BID plan, community outreach, and review by the Department of Small Business Services and the City Council. It can take even longer. For example, it took one BID on Columbus Avenue, in Manhattan, eight years to be finalized after protracted wrangling among the affected business.16 A BID for Christopher Street in New York’s Greenwich Village has been bandied about for over a decade without ever coming close

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to fruition.17 In New York and elsewhere, it is as likely as unlikely that a BID will be defeated the first time it is considered, only to be resurrected at some later date.

 Once a BID has been created, it will be the responsibility of an organization. BIDs are operated in one of three ways: by a nonprofit association, by a public agency, or by a partnership between one or more public, private, or nonprofit entities. Among 264 BIDs surveyed in 1999, 61 percent were operated by nonprofit organizations, 13 percent were the responsibility of public sector bodies, and 26 percent were run by a public-nonprofit partnership. Given the ad hoc character of the BID concept, it should come as no surprise that there is no empirical evidence that proves one type is any better than another nor is there any specific explanation why one city selects one approach over another. There is some evidence to suggest that the smaller the community the more likely a BID will be run out of a public agency, and the larger the community the more likely it is the responsibility of a nonprofit organization or public-private partnership.18 When a nonprofit organization is used, it is common for it to have been a voluntary merchant association in the area prior to the initiation of the BID (although it could have been created specifically for the purposes of running the BID). A nonprofit BID will receive most of its funds from the mandatory assessment imposed on the businesses or properties in the area (voluntary donations may also be collected). Typically, the nonprofit organization enters into a contract with the city for the provision of services. According to Internal Revenue Service rules, a BID’s nonprofit status can be maintained as long as its earnings do not inure to any private shareholder or individual, there is an absence of involvement in campaign activity for or against political candidates, and all of the necessary legal forms are submitted in a timely fashion. The nonprofit imprint is significant because it legally separates a BID’s functions from government, which frees it of civil service rules and public sector contracting procedures. The nonprofit model is common in most large cities, such as New York City and Los Angeles. A BID operated by a public agency can assume two forms: one is for a BID to be the responsibility of a city government department and a second is for it to be a public authority. When a BID is housed in a city government department there is no division between the BID and the budget and functions of city government. In Kansas City, Missouri, for example, the Department of City Planning and Development administers two BIDs—the Westport Special Business District, and the Union Hill Special Business District. In this arrangement, the local government retains control of finances, but the BID loses some of the flexibility to hire personnel and vet contracts because

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it must adhere to public rules and regulations. In contrast, when a BID is turned over to a public authority, operational flexibility is incorporated into public ownership. A public authority is a quasi-governmental entity that is exempt from many of the rules and regulations of government and that can independently managing services without the approval of a legislative body. Improvement districts in Pennsylvania are operated this way under the state’s municipal authorities law. BIDs can also operate in the context of a public-private partnership. Under this model, either a public or nonprofit BID is housed within an umbrella organization that also contains one or more public, private, or nonprofit organizations accomplishing complementary aims. For example, the Downtown Denver Partnership is comprised of the following: • The Downtown Denver BID, a nonprofit organization funded by an assessment on property owners and responsible for cleaning and security. • Downtown Denver Inc., a voluntary membership organization that provides marketing and advocacy services. • Downtown Denver Events, a department within the Partnership that sponsors events with most of its revenues derived from the events. • Denver Civic Ventures, a nonprofit organization, supported largely by intergovernmental grants, that focuses on economic development and the development of housing assistance. In addition to Denver, partnerships can be found in Anchorage, Alaska; Baltimore, Maryland; Little Rock, Arkansas; Memphis, Tennessee; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Phoenix, Arizona; and Sacramento, California. A holding company structure permits like-minded organizations to share administrative costs, to reap collectively the advantages of different organizational exigencies, and to coordinate kindred activities. Depending on the partnership, the jurisdiction of the non-BID organizations may or may not correspond to the boundaries of the improvement district and the governance system may be centralized or decentralized among the units. On the downside, partnerships are difficult to govern and manage because each part may be tied to separate constituencies and different legal requirements.19 Often complex to the point of obfuscation, it is hard to discern the exact roles of the constituent parts, especially when it comes to the use of BID assessments.

 The primary source of BID funding is a special assessment applied to the properties or businesses within the district. The local government is the collection agent, which in turn transfers the assessment proceeds over for the BID to spend. Once in a BID’s coffers, the funds ideally provide a secure and

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stable means to improve city places for the better. This funding mechanism truly distinguishes BIDs from other organizations, such as voluntary merchant associations. It strikes most people as remarkable that profit-minded businesses would agree to tax themselves to provide public services. The assessments used to fund BIDs are technically not taxes, but are instead service charges or user fees that just so happen to be determined on the basis of property tax valuations. In other words, when a restaurant pays the assessment for the operation of BID, even if the charge is based on property values, it is no different than when it pays a fee to a local government to pick up its garbage or provide water. This distinction is important; otherwise BIDs would run afoul of state constitutions that require uniform taxation, legal strictures on the fair imposition of property taxes, and the following of certain processes when increasing tax rates. In a truly American example of how you can make anything work if you want to, the courts have consistently supported the tortured thinking that special assessments based on property tax formulas are not truly taxes. This has thwarted any effort to use the tax laws to challenge the legality of BIDs.20 So as to not restrain the authority of city governments to solve public problems, it does matter that a city uses a nonprofit organization or some other administrative device to spend the assessment proceeds, that the benefits accrue more to some businesses than others, and that the assessments are applied in odd ways. Thus far, the courts have ruled differential assessments do not violate the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection clause. For example, the Supreme Court of the State of Washington upheld a local improvement district ordinance that assessed all floors of smaller stores, but only two floors of one multilevel retail establishment that just so happened to be one of the largest buildings in the district. The court ruled that as long as the classification achieves a public purpose, there is no reason for the judiciary to limit a legislative prerogative to set assessment formulas or to restrict administrative experimentation at the local level.21 Without a dominant model to follow, state and cities have come up with all sorts of assessment formulas, exemptions, oversight mechanisms, and other matters having to do with BID finances. One could go on and on inspecting this minutia and never get around to a discussion of anything else. Without becoming immersed in mind-numbing details, yet with an appreciation that the devil is often in the details, there are six aspects of BID financing worth examining. A geographically-defined group of private-sector firms fund BIDs. The payees may be landowners or building owners, retail, commercial, or industrial tenants, or some combination thereof. A variety of formulas and rates are used to calculate payments, but the two most common are assessed valuation and square footage.22 The assessed valuation method involves an additional payment on

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top of existing property taxes based on the value of property. The assessed valuation method is advantageous because it is easy to calculate using city records, it implies that those who benefit the most pay the most, and it is understandable. The square footage of property method is also easy to understand, although it is not as easy to determine actual footage and it fails to take into account factors like the age or location of properties. The exact financing formulas come in many guises: In 2006, the following existed: • The Cedar Falls (Iowa) Community Main Street—properties assessed at $3.50 per $1,000 valuation. • The Downtown DC BID—an assessment of $.14 cents per net rentable square of space for improved properties, $.14 cents per square foot of land for unimproved properties (including parking lots), and $60.00 per hotel room. • The Freehold (New Jersey) Center Partnership—properties assessed 31.1 percent of $100 of estimated market value. • The Third Street Promenade and Downtown District in Santa Monica, California—properties assessed on an annual basis, whichever is less: 1 x the business license tax up to a maximum of $19.002.33; or .13 x square footage x 12. Cap and per-square-amounts are increased according to the annual consumer price index. • The Columbia (South Carolina) Center City Partnership—an assessment of $.001593 of value (escalates 5 percent annually); Main Street property owners pay an additional $3.46 per foot of frontage for extra services, such as daily sidewalk cleaning. • San Jose (California) Downtown Association—annual fees are calculated on expected benefit: retail $26.40 per employee/$240 minimum; nonretail $15.60 per employee/$150 minimum; apartments and hotels $7.20 per room/$240 minimum; parking lots $300; property owners range from $400 (less than 10,000 square feet) to a $6,000 maximum charge per year depending on square footage. BID assessments are compulsory. The required charge must be paid every year, no matter if a business opposed the creation of the BID and continues to despise every aspect of its operations. The bill can be a part of a regular property tax statement as separate line or it can be added to business license renewals.23 No matter how it is formatted, it must be paid. Although the failure to pay is not a cause for a pillorying in a public square, it can result in fines, the filing of a lien, or a delinquency sale (although this is more of a threat than a likely occurrence). The governmental imprint is intended to prevent the “free rider effect” associated with voluntary associations whereby some merchants fail to pay their required dues but still receive the benefits of

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marketing and other services. More important, compulsion frees the BID from conducting expensive fundraising projects and ensures a stable source of income from year to year. From a funding perspective, BIDs are a kind of proprietary community where land is improved in exchange for compensation in the form of a special assessment.24 Following the practices of American cities in the mid-1800s (and to some extent the ideas of Henry George from the late-1800s), the assumption is that mandatory assessments applied proportionally to land values are the most efficient (easy) and most equitable (fair) way to fund services that benefit the self-interest of individual landowners and the public interest of the community as a whole.25 Like mobile home parks and neighborhood associations, the BID funding arrangement supplies an incentive for property owners to become involved in governance in order for them to have voice in how their contributions are distributed as collective goods. There are usually exemptions within any district. Vacant properties may pay a reduced assessment. Residences, government offices, hospitals, religious institutions, and nonprofit organizations are usually exempt, although they may provide in-kind or cash contributions. For instance, the federal General Services Administration (GSA) has a Good Neighbor Program that encourages agencies in districts to contract with BIDs for maintenance, security, and other services that benefit federal properties. The compulsory assessment supplies most of the funding for most BIDs. A 1995 survey of twenty-three BIDs by the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership found the assessment system on average made up at least two-thirds of BID budgets.26 In most cities, the largest property owners pay the most. In other words, locate the property with the greatest square footage or the greatest value, and you are probably going to find the one who pays the most money for the operation of a BID. Among 2,143 assessed properties in Philadelphia’s Center City District fifteen properties pay a third of the total cost of operations and the top 200 properties pay 87 percent of the total cost. Similarly, in Atlantic City’s special improvement district, 83 percent of the assessments are paid by ten casino properties. BIDs can usually solicit and obtain additional funds. Among 264 BIDs that were surveyed in 1999, 50 percent received voluntary donations; 27 percent obtained federal or state grants; 24 percent acquired subsidies from local government; and 21 percent sold goods or services. A few BIDs can issue bonds to obtain funds, although this is most often done through a partnership variety where a separate public authority incurs the debt and the BID merely administers the services funded by the bonds. The Downtown Development District in New Orleans is one BID with the authority to sell bonds, issuing

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more than $7 million worth in 2001. BIDs may encourage corporate sponsorships (such as public benches) and charge fees to businesses for picking up trash outside the assessment area. For instance, the Yonkers Downtown Waterfront BID collects $50,000 per year in fees for refuse collection from businesses located outside the district’s boundaries. BIDs can also obtain federal grants, such as through the GSA’s Good Neighbor Program. BIDs have budgets. The accounting statement for any BID is usually a relatively straightforward compilation of annual revenues and expenditures. Among 264 BID studied in 1999, the median budget was $110,000. Generally, the greater the number of blocks and the richer the properties, the larger the budget. The Alliance for Downtown New York in lower Manhattan includes expensive Wall Street properties and has a budget of well over $10 million, covering 113 square blocks and over 12,000 businesses. In comparison, the annual budget of the Columbus Avenue BID in upper Manhattan is approximately $200,000, covering fourteen blocks and 175 properties. Chicago’s special service areas have budgets ranging from $68,600 in the Kedzie industrial tract to $1.3 million for the State Street area. In small communities of less than 10,000 residents, budgets are often no more than $10,000. The issue is not so much the size of the budget, however, but whether there is enough money for what needs to be done and how the funds are appropriated for different uses by a BID’s governing body.

 A governing board makes the major policy decisions about BID budgets, services, and marketing plans. The majority of members of the typical board are property owners and businesses in the area. A board may also include some number of elected officials, public administrators, or local residents. In few locales, the local city council serves simultaneously as the governing body of a BID. BID boards come in many sizes and represent various numbers of properties and businesses. The Baton Rouge Downtown Development District has seven members, Buffalo Place BID has fifteen, the Louisville Downtown Management District has twenty, and Downtown Tempe Community has twenty-nine. Among the 264 BIDs surveyed in 1999, the average board had sixteen members. A survey of improvement districts in New Jersey found an average board size of fifteen, with boards ranging in size from seven to thirty.27 There is not necessarily a corresponding relationship between board size and the number of properties in a district. The Danbury, Connecticut Special Services District and the Red Bank, New Jersey Special Improvement District each have about the same number of properties within them (215 and 254 respectively), but the Danbury board is made of twelve members and the Red Bank board is made up of thirty members.

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Board members may be selected in several ways. The local governing body may appoint the board, the affected property or business owners may elect the members, the existing boards may select their own successors, or there may be some combination of all of these. There may also be voting or nonvoting ex officio representatives from government, such as elected members of the city council or the heads of city agencies. There are selection systems that require proportional representation based on the share of the total assessed value in the district. Another formula is to distribute seats based on different locations within a district. In most boards, landowners or business representatives make up the largest segment of any board. Board seats can be assigned to residents and individuals from outside the district’s boundaries. Different elected officials may also have the authority to select board members to represent different interests. Consider, for instance, the convoluted requirements in New York: The board of directors of the association shall be composed of representatives of owners and tenants within the district, provided, however, that not less than a majority of its members shall represent owners and provided further that tenants of commercial space and dwelling units within the district shall also be represented on the board. The board shall include, in addition, three members, one member appointed by each of the following: the chief executive officer of the municipality, the chief financial officer of the municipality and the legislative body. Provided, that in a city having a population of one million or more, the third additional member shall be appointed by the borough president of the borough in which the district is located and a fourth additional member shall be appointed by the council member representing the council district in which the proposed district is located, or if the proposed district is located in more than one council district, the fourth additional member will be appointed by the speaker of the city council after consultation with the council members representing the council districts in which the proposed district is located. The additional three members (four in a city of one million or more) shall serve as the incorporators of the association pursuant to the not-for-profit corporation law.28

Most BIDs divide themselves up into committees. For example, the Albany, New York, Downtown BID has one committee related to marketing (public relations and branding), another focused on property occupation (commercial and residential), and one concerned with infrastructure and quality of life enhancement (streetscapes and directional signs). The extent of authority of BID boards can vary greatly. The boards associated with BIDs in public agencies may serve more of an advisory role, while those that oversee an independent nonprofit organization may approve nearly every action. Whatever the structure, no BID board is a sovereign power, even when comprised of some number of locally elected officials.

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Legally, BID boards are not analogous to legislative bodies because BID boards are ultimately under the jurisdiction of municipal governments. BIDs serve a limited rather than general purpose. Writing in the Columbia Law Review, Richard Briffault called the boards of BIDs “junior public bodies” because their authority is narrowly defined and their autonomy is strictly constrained by local statutes.29 According to several court rulings, they are not subject to the one-person-one-vote doctrine of the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection clause and they can be organized in almost any manner imaginable.30 Like the financial side of BIDs, the courts permit unique governance structures to exist in order to encourage innovation and to facilitate an action orientation. Who do board members represent? This question cannot be answered any better for BID boards that it can for corporate boards, city councils, or the U.S. Congress. Like other forms of governance in the American system, the most incontrovertible statement is that there is no dominant accountability standard.31 The governance of BIDs evolves as board members come and go and problems and solutions appear and disappear. One study of improvement districts in New Jersey discovered that boards with self-governing discretionary authority tended to be more cohesive and forward thinking than those under the close control of an external body, such as the local city council.32 Several potential interests may be represented on BID boards. Members may represent their own profit-making self-interest, the needs of particular blocks or streets, a certain class of property (commercial, retail, etc.), or distinctive viewpoints (historical preservation, office development, etc.). Large property owners may be perceived as major leaders, but even the smallest business can have a say in the activities of a BID. Sometime BID board members see themselves as partners with the local government and other associations, such as the chamber of commerce, or they may assume they are in competition with other associations. A well-known community leader may dominate board governance or there may be more of a shared consensus among several members of the business community. BID boards can engage in vigorous oversight of the administrative staff or they can be rubber stamps for the policy choices of the executive director and his or her staff.

 An executive director or president, who has usually been hired by the governing board or by the local government, manages a BID. The director is especially significant if for no other reason than he or she may be one of a few fulltime employees. In 1999, the largest number of employees in any BID was 155, but less than one-fifth had more than fifty full-time personnel. The average BID employs eight people, not including any contract workers or employees that are shared with local government. Since BIDs are not large organizations

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with respect to numbers of employees, the role of the top administrator becomes critical to their success. Among 264 BIDs surveyed in 1999, the average BID director was fortyfive years old. Almost 60 percent were male. Before their current job, 43 percent had worked in the private sector, 36 percent had been employed in the nonprofit sector, and 22 percent had come from the public sector. BID managers were highly educated: 4 percent were high school graduates, 11 percent had attended some college, 45 percent held a bachelors degree, and 40 percent had completed or were in the process of completing a postgraduate degree. Some common postgraduate degrees included the Master of Business Administration, Master of Public Administration, and Master of Urban Planning.33 BID directors have three major responsibilities. First, they handle day-today administrative tasks, such as entering into contracts, making budgets, hiring employees, and conducting performance evaluations. Second, they develop political relationships by working with the public, elected officials, city departments, the media, their governing boards, and others to solve complaints, provide information, and develop positive communications among various individuals and groups. Third, they act as innovators by creating new images for public places, discovering services to provide, designing novel programs, and locating additional revenue streams. The BID manager’s role as a civic entrepreneur is especially important. According to Alexander Garvin, the author of The American City: What Works, What Doesn’t, civic entrepreneurs are critical to the success of public places because they not only discover prescriptions that others don’t notice, but they also figure out ways to get the prescriptions off the ground.34 BID managers are supposed to be risk takers, unafraid of failure, born of strong convictions, visionary, passionate and energetic, able to bring out the best in other people, and economic catalysts. They are expected to have four key attributes: (1) They need a positive view of community life. They should find reasons why things can happen, as opposed to focusing on the reasons why they cannot. (2) Their leadership must be collaborative. They need to build bridges among the public, private, and nonprofit sectors, and to learn from other civic entrepreneurs, such as the leaders of community development corporations and heads of economic development corporations. (3) They should emphasize the achievement of the long-term public interest over the satisfaction of short-term self-interest. The aim is for the entire district to succeed, not for a few businesses within the district to have better days. (4) They must be both idealistic and practical. Their concern is with broad concepts, such as economic development and historical preservation, but also with the niceties of administration, such as submitting forms to the IRS and making sure the BID is regularly reauthorized.

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 Most BIDs have to be reauthorized periodically. Among the states, the renewal periods are no more uniform than that anything else associated with BIDs. The period of time can range from one to twenty-five years, with five years being the most common. In California, BIDs are renewed for either five or ten year intervals. New Jersey has no sunset provision, but a local town council can fail to reauthorize an improvement district’s budget, effectively leading to the district’s demise. The procedures for renewing BIDs also vary, although the process is far less cumbersome than the practices associated with the creation of BIDs. The exact requirements can be found in state statutes and the local ordinances that create BIDs. With few exceptions, there is an obligation for a BID to produce a performance report for review by the governing board, the local government, and the public as whole. A BID renewal report usually lists everything it did since it was first authorized or last reauthorized. It is rare to find a critical word and certainly no BID has ever called for its own termination because of its poor performance. The language usually reads like the following from the 2001 reauthorization report of the Downtown DC BID: Over the first four years of its life, the Downtown DC BID has successfully contributed to an improved image and economy in downtown. It has helped create an environment that is cleaner, safer, friendlier, and more attractive. Over the last four years, downtown DC’s office and hotel occupancy rates have increased, as have the number of new developments, retail sales, and property sales.35

Although there is a tendency toward self-congratulation, the reauthorization process is a useful way for BIDs to reassess their goals and to engage in a public discourse about the relevance of their activities. Renewals provide a benchmark, that is, a point of reference for comparison or measurement purposes. With a benchmark, BID managers can “measure the performance gap between where they are and where they want to be and track their progress in closing that gap.”36 In a few cities, BIDs can be allowed to “sunset” on their renewal date and go out of business. Otherwise, the procedure for dissolving a BID is easier said than done. In New York City, a BID may be dissolved by the city council independently or in response to a petition from at least 51 percent of owners of property in the district and the owners of at least 51 percent of the total assessed value of properties in the district. In other words, there has to be a group of people so displeased with a BID that they are willing to run a political campaign to dissolve it. In fact, a majority of states require a petition drive on the part of the disgruntled to get rid of a BID, which is perhaps one explanation for why few BIDs have ever been dissolved.

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Although rare, there are instances where BIDs have not been renewed for one reason or another, such as in Miami, Florida, Allentown, Pennsylvania, and Rockford, Illinois. The reasons for not renewing BIDs include a consensus that there are insufficient funds to carry out functions, a failure to meet expectations that may not be achievable, and the emergence of mission differences among various community elements.37 In Rockford, Illinois, for instance, a special services area (the name given to BIDs) was established in 1988 and reauthorized three times, but then terminated in 1998 by a property owner petition after both budgeting conflicts and mission disagreements broke out among local businesses, the executive director, board members, and the elected city leadership. Given that the specter of termination hangs over them, BIDs must be willing to fight lawsuits that challenge their operations, to continually build political support for their projects, and to market their performance as much as they market their jurisdictions. BIDs also may use the renewal process as the basis for expanding the scope and size of their jurisdiction. Claiming success at each of its renewals, the Seattle Metropolitan Improvement District has grown from a fifteen-block district in the 1980s to a 225-block district in 2000.

 Now safely ensconced in American cities, BIDs have the organizational ingredients to help shape city places into modern agoras. Although it is often difficult to get them up and running, once started they have many practical features. BIDs have a governmental mandate, a steady source of funds, incentives for business participation, and administrative flexibility. If for no other reason than to enhance their own potential for success and to prevent their termination, BID have every reason to work in concert with other public and private initiatives that are seeking to change city life for the better—from historical preservation projects, to the construction of sports facilities, to the use of tax increment financing. Self-interested board members and their highly educated managers have the knowledge to rectify past failures and to build on past successes in their communities, as well as in other cities. As civic entrepreneurs, BID managers have the freedom to find and implement new and interesting ideas, to attend conferences to share their experiences with each another, and to learn how to make a difference by continually analyzing the activities going on around them. With all of these advantages, the chief concern for BIDs is how best to use their advantages to the best advantage of city places.

FIVE

Making a Difference

BIDs SHAPE city places for the better by using all of their administrative

advantages to become occupied with as many activities as possible. The more the better. Seemingly trifling measures may be involved, such as hand sweeping gutters and offering directions to lost tourists, yet the overall impact is expected to be considerable—to create an atmosphere conducive to the use of city places. Under the premise that there is no grand plan for cities, no two BIDs work exactly the same way because no two places are the same. First, municipal service agreements, local laws, and the personal preferences of city leaders determine what BIDs are able to accomplish. Take any city, any mayor, any city council, or any city administrator and there may be more or less enthusiasm to go along with BID plans and activities. Second, BIDs respond differently to the problems in communities. For instance, compact business districts in big cities with high crime rates may focus more on security than main streets in small towns. Third, service delivery is related to the geographical and financial size of BIDs. According to one study of BIDs in New York City, the “smallest BIDs focus on physical maintenance of an area, midsized BIDs tend to concentrate on marketing and promotional activities, and the largest BIDs, in addition to maintenance and promotion, engage in capital improvement activities.”1 Fourth, there is a temporal quality to the work of BIDs. Paul Levy, the executive director of Philadelphia’s Center City District, depicted the evolution this way: We start with clean and safe services, caring for the public environment. Then we promote what we have and later expand to draw the customers needed to fill the empty buildings and spaces. Then BIDs begin economic development activities, finding new uses for buildings, retraining and attracting businesses, undertaking strategic planning and visioning, and initiating public space capital improvements to leverage more private investment.2 73

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Generally, the work of BIDs falls within seven categories of service delivery: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

marketing, cleaning and maintenance, capital improvement, security, economic development, policy advocacy, and community development.

All of the categories are based on theories, that is, each is associated with a predicated chain of causation between initial conditions and desired outcomes. For example, street crime is anticipated to decrease when there is a greater security presence, which is expected to make streets appear safer, leading law-abiding citizens to utilize them more. It is by putting theories into practice through the provision of services that BIDs shape city places. The problem is that any theory of social phenomena has both strengths and weaknesses. Too much of a security presence, for instance, could lead to the erroneous perception that crime must be a big problem for the area, and therefore scare people away from it. The simple principle, yet the difficult challenge, is to apply the appropriate theories to places and then to bring them to life through the efficient and effective implementation of services.

 Nearly every BID in the nation is involved with marketing. Among 264 BIDs surveyed in 1999, more than 80 percent indicated that they were very involved with consumer marketing. BIDs put up banners along streetscapes, attach promotions on the sides of buses, produce newsletters, coordinate sales promotions among merchants, advertise street festivals, and sponsor rock, jazz, classical, country, and blues concerts. BIDs use various media to get their message before the public, including public service announcements, newspaper and television advertisements, radio talk show commentaries, and personal appearances before local organizations and companies. BIDs affix their name and logos on pencils, pens, bumper stickers, shopping bags, coffee mugs, baseball hats, Tshirts, sweatshirts, book markers, refrigerator magnets, key chains, and tote bags. They distribute brightly-colored maps of restaurants, retail stores, parking spaces, trolley rides, historical landmarks, and public art. Many have flashy Web sites, almost all publish a business directory, many supply e-bulletins to the public, and the richest ones produce slick, glossy annual reports that feature pictures of smiling families enjoying ice cream cones on pristine sidewalks. In everything they do, BIDs attempt to establish a brand for themselves and the district where they are located. The typical BID adopts a corporatestyle logo to build a reputation with citizens and to give people a handy way

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to remember the area.3 The aim of branding is to tie city places to an idea and to encourage people to consume the idea. Colorful square-shaped banners with BID logos are often placed on street lamps to effectuate a sense of uniformity and to supply a means to announce upcoming events. Some BIDs, such as the Coliseum Central BID in Hampton, Virginia, provide matching grants to businesses that include a reference to the BID’s logo in their advertisements. A few BIDs use the same theme. For instance, “Live it Up!” is the logo of both the Downtown Salt Lake City Alliance and the Nashville Downtown Partnership. Examples of other BID mottos have included the following: • • • • • •

Catch the Spirit in Lincoln Square—Lincoln Square BID, New York City Rise and Shine with Us!—Newark, New Jersey Downtown District All Roads Lead Uptown—Uptown BID, Columbus, Georgia The Heart and Soul of Green Bay—Downtown Green Bay, Wisconsin, Inc. Malama Waikiki (Caring for Waikiki)—Waikiki, Hawaii BID Great Things are Happening Downtown—Burlington, Iowa Downtown Partners • The Place to Be!—Downtown Manhattan, Kansas • On the Move, One Step at a Time—Downtown Association of Ocean City, Maryland • Building a Community through a Vibrant Downtown—Bainbridge Island Downtown Association With their mottos, one of the things BIDs promote the most is entertainment, which harkens back to the ancient Greek agora and the popular theatron—the place where people gathered to witness a thea or spectacle.4 The interest in promoting entertainment recalls the White City in Chicago, the birthplace of the City Beautiful in 1893, where the nation’s first ferris wheel was the major attraction along the midway. It is another manifestation of a popular culture obsessed with celebrities, television sitcoms, movies, music videos, concerts, theme parks, and playgrounds. It is in keeping with the sixty-five U.S. cities that have either built or substantially expanded seventy-one major performing arts centers and museums since 1985.5 The premise is that a well-developed cultural and recreational setting is one of the best ways to attract investors, tourists, and consumers to an area.6 The sought after perception is that cities are fun.7 The humorous statues that have appeared on streets are also symptomatic. Cedar Rapids, Iowa has placed around its downtown hundreds of life-size carved wooden statutes of punk rockers, Uncle Sam, and various celebrities modeled after the two characters in American Gothic; Chicago has had three hundred forty life-sized, colorful cows; Seattle has had one hundred sixty gaudy pigs on parade; St. Paul has had one hundred two versions of Charlie Brown complete with maps about where to find them all; and Dallas has had two hundred adaptations of

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the winged-horse Pegasus.8 The aim of street art is to give people a reason to interact with one another in public places—to take pictures of each other by the art and to talk with friends and strangers about what they have seen. Moreover, the expectation is that those viewing the art will stay to have a bite to eat at a nearby restaurant, and feel the urge to shop. There are various forms of entertainment supported by BIDs. Consider the following: • BIDs sponsor fun events. The Bryant Park BID in New York hosts the JVC Jazz festival, the HBO/Warner Brothers Movie Series, the HBO/Comedy Central “Comedy in the Park Series,” and New York Fashion week. • BIDs put Disneyeseqe characters on the streets. The Anchorage Downtown Partnership uses Buzz the Bear (an employee dressed in a bear costume with the Partnership’s name on his T-shirt), who markets downtown by roaming around various events, such as the afternoon concerts held during the summer months. • BIDs supply an opportunity to eat new foods. BIDs in Buffalo, New York, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Austin, Texas, and several other places put on tasting festivals where people are invited to sample the area’s restaurant fare, and encouraged to return for a full meal. • BIDs highlight the vibrancy of nightlife. The Center City District in Philadelphia produced an ad campaign highlighting its after-hours allure, noting that you can “find romance virtually anywhere in Center City.”9 • BIDs sponsor street spectacles. A gunfight is recreated every Saturday evening in the summer on the courthouse square in El Dorado, Arkansas. • BIDs offer fun activities during the holiday season. The New Brunswick, New Jersey Special Improvement District has provided free horsed-drawn carriage rides in the downtown between the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. • BIDs market and fund First Night celebrations on New Year’s Eve. Downtown Red Bank, New Jersey offers live music and sponsors a midnight candlelight ceremony every New Year’s Eve. • BIDs transform their employees into entertainers—so-called ambassadors dressed-up in unique uniforms who offer directions to sightseers. Atlanta’s ambassadors wear pith helmets and walking shorts as though they are about to go hiking in the Australian outback. As they celebrate popular culture, BIDs also extensively advertise their historical heritage. In keeping with Hannah Arendt’s proposition that “the publicity of the public realm can absorb and make shine whatever men may want to save from the natural ruin of time,” history is expected to rekindle a sense of why city places are important.10 Monuments and memorials, for instance, may help people realize their identity as citizens and instill pride in

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their community. Although BIDs usually do not preserve monuments or buildings on their own, they actively promote historical preservation. BIDs run articles in their newsletters about historical landmarks, sponsor visits to historic buildings, install commemorative plaques, clean monuments, and conduct architectural walking tours. To encourage more pedestrian traffic, many BIDs advertise and sponsor public markets where private individuals can sell and buy products. Like the Greek agora, open-air public markets sell farm-fresh fruits and vegetables, ethnic foods, crafts, and unique clothes. Public markets are supposed to “create a common ground in the community, where people feel comfortable to mix, mingle, and enjoy the serendipitous pleasures of strolling, socializing, people-watching, and shopping in a special environment.”11 The University City BID in Philadelphia touts the fact that its local farmers market draws people not so much for the products, but because the high-level of social interaction surrounding the market is enticing and entertaining.12 As social vehicles, street markets are expected to contribute to a generally positive public attitude toward an area. A considerable amount of money is spent on marketing. In one year, public relations comprised 13 percent of the $13 million budget of the Center City District in Philadelphia, a quarter of the $1.8 assessment budget of the Downtown Phoenix Partnership, and almost half of the $600,000 budget of the Downtown Boise Association. Through spending so much time and money on marketing, BIDs proceed from the theory that American culture is carried on the back of advertising.13 Like the department store maven John Wanamaker from the early 1900s, BIDs follow the mantra that “the best time to advertise is all the time.”14 The presumption is that people purchase potato chips, cars, toothpaste, and stereos less on product quality and more on how well the product is pitched to match an imagined human need or value. The knack is to exploit the most appealing features of a consumption item by keying into the public’s tastes and moods. Obviously, the entertainment potential of city places is publicized to such an extent because it is assumed that the modern mind craves spurious gratification.15 Marketing can be a panacea, but it has drawbacks. The first problem with advertising in an information age is that any single piece of information is less consequential because there is so much information available. No matter how much money is spent or how appealing the message, it is hard to be heard in a cacophony of sights and sounds. BIDs compete in a “buyosphere” that encompasses billboards, newspaper advertisements, television commercials, Internet banners, billboards, handbills, and tattoos on every other person’s arm or leg. In, I Want That!: How We All Became Shoppers, Thomas Hine suggests it is increasingly difficult to reach consumers with any message because “like a bee in a field of flowers, the shopper in our selling-saturated world is constantly being stimulated, yet always in danger of exhaustion.”16 It

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could be that BIDs merely contribute to the exhaustion with their branded brochures and logo key chains. A second problem is that it is not that easy to devise a slogan for struggling city places. For instance, the downtown BID in Albany, New York, was frustrated in its branding effort because of a lack of consensus on a brand among business and civic leaders. After paying two consulting firms to help devise a theme, the BID floated “The Little Apple.” Suffice to say this slogan did not go over well because it suggested that Albany played second fiddle to New York City. Instead of making the downtown appear better off, the struggling branding effort was turned into a joke. Alan Wechsler, a business writer for the Albany Times Union, offered the following tongue in cheek slogans: “Downtown Albany: We Have Parking (Sometimes),” “Downtown Albany: Lively, If It’s Not a State Holiday,” and “Downtown Albany: Better than Utica.”17 In the end, the BID came up with its current slogan: “Downtown Albany: Worth Discovering Since 1609.” A third problem is that BID marketing can defeat itself by turning to hyperbole, nearly approaching the caricature of boosterism parodied in novels such as Sinclair’s Lewis’ Babbitt and Tom Barbash’s The Last Good Chance. Lewis’s 1922 novel made light of the town of Zenith, which marketed itself as the Zip City—Zeal, Zest, and Zowie.18 In Barbash’s 2002 novel, about the shallow interests involved in revitalization of an old factory town in upstate New York, a bombastic mayor gets so carried away that he claims the renewal of the downtown waterfront would be the envy of the Ontario coast and comparable to the Statue of Liberty.19 Fiction turns to reality when the Knoxville Central Business Improvement District claims on its web site that “downtown Knoxville is like having the world at your front door.”20 A fourth problem is that any marketing effort has a small margin for error. There is a potential downside when a BID extensively advertises a Saturday morning greenmarket on a public square, expecting it will draw people to the area and the nearby stores. If a shopper arrives and there is nowhere to park or there are fewer apples than at a supermarket, the disenchantment may be palpable. People may find that don’t like being jostled while they shop and that public markets are not quite as much fun as advertised. Too much focus on entertainment may also push out residents and devalue useful services, such as groceries and hardware stores.21 Any negative experience may be shared with relatives and friends, which can lead to an overall negative impression of the entire area. According to advertising research, when consumers have a personal experience with products, or trustworthy second-hand information from friends or consumer groups, they will become immune to the best sales pitch.22 A fifth problem is that selling entertainment may not sell as well as might be expected. The various theme parks constructed within shopping malls have not demonstrated an increase in consumer sales, and likewise, the construction of multiplex movie theaters in city business districts have failed

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to have much of an economic multiplier effect beyond a few nearby cafes and coffee shops.23 One study after another has discovered at best a marginal economic impact of locating sports facilities in city places.24 It is a tenuous assumption that entertainment is a lure—that going to a city place is like going on a minivacation and that consumerism is primarily a leisure experience. For many people, shopping is work and convenience is the overriding standard for where they shop. This is undoubtedly one reason why the Internet has become an increasingly important alternative way to purchase everything from groceries to clothes. If anything, people may go downtown more for the sense of community than for entertainment. A final problem is that marketing cannot makeup for the fact that BIDs do not have enough to sell. Most city business districts lack sufficient parking and are deficient in basic amenities—such as accessible restrooms. Downtown stores often have a poor selection of goods with higher prices than those charged by their larger suburban competitors. Older downtown stores may also be less attractive than larger, more up-to-date establishments found along strip malls and highways outside town. A BID can festoon every light pole with the brightest of banners but this may do nothing more than send a message to savvy consumers that any place that puts up such banners must be in trouble. The success of Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Best Buy, and Country Buffet is not because they are historical landmarks or entertainment venues, but rather because they have quantity, value, and convenience. Many city places lack all three. In the end, to effectively market anything there must be something worth marketing.25

 BIDs couple their devotion to marketing with an obsession to make sure everything appears clean and groomed. This involves removing litter, eliminating graffiti, unclogging storm drains, washing sidewalks, shoveling snow, trimming lawns and trees, and painting utility poles. Maintenance activities such as regulating vending along footpaths, removing obstructions from walkways, straightening streets signs, establishing uniform storefronts, and repairing damage to sidewalks and trash receptacles are essential. Some districts advocate, if not lend a hand, with demolishing blighted buildings. In effect, BIDs attempt to mimic suburban shopping malls. The aim is to resemble the pristine confines of enclosed malls with glossy litter-free floors, and aura of uniformity and predictability.26 In a perpetual battle with a throw-away consumer society, BID workers scurry about sweeping sidewalks and picking up every stray scrap of paper they can find. The Times Square Alliance is a prime example. It employs fifty fulland part-time sanitation workers who continually patrol the streets with brooms and brushes in hand. In 2002, the BID’s workforce collected 1,181 tons of trash. One year its employees spent 780 hours hand scraping lampposts

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to remove 2,300 stickers and placards advertising everything from locksmiths to quick fix dating services.27 Other BIDs are similarly tidy-minded. Over a three-month period, the BID in Jackson, Mississippi, reported that with the use of a street sweeper it collected 4,000 pounds of dirt and debris.28 In one month, the Anchorage Downtown Partnership counted how many cigarette butts it picked up, proudly announcing that it collected 49,570 butts one month.29 Each day, the Portland Business Alliance sweeps to perfection each of the district’s 212 blocks.30 The Madison Avenue BID in Manhattan has even spruced-up its sanitation workers by putting them in snazzy unisuits that make them look like they are about to go skiing in Aspen.31 Cleanliness costs and requires resources. In 2003, the Times Square Alliance spent 20 percent of its $7.7 million budget on sanitation, the Downtown Boise Association spent 17 percent of its $600,000 budget, the Downtown Lincoln Association spent 36 percent of its $877,000 budget, and the Charlotte, South Carolina Center City Partnership spent 60 percent of its $750,000 budget. The cleaning resources of the Louisville Downtown Management District include twelve workers, a machine to scrub and disinfect sidewalks, a truck for picking up large pieces of garbage, a power washer for removal of bird droppings and chewing gum, and a 4,000 pound sidewalk cleaner disguised as a friendly dinosaur. The infatuation with a spick-and-span environment is straight from the City Beautiful. At the turn of the twentieth century, Daniel H. Burnham foretold the story of BIDs when he proclaimed that “order, system, and reserve” were the essential elements of city life. BIDs are like Chicago’s Municipal Order League, established just prior to the opening of the World’s Fair for the express purpose of “promoting the health, cleanliness, and beauty of Chicago.”32 The Milwaukee Downtown BID #21, for instance, notes that it provides “invaluable cleaning services to downtown properties and surrounding sidewalks, riverwalks, flowerbeds, and planters to aid in the beautification of downtown Milwaukee.”33 BIDs essentially duplicate the “white wings” led by Colonel George Waring, Jr. in New York. Recently, the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership even resurrected Colonial Waring, Jr.’s junior white wings by employing a team of high school and college students—the Burgh Busters— who perform rap songs on the streets about why it is not good to litter and who award a Golden Broom to businesses that keep their storefronts clean.34 The quest for cleanliness and order is based on a theory that there is a direct relationship between environmental conditions and social order.35 In Chasing Dirt: The American Pursuit of Cleanliness, Suellen Hoy has observed a widespread acceptance of the old adage that “cleanliness is next to godliness.”36 Grime, sloth, and disorder are to be avoided at all costs. Among other things, the removal of dirt is associated with hygiene, a longer life, and a sense of human control over the foibles of nature. Cleanliness has become

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one of life’s necessities leading consumers to purchase enormous quantities of mouthwash, antibacterial soap, household cleaners, and laundry detergent. Extended to the physical environment of cities, everything must be scrubbed, organized, and manicured to perfection. For BIDs, the assumption is that unkempt places drive people away and neat places attract them. Cleanliness is thus another aspect of BID marketing. It is in fact common to find pictures of sanitation workers featured in BID newsletters and on BID web sites. The problem with making an area too clean and too orderly is that it can make it boring and barren—a turn-off rather than a turn-on. The typical airport is immaculate, with plenty of places to shop, but most people would not consider its antiseptic, uniform corridors inviting or comfortable. The austere minimalism of cleanliness is perhaps inconsistent with human nature; dirt and disorder are sometimes suggestive of playfulness. A little grunge may even be healthier than commonly thought. For example, the exposure to germs may help boost an individual’s ability to fight illness. Analogized to city places, it might be better to leave a little litter and grime on the streets to give a worn impression. People may be more comfortable in areas with a lived-in impression. A smattering of disorder may make a place more interesting and entertaining, one of the goals of most marketing campaigns. For example, Pike Place Market in Seattle attracts huge crowds, and it is a messy and chaotic melange of fresh fish, fast food, and frivolity. The dilemma for BIDs is to achieve a balance between too much blandness and too much grubbiness.

 Closely aligned to the pursuit of cleanliness and order, BIDs seek to fashion the physical features of city places. The goal is for the district infrastructure to be attractive, engaging, and useful. BIDs may employ their own funds or work with other city agencies to put up antique lampposts, place colorful trash receptacles on streets, set up ornamental benches, hang holiday lights, plant trees and shrubbery, mount uniform newspaper racks, decorate utility poles with hanging flower baskets, construct kiosks for handbills, install uniform address plaques, put up glow-in-the-dark street signs, develop playgrounds, install drinking fountains, build enclosed gazebos, and refurbish or expand sidewalks and plazas. BIDs offer façade grants to local retailers, provide rewards and certificates for businesses that restore unique architecture, and participate in streetscape design studies to plan for future growth. To make cities more accessible, BIDs maintain park-and-ride lots with free shuttle services and downtown trolleys. Others financially support the construction of high-rise parking garages and operate parking lots. And to demonstrate their overall commitment to an improved infrastructure, many BID offices are located in historically significant buildings that have been renovated with their own funds.

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The work of BIDs can be on a small or large scale. In midtown Manhattan, the 34th Street Partnership has a program to absorb the approximately $2,000 cost of replacing unsightly metal security gates that protect the windows of stores with see-through, latticed gates typically found in upscale shopping districts.37 A few blocks uptown, the Times Square Alliance took over a landmark theater on Broadway in 1998 and spent $1.1 million on its renovation to transform it into a state-of-the-art visitor’s center for tourists from around the world.38 With the help of BIDs, many communities have tried to develop a marketing theme around their infrastructure. The model is the kind of development that occurs at Disney properties—Magic Kingdom’s Main Street, Downtown Disney, and Celebration, Florida. Since the make-believe is so successful at Disney, the assumption is that it can be equally successful in realworld downtowns.39 The Disney approach is to organize a set of flawless streetscapes around a fantasy of downtown life with enough visual cues, middlebrow amusements, and shopping opportunities to help people imagine that they are someplace unique and doing something interesting.40 In a Disney-like manner, the Cranford, New Jersey Special Improvement District has joined with the city government to recreate the central business district around a Victorian theme. Historical facades have been given a late 1800s appearance and the streets have been crammed with antique lampposts, brick sidewalks, pedestrian benches, flower beds, and a clock tower.41 Many BIDs also support structures that are less attractive, but that serve a purpose. A typical feeling among merchants is that ample parking is critical for a city place to grow.42 Accordingly, BIDs are often partnered with parking authorities to facilitate the use of tax-exempt bonds that finance and construct lots and garages for cars. Parking authorities are joined with BIDs in such places as Memphis, Tennessee, Toledo, Ohio, Helena, Montana, and Cedar Rapids, Iowa. In the best all of possible worlds, BIDs dress up normally dull parking structures in a manner that fits with the overall character of the area. One way to do this is by landscaping the area around a parking lot. BIDs are not only about landscaping and parking lots. Many BIDs have attempted to accommodate pedestrians by widening sidewalks and installing barriers between walkways and roads. Some BIDs close areas to cars on weekends and holidays to encourage pedestrian activity. Others have worked with local transportation departments to increase the time for walk lights at intersections. The East Midtown BID in New York City has even installed talking lights at some intersections for blind pedestrians.43 By developing a pedestrianfriendly environment, BIDs attract those without cars, such as teenagers and the elderly. An increase in foot traffic may boost the liveliness of an area by facilitating spontaneous social, cultural, and economic exchanges. Walking has the potential to develop a sense of community as people meet and get to know each other.44 Undoubtedly, one reason many European cities are popu-

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lar with American tourists is that they are accessible to pedestrians. Many BIDs seek to imitate the European experience. However it is accomplished, the aim of improving and maintaining the city infrastructure is to create a sense of place—to develop an aesthetic sensation and offer spiritual and pleasurable experiences. Tony Hiss, author of Experience of Place: A New Way of Looking at and Dealing with Our Radically Changing Cities and Countryside, contends that people are naturally drawn to places that offer rich experiences.45 Richness may be about beauty, character, perspective, utility, or some combination of these. The key is to assemble enough multisensory cues that lead people to pick up an upbeat impression of a place without being conscious of doing so. It is often the small things that matter the most.46 In keeping with the ideas of Frederick Law Olmsted from the late-1800s, natural landscaping is especially important because it is believed to soften the impact of buildings and paved areas, to lead people to relax through their innate affection for nature, and to enhance a sense of belonging in the natural scheme of things. Once again, the ideals of the City Beautiful come into play, or as the Minneapolis Star-Tribune concluded in a 2001 editorial: “beauty is contagious . . . aesthetics are no longer superfluous; they are essential for a city’s success . . . people now expect to live and work in attractive settings.”47 Virginia Postrel has noted in The Substance of Style that people are naturally drawn to forms, tones, colors, and textures with an emotional component that “creates reactions without words . . . shows rather than tells . . . delights rather than instructs.”48 In addition to shapes and shades, even more practical things like the introduction of sidewalk restrooms and more places to park allow people to perceive an area is progressing in a favorable manner. The supposition is that constructive steps to shape business districts are redoubled by the positive effect these places have on those that shaped them and those who find them appealing. Although the creation of a sense of place is an alluring concept, it is not easy to develop an infrastructure that affects daily behavior and deeply instilled habits. Paul Goldberger, the architectural critic for the New York Times and the New Yorker, has noted it is “nice to think” that architecture and urban design has “power over people’s lives,” but this assumption is illusory when put into practice.49 It is difficult to say with any certainty what draws people. Is it beauty, historical themes, utility, or something else? John Miller, the author of Egotopia: Narcissism and the New American Landscape, has observed that modern individuals “break out in a cold sweat at the prospect of discussing art” and that “bad taste and bad judgment is evident throughout American society.”50 The fact is there is no such thing as an overarching aesthetic that appeals to all people all of the time.51 It is not easy to learn a sense of style whether it is for clothes or street corners. The contemporary educational system gives short shrift to architecture and urban design, the supply of those

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who can create quality works has shrunk considerably, and there is an almost total absence of demand for excellent architecture and pleasing landscapes among businesses, local governments, and the public.52 The strips of retail outlets and big box stores around most cities are devoid of splendor, yet this is where most people can be found shopping. In a consumer-oriented, pragmatic society, the prime consideration is neither beauty nor a sense of history but low prices, good value, and quantity. Given that aesthetics is an ambiguous concept, and because it is a challenge to persuade businesses to accept vague notions of either beauty or function, BIDs tend to obsess on small noncontroversial things such as placing flower planters on street corners and colorful benches along pedestrian pathways. But this may create unintended consequences: too many planters and benches may draw attention away from storefronts, streetscapes may appear cluttered, not uniform and clean. Planters also have to be maintained regularly and benches may attract loiterers and vandals. This gives the impression of a potentially unsafe place, undermining the important safety objectives of BIDs.

 A primary mission of most BIDs is to provide a safe environment for shoppers, workers, residents, and tourists. They may buy and install electronic surveillance cameras, offer crime prevention educational programs for businesses, and create photo galleries of area shoplifters to facilitate their apprehension. BIDs have developed agreements with municipal police departments to set up units within business districts to quickly process criminal suspects and to provide a constant police presence. Community courts have been located within BIDs to effectuate greater efficiency in the prosecution of misdemeanor crimes. To supplement traditional criminal justice, the same uniformed ambassadors that offer directions to tourists also conduct foot, bike, and car patrols probing for criminal activity and other problems on the streets. More often than not BID patrol officers emulate traditional police by wearing similar uniforms, driving similar vehicles, and copying similar mannerisms in dealing with the public.53 The assumption is that people are more likely to live, work, shop, and have fun in places where they feel secure. BID security is largely about bringing order to city places by preventing and eliminating the crimes and behaviors that contribute to negative impressions. Although a few BIDs in large cites have become concerned with terrorism-related security, most of the attention is on small-scale offenses, usually misdemeanors that can be punished with fines or community service. This includes aggressive panhandling, street prostitution, drunkenness and public drinking, menacing behavior, harassment, scavenging, indecent exposure, illegal dumping, drug activity, vehicle abandonment, obstruction of streets and public spaces, vandalism and graffiti, public urination and defecation, and

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unlicensed vending. When confronting these problems, BIDs security officers are unarmed and lack the authority to arrest people, but they can call in problems to the police and forcefully ask people engaged in supposedly unruly or unkempt behavior to move along. In Philadelphia’s Center City District, the BID’s officers and the local police work as a partners by sharing the same lockers, jointly standing roll each morning, and collectively planning their daily deployment strategies.54 Many BIDs also join their security apparatus with social service providers. For instance, the security ambassadors for the Anchorage Downtown Partnership perform regular safety checks to “ensure that chronic inebriates who might pose a danger to themselves or others are expeditiously transported to public shelters for recovery and rehabilitation.”55 In addition to the physical presence of uniformed employees and various crime prevention education initiatives, some BIDs pay for upgrading street lighting to deter crime. The proposition is that good lighting prevents a lawbreaker from using the cover of darkness to engage in nefarious deeds. Lighting is also intended to make shoppers, workers, and residents feel safer and to symbolize that a place is important.56 Lighting projects can take many forms. The wattage of bulbs may be increased, the color of lights may be changed, or floodlights may be placed on the facades of buildings. Although expensive and difficult to coordinate with local public works departments, BIDs may even install entirely new light fixtures on streets. For example, the Corpus Christi Downtown Management District has added over 300 lights to the downtown for both safety and aesthetic reasons—marketing its project as Dazzledowntown!.57 The extent to which any BID is involved with various forms of security depends on city size. Among the 264 BIDs surveyed in 1999, 59 percent of those from cities with populations greater than one million residents were very involved with delivering a full range of security services compared to 11 percent from those in cities with less than 25,000 residents. In most large cities, safety and prevention is a large budget item. In New York City, about one quarter of every BID dollar is spent on security services. BIDs follow the “broken-windows” theory, which says minor crimes and any kind of disorder must be dealt with efficiently and effectively in order to reduce citizen fear and prevent the overall decay of city places. This theory was first formulated in an Atlantic Monthly article in 1982 and then detailed in 1996 in George L. Kelling’s and Catherine Coles’ book, Fixing Broken Windows: Restoring Order and Reducing Crime in Our Neighborhoods.58 The authors analogize street crime to a broken window: “if a window in a building is broken and left unrepaired, all of the rest of the windows will soon be broken . . . one unrepaired broken window is a signal that no one cares, and so breaking more windows costs nothing.”59 Like fixing a broken window, petty offenses such as panhandling, public urination, illegal vending must be confronted aggressively in order to stop large crimes from occurring and to give an

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impression that an area is safe and well-maintained. The supposition is that respectable people will be more inclined to live, work, and shop in places where they are not confronted with disorderly conduct and unsafe conditions, such as a lack of good lighting. The adoption of the broken-windows theory by municipal police departments and BID security forces is often given as the reason for the apparent reduction in crime in New York City, Baltimore, and other communities during the 1990s. One problem with the broken-windows theory is that it potentially feeds the culture of fear that permeates modern society. Instead of making people feel safer and prompting them to use public spaces, they may stay away from locations that have too many security guards hovering around, where there is a constant focus on security patrols, and where the marketing of new anticrime initiatives is on par with the marketing of entertainment. It is possible that BIDs have bought into a media-induced myth about the problem of crime and their actions serve to perpetuate and promote the myth. In The Culture of Fear: Why Americans are Afraid of the Wrong Things, Barry Glassner argues that media has fabricated the crime issue in order to hold the public’s attention, but that the statistics do not bear out the supposed seriousness of the problem.60 It is possible the broken-windows approach does not influence potential criminals and sends the wrong message to law-abiding consumers. Wal-Mart makes a special effort to have no visible security presence in its stores, but instead uses hidden cameras and undercover patrols to spot shoplifters and deal with other security issues. Another problem with the broken-windows approach is that BIDs are put in the difficult position of determining who is, and who is not a “brokenwindow.” There are no guidebooks that prescribe the kinds of people who make life interesting and the kinds who lead to crime. By promulgating the broken-windows theory, BIDs are on the same dubious path as antebellum city governments that passed ordinances to prohibit smoking and loitering in public squares because these practices were viewed as lower-class pursuits not in keeping with attitudes of genteel society.61 A certain number of unusual people, even those who engage in questionable activities, such as street vending and panhandling, may make an area more stimulating. South Beach, in Miami, Florida, for instance, is exciting because it attracts so many diverse characters, even if some seem a bit unsavory. Would it really be better if everyone looked the same in city places—all dressed in blue blazers with kaki pants? In Mitchell Duneier’s Sidewalk, an examination of the informal structure that makes up city sidewalks, an argument is put forth that “a few broken windows” adds to the rich social organization of public places.62 According to Duneier, it is incorrect to “assume that a person who looks broken must be shattered, when in fact he is trying to fix himself as best he can.”63 The idea is that a civic center cannot be truly public and truly democratic unless it is accessible to everyone, and this accessibility is its beauty and attraction.64

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The essential difficulty for BIDs is that they lack the authority to make a real difference in crime. According to one study, BIDs do not even approach the level of power, resources, and expertise of most local enforcement agencies.65 BID patrols must necessarily be secondary to the traditional police force, which further diminishes the authority of BID officers. The authority of BIDs is also limited by the fact that the business community may not really want BIDs to spend money, catching criminals, but instead they merely want to change perceptions within an area. Security can be viewed as another form of advertising for BIDs, more symbolic than instrumental.

 An attractive and secure place is used by nearly every BID as a marketing device to attract and retain businesses and encourage growth and investment. Some BIDs go a step further and engage in direct forms of economic development. They pay for marketing studies on behalf of firms, provide low-interest loans and grants to new and existing businesses, and work with state and local government agencies to put together and implement tax incentive packages. The claim is that BIDs are “remarkable engines for economic development.”66 Economic development can be accomplished in many ways: • The Alliance for Downtown New York has a fourteen-page book detailing the advantages of doing business in lower Manhattan, which it distributed in 2003 to over 300 suburban firms in an effort to attract them back to the city.67 • The Washington Heights BID in Manhattan has a graphic arts department that assists local businesses in putting together attractive signs and brochures.68 • The Lower East Side BID in Manhattan has a business incubator to stimulate retail trade in the area. The incubator provides business training and retail space for start-up fashion entrepreneurs. The incubator is called Forward and it is comprised of four new business ventures. At Forward you can buy designer clothes, such as leather and knit suits, peasant skirts made out of men’s suits, and evening gowns of crocheted mohair.69 • The Danbury (Connecticut) Special Services District uses a business connection program to showcase successful downtown establishments to new businesses considering locating to the area, operates a resource referral system linking business to other state and local economic development programs, and maintains a vacancy list in the downtown that can be accessed by real estate brokers and potential investors.70 • The BID in Great Falls, Montana has a New Business Activity Grant Program, which offers a one-time financial incentive for a business to locate, upgrade, or expand in the district.71

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• The Downtown Billings (Montana) Partnership joins a BID—the Downtown Billings Association (DBA) with an economic development authority—the Montana Tradeport Authority (MTA). The DBA promotes the downtown and the MTA manages property and business development loan funds and oversees the city’s tax increment financing program.72 • The Downtown Dayton (Ohio) Partnership established an e-business task force to evaluate and help prepare the downtown for the location of Internet and high tech firms.73 • The Downtown Baltimore (Maryland) Partnership has a welcome program to help new business become acclimated to the downtown area.74 • The New Rochelle (New York) BID operates a loan program in cooperation with the Community Preservation Corporation, a private mortgage lender sponsored by one hundred banks and insurance companies. The program supplies financing for real estate investment within the district, totaling $30 million in 2004.75 Economic development policy is derived from the supply-side theory of economics.76 This theory predicts that businesses will expand and be drawn to an area when supplied with more capital for investment in equipment and jobs, that financial incentives (tax exemptions, grants, loans, etc.) can provide this additional capital, and that the efficient interplay between business and government will lead to greater overall economic growth. When applied to the local level, several assumptions are made: (1) firms are mobile and can be easily enticed to remain in a location or move their operations to another location; (2) cities must compete with one another for these mobile businesses; (3) government and public-private partnerships can entice mobile firms by putting together an attractive package of financial incentives; and (4) the costs of incentive packages are an investment that will pay off in greater economic growth. The supply-side concept is reasonable to formulate, but not easy to implement. First, many businesses cannot be lured by financial incentives because their location decisions are based on central place theory—that is, they locate where the greatest number of people can be found, even if the transaction costs are greater.77 Second, economic development packages may be less important to business planning than other factors, such as cultural amenities, a quality public education system, a highly-educated labor pool, and an accessible transportation system. Third, competing government policies—stringent building regulations, corporate taxes, and environmental laws—may outweigh the most attractive package of tax incentives and financial benefits.78 The fact is that many state and local governments have been fundamentally reconsidering the use of tax abatements, enterprise zones, and other economic development incentives because of a growing impression that the

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funds lost to schools and other public services are not made up by the creation of new jobs and a long-term growth in tax revenues. Economic development is viewed as a zero-sum game where one city’s gains from one economic project are outweighed by the loss of another project to another city. Economic development packages are also criticized as corporate welfare intended to line the pockets of the wealthy and politically well-connected. And perhaps most important, a host of empirical studies have found local economic development policies have, at best, a minimal impact on business decisions.79 Even if economic development works, BIDs are limited in their economic development policy role. First, the very logic of supply-side economics implies that any kind of government imposed tax or user fee is a disincentive to business activity. If anything, the BID approach is much more Keynesian involving the imposition of government-imposed tax assessments to bring about policy success. Second, BIDs lack the legal wherewithal to engage in actions that can make any substantial difference to most businesses. Constrained by statutes, most BIDs cannot offer tax abatements, set up TIF districts, supply low-interest loans, or operate venture capital pools. Third, BIDs lack the funds to make an economic difference. Few BIDs have more than a few thousand dollars to support economic development projects. Fourth, BIDs do not have enough employees with enough expertise and time to negotiate complicated location decisions with large retailers and commercial firms. With few exceptions, economic development is better handled by state and local economic development agencies, not BIDs. The conceptual and practical limitations of economic development may explain why among 264 BIDs surveyed in 1999 only a quarter were very involved with economic development policy. If anything, the economic development role of BIDs is more about rhetoric than tangible incentive packages. The most BIDs can usually do is provide token inducements and advocate in the public arena for business-friendly public policies.

 BIDs have a policy advocacy role. In this regard, they act nearly the same as voluntary merchant associations, chambers of commerce, and private lobbying groups. BIDs directly or indirectly try to influence government on behalf of business interests, participate in public hearings on local development, and maintain an ongoing dialogue with local officials to make sure public services are delivered to the liking of their members. The Colorado Springs Downtown Partnership, for instance, aims in its advocacy to keep a strong presence at key community tables and to nurture relationships with opinion leaders.

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BIDs usually support and oppose public policies consistent with the pragmatic interests of their members. A good example is the subject of regulating behavior on local streets. In support of regulation, three BIDs in Texas’s largest cities effectively lobbied for legislation creating stiffer penalties for those repeatedly found guilty of public intoxication and disorderly conduct on city streets.80 In opposition to regulation, the Downtown Tempe Community has advocated at the local level for fewer restrictions on sidewalk dining in order to enliven the district’s street life.81 Other policy positions of BIDs include the following: • The Downtown Denver Partnership opposed a citizen ballot initiative to create a higher minimum wage for the city by listing one reason after another why the wage policy was a bad idea, such as that it would tarnish the competitive edge of the area and put too much financial pressure on small businesses.82 • The Center City District in Philadelphia successfully advocated for legislation allowing the city to offer a ten-year property tax abatement to offset an increase in taxes due to the renovation of office, commercial, or industrial buildings for residential use.83 • The Downtown Boise Association helped to develop, and advocated for, a Mobile Street Vending Ordinance that allocates a specific amount of space on sidewalks for vendors.84 • The Bellevue (Washington) Downtown Association opposed a state ballot initiative in 2002 that would have repealed a tax on light trucks. The tax initiative was challenged because of the potential reduction in spending on transit projects for the downtown area.85 When BIDs adopt a policy advocacy role, they follow a theory of American politics that nothing can be accomplished without an organized lobbying effort.86 Since James Madison in Federalist #10, the premise has been that the competition among self-interested factions is the guiding principle of democracy. The only concern is to make sure that no one faction uses government for its own narrow purpose. Politically, BIDs are no different than pharmaceutical lobbies, gun control advocates, animal rights groups, and thousands of other associations that now permeate democratic policies (although BIDs do not engage in partisan politics). Like any other association, BIDs supply: (1) solidarity benefits—meetings and networking to get their members to support one another, (2) material returns—brochures and façade grants, and (3) purposive rewards—the achievement of public policy goals and the championing of ideas in local media and during political debates. The problem with an interest group society is that every group claims to be serving some larger good even as they serve the self-interest of their members, which in reality may or may not be in the public interest. The concern

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is that lobbying by special interests will result in public policy shaped by and for the exclusive interest of the wealthy and well heeled. One group’s interest is another group’s disinterest. In the case of BIDs, it may be in the interest of a BID to increase the amount of sidewalk dining on public streets, but this is probably not in the interest of nearby residents who must listen to the boisterous prattle of restaurant patrons. The practical problem for BIDs is that they are competing in the same political space with other interest groups. Sometimes BIDs are more influential than other groups, such as resident associations, but at other times they are not. For example, BIDs may argue for more spending on transportation for downtown districts at the same time a regional planning association supports constructing more roads to businesses located on the outskirts of town. The need to reduce the political chatter among competing interests is one reason why in 2001 the BID in Portland, Oregon, was joined with the local chamber of commerce into a new organization—the Portland Business Alliance. The Alliance now lobbies the city, county, and state on behalf of businesses located both inside and outside the downtown. Thus far, the interesting thing about BIDs has been their tendency to limit their influence by failing to engage in the kinds of advocacy that might make a difference to city places. BID leaders have not been extensively involved with the Congress for the New Urbanism, a major proponent for increasing pedestrian activities in public places and improving the character of cities. Most BIDs have not entered the debate over anti-sprawl initiatives or the government policies that have encouraged Wal-Mart, Home Depot, factory outlets, and the other large merchandisers to draw people and business away from city places. BID managers rarely if ever appear before city councils and planning boards to become involved in the debate about the contribution of chain stores to downtown districts.87 BIDs could educate local retailers about how best to compete in the contemporary marketplace. For example, New York’s Flatiron/23rd Street Partnership BID has sponsored a series of breakfast forums that spotlight strategies to make businesses more successful. BIDs could be at the forefront of developing competitive marketing strategies, using information such as that provided in Kenneth E. Stone’s Competing with Retail Giants: How to Survive in the New Retail Landscape.88 Or, if they wanted too, BIDs could be taking the lead in bringing big retailers into city places, which has already been successfully accomplished in Rutland, Vermont and a few other places.89

 As BIDs promote the self-interest of their members, they are also expected to make a positive contribution to community life, or to at least give the impression that they are civic-minded. BIDs operate as consumer affairs advocates

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and respond to any concerns or questions that property owners, shoppers, the media, or residents may have about the development of city places or particular problems with businesses. They may also operate homeless shelters and soup kitchens, sponsor student internships and youth programs, provide job training for the disadvantaged segments of society, and take the lead in establishing broad goals for center cities. BIDs have increasingly taken on a consumer affairs role. As part of its Consumer Friendly Program, The Downtown Miami Partnership responds to consumer complaints about the merchants and merchandise in the district.90 The Partnership acts as a mediator between consumers and stores whenever there is a conflict. Similarly, the Times Square Alliance has a program to assist consumers who believe they have been ripped-off by a retail business in the district.91 A BID worker might accompany a consumer to a store to facilitate the exchange of a nonrefundable item. BIDs in large cities are often social service providers. Many BIDs in New York City and Los Angles have programs that attempt to alleviate the problem of homelessness on city streets. For example, the Los Angeles Downtown BID has a program called ACTION (Ambassador Community Training for Intervention, Outreach, and Networking) that provides one-on-one assistance for homeless persons, helping them to transition into permanent housing and medical treatment facilities. In 2001, the Los Angeles Downtown BID received a Special Achievement Award from the International Downtown Association for its innovative social service programs. Many BIDs have programs that focus on children and at-risk youth. BIDs sponsor little league baseball teams, conduct toy drives during the holiday season, and work with troubled teenagers to help them adjust to city life. The 14th Street-Union Square Local Development Corporation in Manhattan at one time partnered with a local high school in the area to connect business mentors with students, help students to find summer jobs, and supply information about how to pursue a career in business.92 New York’s Fashion Center BID has worked with public schools to develop a curriculum whereby district fashion designers share their expertise with children in creating costumes and works of art.93 The Downtown Spokane Partnership has paired its security officers with at-risk youth in outdoor adventure activities (wall climbing, day walks, etc.) that teach teamwork and self-determination.94 As civic leaders, BID managers and board members can formulate a vision for city places and work to develop community consensus around a vision. Working with other public agencies and nonprofit organizations, they may identify: (1) civic goals and objectives, (2) existing assets, (3) key problems and issues, and (4) and potential opportunities for the development of businesses, residences, parks, and other community structures.95 The President of the Little Italy BID in San Diego, Marco Li Mandri, argues in one of the BID’s newsletters against minimalist architecture and in favor of distinc-

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tive structures that complement the culture of the area.96 The Central Avenue BID in Albany, New York, released a comprehensive planning document in 2000 with an elaborate framework for the redesign of the business district that called for changing the architectural design of buildings, widening sidewalks, improving public transit, and adding more bank branches and restaurants in the area.97 Lewis Mumford observed “no isolated shopping centers can compare in either convenience, efficiency, or human interest with the complex activities of a genuine civic center.”98 When BIDs engage in consumer affairs, social problem solving, the development of civic projects, and the promotion of public aesthetics they are trying to create a sense of community, which in turn is expected to lead people to engage in public activities and to be involved in self-government.99 All of this is in keeping with Aristotle who believed the formative task of the polis was to cultivate common virtue among people with different backgrounds and interests.100 It recalls the period in colonial America when civic humanism was expected to flourish in “the face to face environment of the tavern, coffee house or exchange, in the company of companions drawn from different walks of life—gentry, clergy, soldiers, merchants.”101 The expectation is that city places should be a third place—a place separate from, yet equally important as home and work.102 The heart of a community is its cafés, coffee shops, restaurants, bars, hair salons, parks, and playgrounds. Such third places are essential because they provide a neutral ground where people can gather to converse and learn from each about the issues of the day, a well-defined location where the public’s representatives can access their constituents and understand their opinions and values, and a mechanism whereby the habit of association is developed in a manner that is essential for participation in a democracy. City places have the potential to enliven the civic experience, yet a small percentage of BIDs are actively engaged in making a civic difference. Among 264 BIDs surveyed in 1999, only 6 percent said that they were very involved with the delivery of social services. Moreover, few BIDs sponsor lectures, encourage public demonstrations, or sponsor school tours. BIDs tend to shy away from even a passing reference to the problem of racial or ethnic discrimination in their publications and public discourse, although the issue is obviously a stumbling block toward the revitalization of city places. More time is spent picking up candy wrappers in gutters than on encouraging religious institutions to remain or return to cities. BIDs may support the location of cafés and bookstores, but rarely do they work with cafés and bookstores to put on political forums for people to learn about public issues. For many BIDs, it seems that the point of democracy is not to cultivate the virtue of citizens, but only to provide a setting for people to achieve “the widest range of economic satisfactions.”103 BIDs seemingly follow the thinking

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of the early 1900s economist Simon Patten who believed that a steady purchase of new goods sufficiently transforms people into better human beings by removing the differences among them and by forming the grounds for unity and harmony in society.104 By emphasizing consumption as the source of general welfare, BIDs shy away from those things that make city places unique— what distinguishes them from shopping malls and box stores, namely, the development of parks, statues, government buildings, and democracy. Given the choice between a marketing model and a civics model, BIDs seem inclined toward the former, even though the later might be the one thing that could truly revitalize city places.

 BIDs seek to shape cities in their own image. Fashioned by history and pragmatically alert to small-scale adjustments, they exist as prudent responses to obstinate problems. BIDs supply convenient answers to everyday exigencies in responding to a difficult predicament—changing places that need to remain the same. They focus less on the democratic and unplanned aspects of the ancient Greek agora and mostly on the marketing and entertainment potential of the modern agora. The BID approach is to emphasize assiduous activities and pragmatic solutions, such as putting up banners, cleaning streets, and patrolling street corners continuously. They invariably seek order over disorder. They champion the narrow self-interest of their existing and prospective members, but limit their community involvement to noncontroversial and politically moderate measures. BIDs resemble Rotary Clubs because their service ethic is to opt for community projects that do not tread on special interests, especially those of the powerful and well-connected. BIDs might champion improved lighting on Main Street yet avoid disputes over zoning laws. Innovative in many ways, they are also risk aversive in many other ways. When confronted with illegal street vending, the typical BID tactic is to roust the venders and try to make the problem go away, even though they could build attractive vending tables for peddlers to sell merchandise and thereby increase the overall vitality of the streets in the area.105 BIDs follow Jane Jacobs up to the point where the profits of their members are too diminished by too many countless people engaged in countless activities. The issue for analysis is whether the pragmatic yet creative theories BIDs have adopted, and the daily activities that flow from these theories, make enough difference in city places to conclude that BIDs are doing a good job of shaping modern agoras.

SIX

Evaluating Evaluations

BIDs ARE DESIGNED to shape city places for the better. But do they? This ques-

tion is often asked, but it is rarely answered very well. While it is accepted that BIDs “must develop mechanisms for tracking the progress they are making in their central districts,” it is difficult to come up with measures that are not fraught with conceptual and methodological flaws.1 The root problem is the very theory that declares city places can best be brought back to life through countless people doing countless things. Since BIDs are one of many types of agencies and programs operating in the same space, it is nearly impossible to isolate their impact from other factors at any point in time. Often adaptive in their work, BIDs touch up a picture formed by business decisions, real estate improvements, historic preservation, economic development policymaking, and government public works. More art than science, BIDs are largely about changing outcomes that are not easily quantified, such as aesthetics and attitudes. Each BID also confronts singular local problems uniquely, which precludes any standardization of the assessment process. To make matters more complex, BIDs make nearly everything they do a part of advocacy, which tends to confuse their self-evaluations with boosterism. An incontrovertible performance assessment of BIDs is perhaps impossible. Nonetheless, it is possible to gain an approximate sense of the overall affect of BIDs by organizing and critiquing the imperfect ways they have been evaluated thus far. The extant analysis falls within four evaluation categories: (1) diligence—the enumeration of tasks performed, (2) effectiveness—the achievement of tangible impacts, (3) responsiveness—the satisfaction of wants,and (4) sociability—the contribution to city life.

 The diligence of BIDs is demonstrated by counting activities. The presumption is that a continuous flurry of activity is a good indicator that business 95

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received something in return for the payment of an extra assessment. BIDs quantify litter removed, vacant lots cleaned, brochures distributed, directions provided to tourists, key chains given away, consumer calls returned, and gallons of paint used to eradicate graffiti. BIDs may also tally the number of improvements they have made: banners placed on streetlights, planters and benches installed, facades refurbished, and trash receptacles located on street corners. Although BIDs do not produce precise cost-benefit ratios, they nonetheless make the claim that the sheer extensiveness of their output must be greater than the monies paid as part of the property assessments. The enumeration of sundry activities may be reported annually, quarterly, monthly, daily, or even hourly. This form of evaluation is pervasive among BIDs because it is reasonably easy and inexpensive to accomplish. All a BID has to do is have its workers maintain a record of their daily tasks, plug the figures into a database, and then generate a series of colorful graphs and charts that show the numbers increasing, decreasing, or remaining the same for some period of time. In New York City, much of this information is collected by the Department of Small Business Services. It has produced a report, Streetwise and Business Savvy: Best Practices and Accomplishments from New York City’s BIDs, that lists many significant activities of BIDs, such as creating fences to eliminate pigeon droppings, holding small business seminars, and erecting self-illuminated street signs.2 Detailed in annual reports, newsletters, and newspaper articles, there are plenty of examples of where assiduousness is used to infer success: • The Center City District in Philadelphia installed over 1,474 downtown street lights, making the area brighter and safer for workers, residents, and visitors.3 • The Fashion District in Los Angeles in one year responded to 943 illegal vending incidents.4 • The special services district in Danbury, Connecticut mailed over 2,400 pieces of promotional mail every two months to commercial realtors, banking loan officers, and lawyers.5 • The Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership engaged in a Battle of the Butt one summer and collected 35,000 cigarette butts and handed out 15,000 portable ashtrays.6 Sometimes BIDs emphasize trends as part of their activity measurement. The Grand Central Partnership in New York proclaimed that its visitor information program had responded to more than a million requests for assistance in 2002, which it observed was a “whopping 37.7 percent jump in the number of inquiries handled during the same period in 2001.”7 In Nebraska, the Downtown Lincoln Association reported that it trimmed 392 shrubs one year and 501 shrubs the following year, a 27.8 percent increase.8

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BIDs tend to enumerate every odd activity under the sun. Baltimore’s Downtown Partnership mulched 540 tree wells, the Dallas Downtown Improvement District sponsored painting a 150 by 2000 foot mural on the side of a parking garage depicting a toddler pulling a wagon filled with cars and trucks, and the Downtown BID in Hampton, Virginia sponsored twelve different activities one year, including a Shock the Block Halloween Party and a Host Chocolate Lovers Fantasy.9 With few exceptions, BIDs give a positive spin to their activities. No BID ever reports that its workers took the summer off or wasted time. Seemingly, BIDs always do more in spades: collect more paper wrappers than the year before, sweep more sidewalks than the month before, and line more trash cans than the day before. As self-evaluating organizations, BID report few negative measures because they have little incentive to report any negatives. And to date, there have been few external reviews that provide a more objective assessment of their activities. Lacking money and administrative staff, municipal governments devote more attention to the creation of BIDs than to assessing what they do. Even people who dislike BIDs don’t argue that such organizations are idle. With few exceptions, it is entirely up to the BIDs themselves to detail their efforts and their successes. A problem with enumerating activity is that frequency distributions have no inherent value. All too often, anything reported in the thousands is assumed to be good, merely because of a multiplicity of zeros. The same goes for percentage increases, which proves nothing except that most things increase over time. Counting is not necessarily a good indicator of performance. Sending out thousands of pieces of promotional mail or distributing thousands of brochures does not mean anything other than that some percentage of the paper was disposed of unopened in the garbage. Cleaning an already clean street does not indicate good performance. The failure of BIDs to link activities with outcomes is an issue. Placing more banners on streetlights is supposed to better market an area and rousting panhandlers is expected to make people feel safe, but rarely is there any corresponding evidence to authenticate the validity of these potential relationships.

 BIDs measure the effectiveness of their activities by identifying outcomes within the areas they control. They may gauge the rise and fall of business openings and closings. They may provide statistics about unemployment rates, crime rates, lease rates, unemployment rates, and occupancy rates. They may supply information about taxable retail sales, residential housing sales, and hosting capabilities (hotel rooms, theater seats, etc.). They may count pedestrians on the streets and estimate the size of crowds at events. BIDs specify with precision the extent to which property taxes and business license revenues

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increase, decrease, or remain the same. When these outcomes are favorably construed, the implication is that BIDs are doing a good job. BIDs certainly tout some seemingly impressive statistics to indicate they are having a genuine impact: • The Dayton Downtown Partnership—the downtown added 1,856 new jobs in one year, with 1,227 coming from the expansion of current businesses and 629 from new established businesses.10 • The Times Square Alliance—employment in the area went up 27 percent since the BID was formed.11 • The Buffalo Place BID—400,000 people were downtown during a Taste of Buffalo event and another 2,500 people were present for an annual downtown tree lighting ceremony.12 • Philadelphia’s City Avenue Special Services District—major crimes dropped 24 percent on its streets in the period between 1998 and 2001.13 • The Cedar Falls, Iowa Community Main Street—more than $8 million invested in building rehabilitation.14 A summary of the outcomes approach was provided by Downtown Resources, a paid consulting firm specializing in the creation of BIDs. In the 1990s, it identified the following successes: the Fashion District of Los Angeles—53 percent drop in crime; the Downtown Sacramento Partnership—20 percent increase in consumer traffic; Times Square BID—43.7 percent drop in crime; Central Houston BID—80 percent decrease in litter; Philadelphia CCD—82 percent reduction in graffiti; Downtown Denver—decrease in office vacancies from 31 percent to 13 percent between 1987 and 1995; and Downtown Phoenix Partnership—82 percent increase in retail sales tax revenue over a four-year period.15 With few exceptions, the tendency of BIDs is to measure outputs, without any direct link to inputs. At best, there are tenuous claims about the relationship between activities and outcomes. The Red Bank, New Jersey, Special Improvement District has claimed that retail vacancies dropped to a four-year low because of the marketing program it carried out in partnership with commercial real estate agents.16 The Grand Central BID in New York City reported its sponsorship of a social service center had helped over 1,000 homeless people to get off the streets.17 Four downtown BIDs in Milwaukee reported that their very presence had contributed to significant increases in property values.18 One analyst alleges the existence of BIDs in downtown Los Angeles helped to convince the owners of the city’s professional basketball teams to build the Staples Center downtown.19 Although each of these examples sounds wonderful, none of the claims can be empirically substantiated because no effort was made to control for extraneous variables. It is difficult to know if the supposed relationships were spurious or not.

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To date, there have been few effectiveness assessments that have not been self-evaluations by BIDs or by consultants looking to sell the value of BIDs to communities. In New York City, the Mayor’s Office of Operations provides an annual rating of the cleanliness of sidewalks on a scale of zero to one hundred. The average scorecard rating for all New York City BIDs has usually been well above 90 percent, sometimes approaching 100 percent.20 To evaluate the extent to which BIDs impact crime, Professor Lorlene Hoyt of MIT conducted a four-year study of BIDs in Philadelphia, comparing crime statistics in BID and non-BID areas. She found that property crimes went down more in BIDs than nearby non-BID areas and that, statistically, the visibility of BID security personnel was an effective crime deterrent.21 A study of New York BIDs released in 2007 by the Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy at New York University came to the conclusion that “after BID formation, the value of commercial properties within the BID’s boundary increases significantly more rapidly than other, comparable properties in the neighborhood.”22 The difficulty with the measurement of factual outcomes is the inability to isolate the effects of BIDs. There is no way to set up a controlled experiment with BIDs as the treatment. In most city places, there are a diverse mix of interrelated organizations at work, including large and small businesses, real estate developers, police departments, transportation authorities, community development corporations, housing agencies, schools and colleges, visitors and convention center bureaus, arts councils, and state and local economic development corporations.23 A BID may overlap a historic district, a state enterprise zone, and one or more tax increment financing districts. An extreme example is the position of the 125th Street BID in New York City’s Harlem. The City Department of Housing Preservation and Development has invested over $270 million in renovating or building new homes, the New York City Housing Partnership has developed 2,000 new building units, the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone Development Corporation has leveraged $250 million in intergovernmental grants to spur economic development, and the Abyssinian Development Corporation, an arm of the Abyssinian Baptist Church, has renovated thirty-three brownstones and joined with a private developer to construct a 250,000 square foot commercial retail center. In the midst of all this activity, it would be far-fetched to isolate the specific effects of the 125th Street BID with its small annual budget of $600,000. The same could be said for other BIDs that are also minor ingredients in a stew of organizations, policies, and programs. The overall condition of cities and regional economies may also impact the effectiveness of BIDs. Older U.S. cities confront different issues than more recently settled cities that have come into their own over the past few decades. For example, Buffalo was at one time one of the largest cities in the

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nation and a major center for commerce and industry, but since the 1960s it has been consistently losing people and businesses to warmer climates and more vibrant economies. In this context, it would be unfair to expect that Buffalo Place, the local BID, could ever counterbalance the large-scale social and economic trends that have buffeted the region. National trends and global developments are equally important. The Federal Reserve’s interest rates decisions may greatly impact new business openings, increased employment opportunities, enlarged hosting capabilities, and tax rates. In the global economy, as China and other nations become more influential, American cities lose manufacturing jobs. American cities are no longer competing against each other, but against the world’s cities. Lastly, modern culture impacts cities and BIDs. For instance, when it comes to social problems like crime, criminologists have consistently found a multiplicity of factors to explain why crime goes up and down in cities, such as demographics, economics, media messages, police procedures, and the unfathomable interrelationship of untold other variables.24 The most that BIDs can reasonably claim is that they market safety, cleanliness, and economic opportunity, and that these marketing efforts may possibly change perceptions, which may contribute to an increase in business activity, safer streets, and other positive outcomes.

 BIDs evaluate their responsiveness by assessing attitudes and views through surveys and anecdotes. When it comes to surveys, BIDs poll businesses, residents, visitors, shoppers, and workers about their opinions and views of city places and the performance of BIDs. Business surveys are typically done by telephone or mail. Private firms might be asked, “Do you think the BID has encouraged economic activity?” Most citizen surveys are conducted on the street with individuals chosen randomly and asked to answer a series of general questions about the area. The public might be asked, “Do you feel safe downtown at night? Most BIDs are not reticent about touting the results of their surveys: • A Dallas Downtown Improvement District opinion survey found twothirds of businesses rated the condition of the downtown better than it had been.25 • A telephone survey of households in metropolitan Baltimore by the Downtown Partnership found that 66 percent of those interviewed were aware of the Partnership’s “See Ya ’Round Downtown” marketing campaign and that 69 percent had an overall favorable impression of the downtown.26 • The Downtown Phoenix Partnership conducted a survey showing that its performance has improved over time, exemplified by a ranking of the arts

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and cultural activities as excellent or good by 50 percent of the public in 1990 and 59 percent in 1995.27 The Memphis Center City Commission hired a consulting firm to conduct a survey of downtown workers and it found that 85 percent of the workers were of the opinion that downtown was going in the “right direction.”28 The Downtown Lincoln (Nebraska) Association surveyed 700 people and based on the answers to several questions it came to the conclusion that downtown Lincoln had “achieved success in attracting area residents, employees, and students to the area for restaurant dining as well as entertainment and shopping.”29 An intercept survey of 594 pedestrians for the Downtown Boulder (Colorado) BID found a high level of satisfaction with ease of walking around, overall atmosphere and design quality, and feeling of safety and cleanliness, although there was an equal level of disaffection with the parking alternatives.30 A mail survey of fifty-seven businesses (25 percent response rate) in Manhattan, Kansas found 50 percent were supportive of the BID assessment, 21 percent were neutral, and 29 percent were opposed.31

BID-sponsored surveys have more often than not yielded generally positive results. In contrast, surveys conducted by entities other then BIDs have drawn mixed conclusions. In 1995, the Finance Committee of the New York City Council sponsored a phone survey of 404 property owners and managers among all of the city’s thirty-three BIDs in operation in 1995 (the sample represented about 6.5 percent of the total assessed properties) and discovered that less than half of the respondents thought their BID assessment was a good investment.32 A City University of New York intercept survey of 350 shoppers and workers in four New York City BIDs found a general impression that the BIDs had done a good job of cleaning the streets, yet there was also a perception that none of the BIDs had sufficiently dealt with the problem of crime.33 On the West Coast, the Los Angeles Community Action Network and the Los Angeles Coalition to End Hunger and Homelessness surveyed 173 residents in five Los Angeles BIDs and found that about half of the respondents had a favorable view of BID security, yet about half also reported that they had witnessed some form of harassment or mistreatment by BID security officers.34 In Milwaukee, a citywide survey in 2003 found that 29 percent of residents never shop downtown and 53 percent said they shopped downtown less than once a month.35 A survey in Minneapolis during the 2002 holiday season found only 1 percent of residents were willing to go downtown to shop.36 The difficulty in drawing valid inferences from the surveys conducted by BIDs, as well as those done by external reviewers, is that most are methodologically flawed. Compared to any standard from a typical research-methods

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textbook, BID research often has problems. It is more typical than atypical for BID surveys to have small, self-selected samples, low response rates, and leading questions. For example, the New Haven, Connecticut Town Green District conducted a survey in 1999 with 900 surveys mailed or hand delivered to property owners and businesses, resulting in 131 responses for a response rate of 15 percent, which the district proudly noted in a newsletter was a 173 percent increase in responses over the previous year’s survey.37 To the question, “Are you generally pleased with the impact that the Town Green has had on downtown?”—71.8 percent said yes and 6.9 percent said no. To the question, “Do you see/feel a positive change downtown since the creation of the district in January 1997?”—70.2 percent said yes and 7.6 percent said no. Despite the BID’s good intentions, it is hard to learn from a survey with an unrepresentative sample comprised of a small number of people who chose to participate, with leading questions, with ill-defined words in the questions (such as pleased and see/feel), and with response categories limited to yes and no. Even when surveys are conducted well, the questionnaires often ignore the real problems confronting city places. BIDs seldom compare themselves to shopping malls or Wal-Mart. No attention is given to the quality of business practices, even though it has long been known that shopper attitudes are shaped by their interactions with store clerks. People are not asked about the contribution of BIDs to civic life. Specific marketing efforts (banners, tasting festivals, coffee mugs, etc.) are hardly ever connected to consumer opinions. All sorts of claims are made about how the presence of clean streets positively affects public attitudes, but few surveys attempt to understand whether this is true or not. BIDs attempt to make city places fun through tasting festivals and humorous characters, but little effort is made to quantify the fun quotient of an area .

 A second way of measuring responsiveness is through the collection of anecdotes. BID newsletters and reports are replete with quotes, personal stories, and case studies. Journalists, professional associations, and scholars also use this approach to assess the work of BIDs. Anecdotally, a BID is successful if it just does one good thing: contributes to the retention of a single business along a main street; encourages a restaurateur to sign a lease on an old building in a block with no other dining spots; or makes one shopper, one business owner, or one resident happy. Most general comments about BIDs have been positive. The newsletter of the Waikiki BID claimed the district after a year of operation was “reversing what has been seen as a decline in Waikiki over the last several decades.”38 Similarly, Pete Gozza, president of the Downtown Toledo Improvement Dis-

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trict, declared: “It’s downtown Toledo’s time—things are beginning to click.”39 Darryl Holter, the chair of the Figueroa Corridor BID, says “BIDs have implemented clean and safe programs that have laid the basis for new investment and exciting initiatives that are creating a new sense of ‘place’ for downtown Los Angeles.”40 Robert Walsh, the Commissioner of the New York City Department of Small Business Services, asserted in the New York Post: “They [BIDs] have a lot to do with the improvement to quality of life in the city.”41 Glowing anecdotes from residents, business owners, and tourists appear frequently in the pages of BID newsletters and reports: • “I noticed that some bundled trash left on curb had come undone and was being scattered about by the wind down Harwood Street. I was about to lament to my friend about this litter problem, when a member of the DID’s new Clean Team drove up on his ‘trike.’ He quickly rounded up the trash and secured [it] in its right curbside bundle . . . thank you so much for this new service.” A letter from a downtown resident to the Downtown Improvement District in Dallas as reported in its 1999 quarterly report.42 • “I have three kids, and we didn’t use to come down here at all, but now it’s cleaned up a lot and it’s more developed and we really like it down here. We’re even thinking about moving downtown.” A patron at a local pizza parlor quoted in the newsletter of the Memphis Center City Commission.43 • “These are exciting times for downtown. As a new property owner, we are so pleased to be part of downtown’s rebirth.” Remarks from a property owner in the Dayton Downtown Partnership newsletter.44 • “I had no problems or fears with walking everywhere by myself both during the day or evening. How wonderful to feel so safe and comfortable while enjoying the beauty and friendlessness of the city.” A letter from a tourist published in the Anchorage Downtown Partnership newsletter.45 • “. . . I congratulate the BID for the improvements to the District. As an employer with over 1,300 people on staff, our employees have begun to enjoy the security that has been returned to the community. We can now begin to utilize the area during our lunch, and especially after business hours. As a member of the Hollywood community, our industry has been waiting for the luster of the Hollywood Golden Days to be brought back to our community. The BID should be applauded for its continuing work.” Remarks of a CEO highlighted by the Hollywood Entertainment District.46 • “When I came here eleven and a half years ago, the general philosophy was that the sky was falling and things were getting worse. Now, almost universally, people feel things are getting better. And when people perceive things are getting better, investment dollars follow.” Remarks from an interview with a banker in Discover Downtown, a publication of Downtown Eugene, Inc.47 • “It is with much appreciation that I thank Tiffany, Joe, and Mike who came to my assistance in downtown Milwaukee yesterday afternoon. As I left Grand

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Avenue and began to walk east on Wisconsin Avenue, I went into an insulin shock. I remember seeing one or two of the ambassadors at that time and then lost consciousness. When I became aware again, I was being taken care of by the paramedics. The ambassadors were also there, waited until I was released then walked me east to Cousins where it was important for me to eat. They were most kind, concerned, courteous and helpful; I was impressed. That’s a wonderful service for which I am most grateful.” Comment reported on the web site of the Milwaukee Downtown BID #21.48 Journalists have added to the positive portrayals. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported in 1992 that there was a nearly unanimous impression that the Center City District had after only two years in operation made downtown Philadelphia clean and safe, or as it was put by one downtown worker interviewed for the article, “It’s definitely cleaner.”49 In 2001, the Inquirer reported again on the Center City District, this time giving it “credit for Philadelphia’s renaissance” and offering the following anecdote from a downtown worker: “There was a time before the Center City District started, it was embarrassing, it was so shabby. Now the streets are clean and there’s not litter blowing around like a third world country. I think that’s essential for the image that the city projects.”50 In tandem with stories about BIDs, the editorial pages of newspapers have given BIDs credit for improving American cites. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has credited BIDs with leading an “urban business renaissance.”51 The Lincoln Journal Star has observed that the Downtown Lincoln Association had “provided a focal point for the continuing efforts that eventually saw downtown reborn as a restaurant-entertainment district.”52 Scholarly examinations of BIDs have likewise cited particular events to make large generalizations about BIDs. Alexander Garvin, in The American City: What Works, What Doesn’t, wrote the following about the Downtown Denver Partnership, “Downtown Denver used to close down at the end of the workday. In 2000 it was filled with tourists in shorts and sandals, couples pushing baby strollers, business-suited office workers carrying briefcases, and teenagers on their way to Niketown, Hard Rock Café, or the multiplex movie theater.”53 Not every anecdote and comment is flattering, however. Sometimes, the very newspaper that describes the success of an area in one story will report on the failures of the area in another story. In 2001, the New York Times published an article on the revival of Hollywood Boulevard, attributing its newfound brilliance to the work of the Hollywood Entertainment District. One patron of Hollywood Boulevard was interviewed, and she said “People are finally walking down the streets again; I feel like we have a real community here.”54 One year later, the Times carried a story calling the district “dangerous,” saying the boulevard was “no place for respectable people

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to loiter after hours,” with one interviewee claiming “Someone stole my wallet at the bus station.”55 Additional disparaging comments and anecdotes can be found. In 2005, Robert Haelig, Jr., the Dover, New Jersey, municipal utilities director, claimed the Toms River BID “wasted” its budget and was an “expensive joke.”56 A resident in Philadelphia relates how life has changed since a BID was imposed on her neighborhood: “The BID has ruined my life here as a resident. I can’t get in or out of my driveway seven days a week and the noise never stops.”57 Similarly, a resident living within a local benefits district in Baltimore complained that the district did not respond to her repeated calls to pick up trash, which led her to conclude: “I never realized the benefits district was only responsible to [residents] who own property. Renters are persona nongrata.”58 A group of residents in Austin, Texas, were troubled by the pace of development in their community, complaining that along with downtown development had come “traffic and parking nightmares, the crowding out of lower income residents and businesses, and the homogenizing and plasticizing of the city’s oldest streets.”59 Sarah, a resident in Los Angeles was none too happy with the demeanor of a BID patrol, offering this anecdote: “I was just sitting down eating my lunch when this red shirt person told me that I cannot sit here and eat. I have been sitting in front of the San Julian Park for years. When I told them I was not going to move until I finished, they called the police. I don’t need this.”60 A leader of an advocacy group in Los Angeles said derisively of the Fashion District, “BID security guards often think they own the streets.”61 Another set of anecdotes comes from the lawsuits filed against BIDs. In New York City, the Grand Central Partnership was the subject of two fivemillion dollar lawsuits when two of its social service workers allegedly used excessive force against two individuals. This legal action prompted the New York Times to run a front-page article suggesting that the Partnership hired “goon squads” to remove the homeless from its area, which the BID vehemently denied.62 This anecdote is not isolated, however. The Fifth Avenue BID in Manhattan was sued for $2 million when its workers supposedly struck and pushed a person they were trying to “move along.”63 The problem with anecdotes is that they are just that—stories, which, by their nature are subjective. Preconception is involved in the collecting of anecdotes. People see what they want to see. BIDs never publicize critical commentaries, while people who don’t like BIDs can find any number of stories that highlight problems.

 The assessment of sociability is about judging the influence of BIDs on the culture of cities. The focus is on the fairness of BIDs toward different people,

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the extent to which BIDs are democratically accountable, and the ways BIDs shape the character of cities. No methodology is involved in the examination of sociability, but rather the basis for accepting any conclusion is the logical quality of the argument. In contrast to the proceeding evaluations of BIDs, the assessment of sociability has come more often than not from sources outside of BIDs. One critical view of BIDs is that they produce greater social inequality. Writing in the Chronicle of Philanthropy, Mark Rosenman contends that BIDs are a “cause for great alarm” because they “promote the welfare of a few wellto-do property owners, ultimately at the expense of society.”64 He describes the system this way: property owners successfully persuade politicians to cut taxes—and then come together and voluntarily set up a system that requires the property owners, in essence, to pay more taxes. In the process, they insure that their tax money goes directly to improve life for themselves—and they divert money from local governments that are supposed to serve everybody.65

BIDs thus approximate gated communities—such as homeowners associations—because they “combine private advantage with their share of the public weal to make themselves privileged zones.”66 BIDs are an illustration of what has been termed “privatopia” and “fortress America” where the private sector secedes from the public sector.67 The end result for cities is that they are left with islands of prosperity in the midst of social disorder. On another note, BIDs are charged with mistreating supposedly objectionable street people and their residential neighbors. The claim is that BIDs needlessly menace individuals who appear “different” in order to drive them off the streets. In Sidewalk, Mitchell Duneier contends that when BIDs remove street vendors and roust the homeless they devalue the “informal economic and social life” of city places.68 The supposition is that too much of a market emphasis erodes those aspects of community life that bring rich and poor together in civic pursuits. From a different perspective, neighborhood groups complain that BIDs try to move their problems to nearby residential areas. For example, the Rose Hill Neighborhood Association in New York City criticized the Grand Central Partnership for trying to set up a homeless center in a primarily residential area several blocks away from the BID.69 It is also claimed that BID workers are treated poorly. Moshe Adler, an economist writing in the New York Times, claimed that BIDs pay their workers barely a minimum wage and that they supply few healthcare and other benefits. According to Adler, when a local government creates a BID, it helps the owners of the city’s most expensive real estate to “depress the wages of the city’s poorest workers.”70 Adler’s claim is supported by a New York City Council study that found more than one BID had contracted to provide services

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with firms that hired undocumented workers and paid them cash wages in amounts below the federal minimum wage.71 In fact, 198 homeless people won $816,000 in back pay in a federal class action lawsuit against New York City’s Grand Central Partnership and 34th Street Partnership for violating minimum wage laws.72 BIDs are said to be unaccountable. BIDs are constituted by government and deliver public services, yet their orientation is toward the private sector.73 Direct participation by the general public in BID governance is negligible to none and meaningful participation by those who pay the assessments is not much greater. A1995 study of BIDs by the New York City Council found BIDs had become an: unaccountable “micropolis,” where property owners and in some cases, area merchants, are mandated to pay assessments with little or no opportunity to vote for the establishment or continuation of the BID, its manager, or the assessment—a “micropolis” where there is little or no disclosure regarding operations and services, and more importantly, the expenditure of assessments.74

Similarly, a survey by the former Association for Portland Progress (now the Portland Business Alliance) found that over a third of businesses were less than satisfied with their participation in the BID program.75 When it comes to private citizens, who want to use the space in BIDs for something other than shopping, the feeling is that BIDs do everything they can to thwart anything they don’t like, such as protest marches and public demonstrations. In Brave New Neighborhoods: The Privatization of Public Space, Margaret Kohn criticizes BIDs for continually circumventing “the constitutional provisions that require governments to protect the civil liberties of their citizens.”76 The suggestion is made that an inability to meaningfully participate in community life may lead to a sense of powerlessness, which may in turn yield greater apathy toward selfgovernment generally, thus enfeebling democracy.77 A final complaint about BIDs is that they lack an eloquent vision for city places. BIDS effectively commercialize public spaces driving out anything that does not represent the narrow interests of local businesses.78 Instead of making a contribution to civic life, BIDs celebrate “a society preoccupied with consumption . . . where the ‘good’ equals goods and ‘value’ equals marketability.”79 Instead of advocating policies that make city places more communal, BIDs view public policy as something to be negotiated for private advantage.80 Instead of developing an intellectually sophisticated history for city places, BIDs tend to pursue Disneyfication and the kitsch of key chains and coffee mugs.81 According to an ethnographic study of a BID in Burlington, Vermont, the prevailing influence of business owners and capital interests in the BID structure make it more likely for consumption to take precedence over political activism and “that the very practice of regulated theming

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is in many respects at odds with the notion of a vibrant activist culture, given that activists are often seeking to destabilize dominant and taken-for-granted understandings or, put another way, to change society’s theme(s).”82 Of course, BIDs and their supporters disagree with each and every charge leveled against them. In keeping with public choice theory, the fragmentation of services is seen as actually beneficial because it gives rise to a democratic marketplace of preferences and interests. According to the supporters, BIDs welcome people, they convince government to put more resources into an area, and they celebrate diversity and high levels of pedestrian activity. Furthermore, BIDs provide plenty of spillover benefits to surrounding areas because consumers and workers usually do not realize when they cross the boundary from a BID area to a non-BID area. When it comes to their workers, most BIDs employ few people, so their mistreatment of workers cannot be that pervasive. BID also contend that they hire many disadvantaged persons, participate in community service programs, and pay their workers more than the minimum wage, often with health, vacation, and other benefits. The Atlantic City Special Improvement District makes a point that its workforce reflects the demographic characteristics of the community and that its employees are local residents.83 BIDs are also involved with their communities. The Fashion District BID in Los Angeles noted that one evening fourteen of its employees served 435 dinners in less than forty-five minutes to the homeless at a local mission.84 For the criticism that BIDs are a danger to civil liberties, there is thus far no clear-cut evidence that BIDs have attempted to stop public protests or limit the rights of people to express themselves in unique ways on public streets. And when it comes to the accountability issue, BIDs are ultimately responsible to elected officials and market forces. If they were truly undemocratic, politicians would not be continually creating new BIDs and expanding the responsibilities of existing ones. In an article that emphasizes the positive attributes of BIDs, Lawrence O. Houstoun, Jr., contends that the best overall measure is that BIDs are continually reauthorized and their budgets are regularly approved with little opposition. He reasons that when “a BID board composed principally of representatives of assesses votes to accept the annual budget it is saying that the contributors/investors consider the BID’s costs worth the money.”85 “In the marketplace,” Houstoun, Jr., notes, “that is the most persuasive test.”86 Of course, there is another test in the marketplace, the one that Wal-Mart achieves each and every day, and that many business districts fail to achieve—the presence of crowds purchasing an abundance of affordable goods and services in an accessible, clean, and safe environment. At this point, it would be difficult to argue the profit potential of many downtown businesses is anywhere close to that of Wal-Mart, Home Depot, and other big box retailers located on the outskirts of communities.

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 The existing evidence suggests that BIDs are busy, they can identify outcomes, and they certainly affect opinions and attitudes, but it is difficult to know with any precision how much better off they have made communities and business. Success and failure are ephemeral concepts when it comes to BIDs. It depends on context and perspective. BID managers and board members usually gaze at BIDs through rose-colored glasses, while those who dislike BIDs perceive the shadow of malevolence—self-aggrandizement, unaccountability, and antidemocracy. With few exceptions, preconceived notions and ideological formulations shape the extant research and analysis. Given the state of current research, there is certainly a need for more rigorous study of BIDs—whether case studies, comparative investigations, or ethnographic inquires. Perhaps the best allegory for understanding BIDs may be found in evolution and biology. BIDs are like a random element in natural selection, seemingly knowable yet equally unfathomable. BIDs have emerged and proliferated because they have helped enough people in some way (not well-defined and often indirectly applied) to cope with the contemporary physical and cultural composition of cities. Through various services, BIDs support stability but also sensible alterations in a chaotic environment where businesses come and go, individuals pursue their own self-interest, and politics is tumultuous. BIDs are good not so much because of any objective evidence, but because the idea of BIDs has an extraordinary appeal in a world where market solutions dominate public life. BIDs are essentially memes—units of cultural information that spread through a culture in the same manner as genes spread through a gene pool.87 The ultimate value of BIDs is their symbolism as tipping points and optimistic shapers of American cities.

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The Prospects for BIDs

BIDs SHAPE THE FUTURE of American cities everyday. BIDs have emerged

from history with enough organizational and financial advantages to potentially improve locations that need to evolve but remain stable. Although it is not exactly clear how well they have performed thus far, many knowledgeable people believe firmly in the validity of downtown revitalization and at least perceive that BIDs are doing a good job. BIDs are certainly diligent enough to credit them with making city places more marketable, cleaner, safer, and responsive. At the same time, center city retailing remains an image of the past, the typical entertainment menu is ordinary, and the civic life of many cities remains neglected. The problem is that BIDs confront problems that are not easily resolved. Cars continue to lead people away from city places, large retailers continue to move further away from city places, and public policies continue to support the places outside cities as much, if not more, than the places within them. It also does not help that BIDs lack the wherewithal to significantly affect economic development and they are too inclined to emphasize consumption as the primary means to resuscitate city life. What does the future hold? What social, political, and economic trends may support the work of BIDs and which trends may make their job that much more difficult? How will BIDs evolve as they mature and confront new fashions and fads? How will cities develop because of the presence of BIDs? The answers to these questions will undoubtedly affect the future shape of modern agoras in big and small cities through the nation.

 City places grapple with the same material objects that caused cities to decline—automobiles. There are simply not enough parking spaces, traffic 111

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lanes, or access roads. Mass transportation may be a solution, yet there is nothing to indicate a widespread willingness to abandon cars for trains and buses.1 The nation now has more registered vehicles than drivers, with people owning two, three, four, and five cars.2 Many households have so many cars they have been paving over their suburban lawns to park them.3 Americans are so wedded to the automobile and to sitting in traffic that SUVs have become traveling home offices, complete with phone, computer, fax machine, television, and CD player.4 In this context, BID workers can clean every street corner, but such actions may be of little interest to the mass of drivers who just want a good parking space. To make matters worse for city places, the love affair with the car is matched by a continuing penchant for moving to single-family housing, which effectuates less density in the physical landscape. According to the 2000 Census, the nation’s population was 15 percent more suburban by the end of the 1990s, with more than 17,000 square miles of rural space turned over to swaths of housing, retail venues, and industrial sites.5 For all the discussion about limiting sprawl and managing growth, New Jersey has on average lost 18,000 acres of greenery annually to commercial and residential development.6 In the Chesapeake Bay watershed, which comprises seven northeastern states, over 128,000 acres of natural land are converted into suburbs every year and the number of houses has expanded at more than twice the rate of the population growth. Within the sprawling landscape, homes have grown larger. Many people live, or at least desire to live, in so-called McMansions, with forty-foot ceilings, multiple bathrooms, and five-car garages. The average American home is now 50 percent larger than it was in 1970.7 The size of retail stores keeps growing as well, with some new Home Depots exceeding 100,000 square feet. Given all of this, it is difficult to imagine how condensed city places will ever be able to satisfy the expanded lifestyle that many people have become accustomed to living and enjoying. Rationality is lost when it comes to the rhetoric and reality of American lifestyles. People oppose sprawl, yet they also continue to purchase SUVs and Hummers. They are for beautiful and interesting downtowns, but they also want to shop at strip malls with convenient parking. They say they want to walk on sidewalks in neighborhoods, but they do not want to trudge in rain, heat, or cold lugging heavy grocery sacks.8 They seek meaning in their existence, but they eat processed foods at fast-food establishments.9 J. B. Jackson in A Sense of Time, A Sense of Place, says of these inconsistent preferences: The truth is Americans are of two minds as to how we ought to live. Publicly we say harsh things about urban sprawl and suburbia, and we encourage activity in the heart of town. In theory, but only in theory, we want to duplicate the traditional compact European community where everyone takes

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part in a rich and diversified public life. But at the same time most of us are secretly pining for a secluded hide-away, a piece of land, or a small house in the country where we can lead an intensely private nonurban existence, staying close to home. I am not entirely sure this is a real contradiction. While we agree that scatteration and the dying central city are both of them unsightly and illogical, we also, I think, feel a deep and persistent need for privacy and independence in our domestic life. That is why the freestanding dwelling on its own-defined plot of land, whether in a prosperous residential neighborhood or in an impoverished urban fringe, is so persistent a feature of our landscape. That is why our downtown areas, however vital they may be economically, are so lacking in what is called a sense of place.10

In a dispersed environment, center city business districts are necessarily in contention with distant shopping malls and box stores. Although some malls, built in the 1970s, have closed and construction of new structures has slowed, mammoth mall retailing remains dominant.11 The seventy-eightacre Mall of America outside Minneapolis-St. Paul sees thirty-five million visitors annually, which is far more shoppers than the core places in Minneapolis or St. Paul could ever hope to attract. On the outskirts of Columbus, Ohio, a mall opened in 2002 with 1.5 million square feet of space, even through there are four similar malls not too far away and even as the places within the city have tried to make a comeback by building a sport complex downtown, offering various tax incentives to businesses, and creating more than one BID.12 And then there is Wal-Mart. Sales at the nation’s largest retailer have boomed, pushing its total revenues to well over $200 billion annually. It is not only that Wal-Mart locates as far away from everything else as possible, it is also that Wal-Mart ruthlessly undercuts nearby downtown businesses until they have been put out of business.13 Thus far, downtown businesses and BIDs have not developed an effective strategy, if any plan at all, to vie with the clout of Wal-Mart, other big box stores, and sprawling shopping centers. While BIDs rarely challenge malls, malls surely challenge BIDs. The latest practice is to make suburban structures look like city places.14 Expansive mall complexes continue to be built in distant fields with plenty of parking spaces, but under the guise that they are historical sites and modern agoras. In suburban Lakewood, Colorado, an old mall was replaced with a new mall designed to resemble an Italian Villa, complete with open-air promenades and imitation statues of Roman figures.15 On the outskirts of San Jose, California, there is a mall with both retail stores and apartment housing, along with main street architecture and an open-air ambiance.16 In Costa Mesa, California, two so-called antimalls—The Camp and The Lab—supply teenagers and twenty-somethings with specialty retail and entertainment alternatives, couches for lounging, and spaces for skateboarding.17 To provide

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a sense that malls are not sterile shoeboxes, churches are opening in malls, such as in the Bergen Mall in Paramus, New Jersey, which now has a Carmelite Chapel of St. Therese, and the Grand Cities Mall outside Grand Forks, North Dakota, which is the home of the Hope Evangelical Church.18 Even Disney World properties and Las Vegas casinos have put together fantasy main streets as a way to sell themselves as a family experience. As malls and casinos do everything they can to recreate the downtown experience, authentic main streets seem incapable of doing much more than sponsoring food tasting festivals, placing potted plants on street corners, putting up square shaped banners, and offering historical walking tours. Historical preservation is viewed as a revitalization panacea for many city places, but there are limits to this approach. Compared to Europe, most American cities don’t have much history, and for cities with a history, finding new landmarks after several years of historical preservation is like finding a public restroom in Manhattan. Many old structures were destroyed during the urban renewal movement of the 1960s, and surplus buildings have been recycled more than once. At best, the focus is on producing a historical image encompassing structures and streetscapes that are replicas of a past that may have existed more in imagination than reality. History has become malleable to the point that authenticity is no longer the point.19 For example, Leavenworth, Washington, has recreated itself as a Bavarian village, complete with polka music, beer festivals, and the architecture of Germany from the 1800s.20 Hannibal, Missouri, has made Mark Twain the theme of its city center—complete with a Mark Twain Wax Museum, Becky Thatcher Book and Gift Shop, and Tom n’ Huck Motel—yet without any mention that the city was once a major slave market, the issue at the heart of many Twain novels.21 BIDs likewise buy into this model when they try to turn themselves into Victorian villages or claim that their locales are similar to Venice or Athens. The premise seems to be that history can be sold without regard to its content, which cynically presumes a lack of knowledge among those interested enough in history to visit a historical landmark. The problem for BIDs is that they are merely a variable in a culture made up of numerous variables. BIDs cannot remake history anymore than they can change the geographical location of cities. BIDs are caught in the middle of cities that lurch from one financial crisis to another because of resistance to new taxes and growing mountains of debt. BIDs are at best indirectly related to the things that have been shown to make city places thrive— schools, roads, and housing.22 BIDs cannot change large economic and social trends—the overall economic climate, the throw-away society that causes streets to become dirty, the penchant for cars, or the criminal’s creed that freedom means doing anything one wants. BIDs lack the authority to prevent local shop owners from closing their doors on weekdays at five, even though it might be in the best interest of the area to keep businesses open after peo-

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ple get off work.23 BIDs are at a loss to stop manufacturers from leaving towns for foreign nations where the wages are low, which in turn leaves unemployed workers behind and downtown businesses without customers. When BIDs develop good ideas about city development their perspectives are often at odds with Chambers of Commerce, visitor and convention center bureaus, government economic development offices, and neighborhood associations. Simply put, BIDs struggle to change places that need to remain the same.

 The context is not all negative, however. The amount of activity in city places has been steadily rising. Since 1995, seventy-eight minor league baseball parks have been built in city centers under the premise that families want affordable entertainment in historical settings, like it once was in the major leagues before corporations captured the best stadium seats and ticket prices skyrocketed.24 Downtown waterfront districts have been redeveloped, such as Mill Ruins Park in the historic St. Anthony Falls area of Minneapolis and along the harbor in Stamford, Connecticut.25 Major redevelopment projects have been instigated in Pittsburgh where sixty-one buildings and one hundred twenty-five businesses in the downtown are being razed and replaced with trendy restaurants, a sports stadium, apartments, convention center complex, waterfront park, and parking for 1,000 cars.26 In St. Louis, thirty-five historic buildings in the downtown have been redeveloped for housing, adding nearly 2,000 residential units to the area.27 City governments are now on the same page as BIDs, such as in San Jose, California, where an architecturally-innovative glass-domed city hall is the centerpiece of the community.28 To improve the ambiance of cities, uninviting freeways in city centers are suffering the wrecking ball. Fort Worth dismantled the I-30 elevated freeway that sliced through its downtown since 1960, Milwaukee removed the Park East Freeway and opened up the area to private development, and Boston is burying its downtown freeway system in the so-called “Big Dig.”29 Boston’s Big Dig is expected to provide the city with a thirty-acre site that will contain new businesses, parks, housing, and schools.30 Even car-saturated Houston, Texas, has sacrificed some its roads for a new mass transportation system that connects the city center to housing and schools in outlying areas. Educators have become leaders in the redevelopment of inner cities. There are nearly 2,000 colleges and universities located in downtown districts.31 As universities grow, they focus much of their attention on the places within cities. Along State Street in Chicago, DePaul and Roosevelt Universities and Columbia College have joined together to create a 700,000 square foot, 1,720-room dormitory. The Chicago Art Institute also has a new dormitory located downtown and a film center that is anchored by a three-level Borders book store.32 In Newark, New Jersey, Rutgers University has established a

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homebuyers program that provides low-interest mortgages for buying property near the university.33 In Philadelphia, St. Joseph’s University has located two 400-student residence halls in the City Avenue section of the city, which has been hailed by the local BID. In numerous other cities, universities have created small business assistance centers, provided expertise in the development of marketing campaigns, and supported BIDs with financial assistance and facilities for civic forums. The presence of universities in city places are a selling point for many BIDs, and a major enticement for the creative class. College students and upscale professionals are being joined in a return to city centers by individuals and families leaving the confines of suburbia. The New York Times reports that families are growing dissatisfied with the suburbs because of housing and automobile costs, and the insufficient sense of community.34 Empty nesters (couples whose children have left home) are returning to cities to enjoy the arts, restaurants, and shops. According to one study of population trends in Cincinnati, Ohio, the number of people living in the central business district has reached levels not seen since the 1950s.35 Writing in Governing magazine, Alan Ehrenhalt suggests that “the indisputable evidence is that a growing number of Americans do want a different sort of life, one with neighborhood commerce and short commutes and streets designed to make sociality easy rather difficult.”36 Of particular significance for the future, teenagers are going downtown to have fun because malls are no longer viewed as cool or hip. Malls are too homogenous to be interesting, while city places are replete with many nationalities, races, faiths, and styles. Young people spurn boredom and desire to join the lively “human spectacle” of city places.37 There is something to be said that many successful television sitcoms have been situated within cities, such as Seinfeld and Friends. By returning to cities, the under-twenty-five crowd contributes to the social health of business districts because they establish fashion trends and they spend money freely on consumer items. One estimate puts total teen spending in the United States between $150 and $200 billion annually.38 Along with America’s youth, there is a major flow of immigrants into cities. The twenty largest cities had a net migration gain from 1990 to 1999. Nearly one million people came to New York City from other countries and over 300,000 each to Chicago and Miami. This parallels what happened at the turn of the twentieth century when immigrants arrived and set up shops and homes within city places and turned them into the very locales that BIDs are now trying to bring back to life. Globalization may work in favor of city places. In the global economy, cities are the centerpieces for finance, communications, and travel. H. V. Savitch and Paul Kantor observe in their book Cities in the International Marketplace: The Political Economy of Urban Development in North America and Western Europe that cities have become the “command and control centers” for the international economy.39 For example, center-city banks hold the

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wealth of the market state, totaling over $1.4 billion in New York City alone. In turn, banks foster other service related jobs and various offshoot industries, such as accounting firms, public relations businesses, hotels, and restaurants. For workers, residents, and tourists, a major attraction of the typical downtown is that you can walk outside. Studies are finding people are tired of always being indoors, which is one factor leading them to spend less time in malls—an average of only one and a half to two hours a month.40 Additionally, the rising rates of obesity in the nation are leading to a fundamental rethinking about how to get around. Walking is not such a bad idea, given that 65 percent of the population is obese, and 300,000 Americans die annually of diabetes and other diseases caused by a sedentary lifestyle.41 One study from the Georgia Institute of Technology discovered every thirty minutes a person spends in a car translates into a 3 percent greater chance of being obese.42 In addition to the health benefits, walking may even prove to be financially advantageous in the context of dwindling oil supplies and rising gas prices. Instead of driving to malls, many Americans are turning to the mass communications system to buy what they need. On television, the Home Shopping Network has $2 million in annual sales, employs over 4,000 people, receives 80 million calls per year, ships 47 million packages, and sells about 22,000 different products.43 On the Internet, retailing counts for upwards of $120 million in goods and services sold and millions of online purchases.44 Although the purchasing of products by phone or computer is not to the benefit of either malls or city places, the latter may have advantage over malls because as people shop privately they may also desire interesting public places to eat, attend lectures, and enjoy outdoor concerts.45 The Internet is also a mechanism to encourage the growth of city places. There are Web sites, such as meetup.com, that offer people with similar interests a way to meet in city places, as well as innumerable web sites that discourage sprawl and promote downtowns. On the Internet and among various kinds of associations a recurring theme is that city places have much to offer. In addition to BIDs, associations are forming everyday to champion downtown life. The League of Historic American Theaters works on the assumption that theater restoration revives an interest in the downtown, which in turn produces a substantial economic impact. CEOs for Cities comprises a group of leading mayors, corporate executives, and university presidents who believe that city places are worth saving and who try to spread the word about the good things that are happening in cities.46 Other groups with a keen interest in city places include The American Planning Association, Congress for the New Urbanism, the Urban Land Institute, National Trust for Historical Preservation, and International Downtown Association. These and other entities are publishing a mountain of articles, books, and reports that celebrate downtown life and local living.

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 The best harbinger for BIDs is in the political realm. Since the 1980s, there has been a shift in governance from “public purposes to private purposes, from a state that takes its legitimacy by assuring the common welfare to one that instead relies on providing the broadest possible opportunity for the satisfaction of individual interests.”47 When it comes to administrative structures, “citizens are essentially looking for two forms of public authority,” according to Professor Donald F. Kettl, “intimate ones in their community that can deal with their needs in a humane way, and regional ones big enough to impose some order and stability on economic life.”48 He suggests that governments are “too remote and bureaucratic for the first job and too small and weak for the second one.”49 On the small-scale side, BIDs fit the bill because they are relatively intimate organizations that satisfy private interests by taking care of the small problems that make up the larger picture for city places. The official view of BIDs has improved considerably. There is no better example than in New York City. When BIDs were first created in the late 1980s and early 1990s, they began with great promise. Wallace L. Ford, the Commissioner of Business Services under Mayor David Dinkins, said about BIDs in 1991 “We love them.”50 When Mayor Rudolph Giuliani took office in 1994, his view of BIDs was much less charitable, even though he was a strong advocate for privatization and the broken-windows theory of policing. His administration seemed to dislike BIDs because there was inadequate direct control and accountability. Mayor Giuliani’s administrative lieutenants spent considerable time complaining about BID projects in the media, engaging in public spats with BID managers, and opposing any increases in BID budgets or the creation of new BIDs.51 At the same time, the Mayor’s office did not hesitate to take credit in areas where BIDs had helped to enhance the business climate, such as in Times Square.52 When Michael Bloomberg took office in 2002, the fortunes for BIDs changed again for the better. Mayor Bloomberg announced the city would “depend more on publicprivate partnerships” and Daniel Doctoroff, the Deputy Mayor for Economic Development and Rebuilding, proclaimed the city would be “BID-friendly.”53 Subsequently, several new BIDs were established and an expansion in the budgets of existing BIDs was approved.54

 It is in the context of a challenging, yet promising set of circumstances that BIDs confront the future. There are three possible prospects for BIDs: termination, stagnation, or expansion. While termination is unlikely in the short-term, there might come a time when city leaders believe BIDs have accomplished as much as they can

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and that something else needs to replace them. One possibility is that people will conclude the problems confronting BIDs are too big for them to handle. Regional associations or other types of nonprofits, such as community development corporations, might eventually discover better ways to develop city places by coordinating business creation with transportation systems and housing development. Another possibility is that BIDs will merge with downtown development organizations and eventually lose their distinctive character. The Portland, Oregon BID has already merged with the Chamber of Commerce in 2002 under the umbrella of the Portland Business Alliance. The obvious reason for such a merger is to consolidate kindred activities in a more efficient manner. The question is whether such a merger is a backdoor form of termination? Can a BID really be a BID if it is no longer a distinctive entity, but more of a financing device within a larger bureaucratic organization? In the case of Portland, the BID’s specialized downtown cleaning and security functions are now shared with the Chamber’s larger role to promote business development in the city as a whole. Yet Portland is not alone. Various kinds of partnership arrangements are now ongoing in Baltimore, Memphis, and Denver. Another prospect for BIDs is that they will stagnate as they mature. There are seven interrelated factors that could cause a BID to become a lethargic organization that plods along from year to year cleaning the same sidewalks over and over. First, creative entrepreneurs often start BIDs, but once they leave, the inspiration for innovative projects may also depart. Second, BIDs are bureaucratic organizations, and like any bureaucracy that matures, there is a tendency to overlook new ideas and to engage in routine, noncontroversial activities. Third, once a BID has accomplished its primary goals—cleaning streets and providing security—there may no longer any pressure to do anything other than maintain the status quo. Fourth, BID boards and managers may become frustrated and give up when they start to confront problems that are more difficult to deal with, such as a lack of parking, an inability to move new retailers into the area, or too much competition from box stores. Fifth, the short-term success of locating chain retail outlets or franchise restaurants into a district may eventually increase the number of corporate owners who do not live in the community and who may be uninterested in BID governance or BID activities. Sixth, time itself can be an enemy, such as when the banners that were once colorful and inviting become soiled and torn, leading to negative public impressions. Seventh, the prevention of stagnation is difficult because stagnation kills motivation and what is required to overcome stagnation is a continual willingness to adapt, redefine, and expand the vision for city places.55 The promising outlook for BIDs is that more of them will be created and existing BIDs will grow larger and learn how to do a better job. New BIDs are under consideration in Boston, New York, Los Angeles, and several

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other cities in the United States, as well as around the world. Many existing BIDs have seen their budgets increase and their boundaries expand. The Seattle Metropolitan Improvement District has grown from a fifteen-block district in the 1980s to a 225-block district in 2000. Similarly, the Los Angeles Fashion District BID has grown from a twelve-block area in 1995 to ninety blocks in 2003. Along with expanding geographical boundaries, BID boards and managers are expanding their plans to go beyond sweeping sidewalks and putting up catchy banners. BIDs are gradually branching out into other activities, such as holding legal forums for retailers and participating in welfare-to-work programs.

 Whatever happens to cities in the coming decades, and no matter if one believes that BIDs have done a good or bad job, it is clear that that their very presence has become a part of what people think about cities and city administration. When the trajectory of cities is considered, BIDs are now as much a part of history as the history that led to their creation. When people think of a city as a collection of districts, BIDs clarify that distinction through their legal boundaries and special advertising ploys. When citizens want to develop a city place or fix a neighborhood problem, they may be as likely to turn toward BIDs as they are to city agencies. When people consider the role of the nonprofit sector as champions for city causes, BIDs have assumed a position beside philanthropic associations and civic groups. When people drive or walk through a place governed by a BID, they feel its presence even though they may not have the foggiest idea about how a BID is structured. As Darryl Holter, the chair of the Figueroa Corridor BID, put it: “BIDs are woven so deeply into the new fabric of urban America that it is difficult to see a future without them.”56 In a consumer society, BIDs symbolize the desire of people to find meaning in their lives by joining others in public settings. They reflect the need for public places to awaken aesthetic sensibilities and to bring about pleasurable experiences. BIDs have become a fundamental way to move cities forward economically and socially, yet in a manner that does not unnecessarily alter the unique character and staying power of vital city places. As cities progress into the future, BIDs will continue to exist as symbols of optimism for the likely ups and downs that will occur. BIDs are clearly here to stay, shaping the city places that need to progress, yet remain the same.

Notes

CHAPTER ONE. THE SHAPE OF CITY PLACES 1. Lewis Mumford, The City in History: Its Origins, its Transformations, and its Prospects (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1961), 569. 2. William R. Leach, Country of Exiles: The Destruction of Place in American Life (New York: Pantheon Books, 1999), 179. See also, Paul Zucker, Town and Square from the Agora to the Village Green (New York: Columbia University Press, 1959). 3. Delores Hayden, The Power of Place: Urban Landscapes as Public History (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1997), 9. 4. The various elements that make up public spaces has been addressed by Roger Scruton, “Public Space and the Classical Vernacular,” in The Public Face of Architecture: Civic Culture and Public Spaces, ed., Nathan Glazer and Mark Lilla, 15 (New York: Free Press, 1987). 5. For an elaboration on the characteristics of civic spaces, see Peter G. Rowe, Civic Realism (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1997), 214–18. 6. John O. Norquist, The Wealth of Cities: Revitalizing the Centers of American Life (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1998), 207. 7. City of New York Press Release, “Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg Signs Legislation Creating Forest Avenue Business Improvement District,” November 29, 2004. 8. Crain’s New York Business, “BIDs Rev up for Long-Awaited Green Light to Boost Budgets,” March 18, 2002. 9. For the history and archeology of the Greek agora, see Homer Thompson, The Athenian Agora: A Short Guide (Athens, Greece: American School of Architecture, 1993). 10. J. B. Jackson, “Forum Follows Function,” in The Public Face of Architecture: Civic Culture and Public Spaces, ed., Nathan Glazer and Mark Lilla, 118 (New York: Free Press, 1987). 11. Peter Hall, Cities in Civilization (New York: Fromm International, 1998), 39.

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12. Lewis Mumford, The City in History, 571. 13. This claim was made by Anthony M. Tung, Preserving the World’s Great Cities: The Destruction and Renewal of the Historic Metropolis (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2001), 254. 14. Homer Thompson, The Athenian Agora,1–2. 15. Simon Schama, The Embarrassment of Riches: An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age (New York: Vintage Books, 1997), 509. 16. For an overview of the Great Exhibition of 1851, see Pamela Klaffke, Spree: A Cultural History of Shopping (Vancouver, BC: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2003), 26–27. 17. For an analysis of the growth of central business districts, see Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris and Tridib Banergee, Urban Design Downtown: Poetics and Politics of Form (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998). 18. Malcolm Gladwell, The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference (Boston: Little Brown, 2000), 6. 19. For a discussion of various aspects of the new American dream, see Peter Calthorpe, The Next American Metropolis: Ecology, Community, and the American Dream (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993). 20. Paco Underhill, Call of the Mall (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2004). 21. Paul S. Grogan and Tony Proscio, Comeback Cities: A Blueprint for Urban Neighborhood Revival (New York: Westview Press, 2001), 133. 22. The New York Times, “Shopping Malls Adopting New Strategies to Survive,” March 2, 2005. 23. Christopher Swope, “After the Mall,” Governing (October 2002), 21–22. 24. Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000). 25. Andres Duany, Elizabeth Pater-Zyberk, and Jeff Speck, Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream (New York: North Point Press, 2001), 4–5. 26. James Howard Kunstler, The City in Mind: Notes on the Urban Condition (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2001), xi. 27. Ibid., xi. 28. Chris Roush, Inside Home Depot: How One Company Revolutionized an Industry Through the Relentless Pursuit of Growth (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1999), 2. 29. Robert Slater, The Wal-Mart Decade: How a New Generation of Leaders Turned Sam Walton’s Legacy into the World’s #1 Company (New York: Portfolio, 2003). 30. Frederic W. Knaak, “Open Space, Mobility Keys to Prosperity,” Minneapolis Tribune, December 15, 2002. 31. J. B. Jackson, Discovering the Vernacular Landscape (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984), 23. 32. William Leach, Country of Exiles, 173.

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33. David Brooks, On Paradise Drive: How We Live Now (And Always Have) in the Future Tense (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2004), 4. CHAPTER TWO. HISTO RICAL CONNECTIONS 1. Roy Porter, The Creation of the Modern World: The Untold Story of the British Enlightenment (New York: W. W. Norton, 2000), 220. 2. Ibid., 222. 3. Jean-Jacques Rousseau quote cited in Spiro Kostof, The City Assembled: The Elements of Urban Form Through History (Boston: Bullfinch Press, 1992), 51. 4. Letter from Thomas Jefferson to Dr. Benjamin Rush, September 23, 1800. 5. Quote from Thomas Jefferson in his “Notes on the State of Virginia,” cited in Joseph Rykwert, The Seduction of Place: The City in the Twenty-First Century (New York: Pantheon, 2000), 11. 6. Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976), first published in 1776. 7. For a discussion of how the town square developed in the United States, see Richard V. Francaviglia, Main Street Revisited: Time, Space, and Image in Small-Town America (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1996). 8. Martin V. Melosi, The Sanitary City: Urban Infrastructure in America from Colonial Times to the Present (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000), 39. 9. Diana Klebanow, Franklin L. Jonas, and Ira M. Leonard, Urban Legacy: The Story of America’s Cities (New York: New American Library, 1977), 32. 10. T. H. Breen, The Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004). 11. Ibid., 115. 12. Ibid., 24. 13. For an examination of the historical development of public administration, see Richard Stillman II, Preface to Public Administration: A Search for Themes and Direction (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1991). 14. O. C. McSwite, Legitimacy in Public Administration: A Discourse Analysis (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1997), 133. 15. Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (New York: New American Library, 1956, first published in 1835), 95. 16. Ibid., 95. 17. Ibid., 95. 18. Jeremy Paxman, The English: Portrait of a People (New York: Overlook Press, 1998), 190. 19. Mark E. Warren, Democracy and Association (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001), 42.

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20. Eric H. Monkkonen, America Becomes Urban: The Development of U.S. Cities and Towns, 1780–1980 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988). 21. Paul Bairoch, Cities and Economic Development: From the Dawn of History to the Present (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988), 298. 22. Robin L. Einhorn, Property Rules: Political Economy in Chicago, 1833–1872 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), 42. 23. Robert M. Fogelson, Downtown: Its Rise and Fall, 1880–1950 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), 10–11. 24. William R. Leach, The Land of Desire: Merchants, Power, and the Rise of a New American Culture (New York: Pantheon Books, 1993), 33–35. 25. John Wanamaker quote cited in William Leach, The Merchants of Desire, 43. 26. For a discussion of the development of the grid pattern in cities, see Andro Linklater, Measuring America: How an Untamed Wilderness Shaped the United States and Fulfilled the Promise of Democracy (New York: Walker Publishing, 2002), 176–88. 27. Robin L. Einhorn, Property Rules: Political Economy in Chicago, 1833–1872, 14. See also Victor Rosewater, Special Assessments: A Study in Municipal Finance (New York: Columbia University, 1898). 28. Peter Watson, The Modern Mind: An Intellectual History of the 20th Century (New York: Perennial, 2000), 52. 29. Frank Norris and Jacob Riise wrote several books criticizing squalor in cities. See Frank Norris, Octopus (New York: Doubleday, 1901) and Jacob Riis, The Battle with the Slum (New York: Macmillan, 1902). For a general history of muckraking, see John M. Harrison and Harry H. Stein, Muckraking: Past, Present, and Future (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1973). 30. For the history of the Progressive Era, see Richard Hofstadter, The Age of Reform: From Bryan to F. D. R. (New York: Knopf, 1955), Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Cycles of American History (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1986), and Frank Thistlethwaite, The Great Experiment: An Introduction to the History of the American People (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1955). 31. Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward (New York: Lancer Books, 1968). 32. Michael J. Sandel, Democracy’s Discontents: America in Search of a Public Philosophy (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996), 209–10. 33. Alison Isenberg, Downtown America: A History of the Place and the People Who Made It (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004), 22. 34. William H. Wilson, The City Beautiful Movement (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989), 92. See also, Erik Larson, The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America (New York: Crown, 2003). 35. William H. Wilson, The City Beautiful Movement, 75–95. 36. Martin V. Melosi, The Sanitary City: Urban Infrastructure in America from Colonial Times to the Present, 190–91. Also, see Suellen Hoy, Chasing Dirt: The American Pursuit of Cleanliness (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995).

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37. William R. Leach, The Land of Desire: Merchants, Power, and the Rise of a New American Culture, 174–75. 38. Ibid., 284. 39. Alison Isenberg, Downtown America, 39. 40. Susan L. Klaus, A Modern Arcadia: Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. and the Plan for Forest Hills Garden (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2002), 47. 41. Thomas Muller, Immigrants and the American City (New York: New York University Press, 1993). 42. Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead (New York: Bobbs Merrill, 1943), 45. 43. Paul M. Mazur, American Prosperity: Its Causes and Consequences (New York: Viking Press, 1928), 224–25. 44. Godfrey M. Lebhar, Chain Stores in America, 1859–1959 (New York: Chain Store Publishing Corporation, 1959), 77–98. 45. Ibid., 287–305. 46. Ibid., 150–51. 47. Maurice W. Lee, Anti-Chain Store Tax Legislation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1939), 9. 48. Frank Lloyd Wright, The Disappearing City (New York: William Farquhar Payson, 1932), 21. 49. Ibid., 21. 50. Ibid., 43. 51. Ibid., 38. 52. Lewis Mumford, The Culture of Cities (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1938), 24. 53. Ibid., 254. 54. Susan L. Klaus, A Modern Arcadia: Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. and the Plan for Forest Hills Garden, 47. 55. Eric Schlosser, Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2001), 20–25. 56. Alison Isenberg, Downtown America, 168. 57. Witold Rybczynski, City Life, 155. 58. David Anderson, Downtown: A History of Downtown Minneapolis and St. Paul in the Words of the People who Lived It (Minneapolis: Nooden Press, 1999), 178. 59. Godfrey M. Lebhar, Chain Stores in America, 1859–1959, 1–22. 60. Ibid., 40. 61. Karen Plunkett-Powell, Remembering Woolworth’s: A Nostalgic History of the World’s Most Famous Five-and-Dime (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1999), 165. 62. Lizabeth Cohen, A Consumer’s Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America (New York: Random House, 2003), 127.

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63. An elaborate picture of downtown life has been put together, see Michael Johns, Moment of Grace: The American City in the 1950s (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003). 64. For firsthand accounts of the nostalgia for the 1950s, see Ray Suarez, The Old Neighborhood: What We Lost in the Great Suburban Migration, 1966–1999 (New York: Free Press, 1999). 65. Ibid., 240. 66. Steven Millhauser, Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer (London: Phoenix, 1996), 206. 67. Godfrey M. Lebhar, Chain Stores in America, 1859–1959, 59. 68. For a discussion of racial discrimination in cities, see Michael Johns, Moment of Grace: The American City in the 1950s, 71–90. 69. For a discussion of the rise of special districts, see Kathryn A. Foster, The Political Economy of Special Purpose Government (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 1997). Also, see Kari Hudson, “Special District Governments: Examining the Questions of Control,” City/County Management (September 1996): 54–71. 70. Jon C. Teaford, The Rough Road to Renaissance: Urban Revitalization in America, 1940–1985 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990), 124. 71. Kenneth Jackson, Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), 4. 72. Mickey Lauria, Robert K. Whelan, and Alma H. Young, “The Revitalization of Downtown New Orleans,” in Urban Revitalization: Policies and Programs, ed. Fritz W. Wagner, Timothy E. Joder, and Anthony J. Mumphrey, Jr., 110–11 (Thousand Oaks: Sage, 1995). 73. Joel Garreau, Edge City: Life on the New Frontier (New York: Doubleday, 1991). 74. Kansas City Star, “KC 150: Defining Characteristics,” July 10, 2000. 75. Louis Sullivan was the architect responsible for early skyscrapers, including Chicago’s Auditorium (1886) and St. Louis’ Wainwright Building (1890). He coined the phrase, “form over function” and was responsible for the cube as an architectural form. For an analysis of Sullivan’s influences, see David S. Andrew, Louis Sullivan and the Polemics of Modern Architecture: The Present against the Past (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1985). 76. William C. Baer, “On the Death of Cities,” Public Interest 45, no. 3 (Fall 1976): 3. CHAPTER THREE. THE BID APPROACH 1. William H. Whyte, City: Rediscovering the Center (New York: Doubleday, 1988), 199. 2. Quote cited in The New York Times, “Rethinking Skyways and Tunnels,” August 3, 2005.

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3. Bernard J. Frieden and Lynne B. Sagalyn, Downtown, Inc.: How America Rebuilds Cities (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1989), 34. 4. Richard Moe and Carter Wilkie, Changing Places: Rebuilding Community in the Age of Sprawl (New York: Henry Holt, 1997), 66–67. For a detailed examination of the destruction of New York’s Pennsylvania Station, see Lorraine B. Diehl, The Late, Great Pennsylvania Station (New York: American Heritage, 1985). 5. William H. Whyte, City: Rediscovering the Center, 69. 6. For problems with housing authorities and other similar organizations, see Jerry Mitchell, The American Experiment with Government Corporations (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1999). 7. The New York Times, “Mayor’s Report Details Bills of Ex-Housing Chief,” February 29, 1992. 8. For a list of the advantages and disadvantages of regionalism, see Annette Steinacker, “Prospects for Regional Governance: Lessons from the Miami Abolition Vote,” Urban Affairs Review 37, no. 3 (September 2001): 100–118. 9. Neal R. Peirce, with Curtis W. Johnson and John Stuart Hall, Citistates: How Urban America Can Prosper in a Competitive World (Santa Ana, CA: Seven Locks Press, 1993). 10. Manuel Pastor, Jr., Peter Dreier, J. Eugene Grigsby III, and Marta LopezGarza, Regions that Work: How Cities and Suburbs Can Grow Together (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000). 11. Bernard J. Frieden and Lyne B. Sagalyn, Downtown, Inc.: How America Rebuilds Cities, 17. 12. Jesse Walker, “Beyond Pubic and Private: Business Improvement Districts Don’t Fit Our Ordinary Categories,” Reason (November 2003). www.reason.com (accessed January 10, 2004). 13. William Severini Kowinski, The Malling of America: An Inside Look at the Great Consumer Paradise (New York: William Morrow, 1985), 344. 14. James Howard Kunstler, The Geography of Nowhere: The Rise and Decline of America’s Man-Made Landscape (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993), 131. 15. Philip Langdon, A Better Place to Live: Reshaping the American Suburb (Cambridge: University of Massachusetts Press, 1994), 1. 16. John Miller, Egotopia: Narcissism and the New American Landscape (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1997), 41. 17. Andres Duany, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, and Jeff Speck concluded in Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream (New York: North Point Press, 2001), 115. 18. Jane Holtz Kay, Asphalt Nation: How the Automobile Took Over America, and How We Can Take It Back (New York: Crown, 1997), 26. 19. The New York Times, “State Proposals Will Decide the Pace of Construction,” November 7, 2000.

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20. Several state antigrowth initiatives are identified and examined by Arthur Nelson, Growth Management Practices and Principles (Chicago: American Planning Association, 1995). 21. For an examination of alternative growth management strategies, see Anthony Downs, New Visions for Metropolitan America (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 1994). 22. Madelyn Glickfield and Ned Levine, Growth Controls: Regional Problems— Local Responses (Cambridge, MA: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, 1991), 22. 23. Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities (New York: Random House, 1961). 24. Ibid., 390. 25. Ibid., 390. 26. Jane Holtz Kay, Asphalt Nation: How the Automobile Took Over America, and How We Can Take It Back, 325. 27. Roberta Brandes Gratz, Cities Back from the Edge: New Life for Downtown (New York: John Wiley, 1999), 62. 28. Ibid., 65. 29. William Attoe and Don Logan, American Urban Architecture: Catalysts in the Design of Cities (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), 45. 30. Ibid., 45. 31. Ibid., 45. 32. Kenneth Kolson, Big Plans: The Allure and Folly of Urban Design (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001), 6. 33. Ibid., 7. 34. From the Charter for the New Urbanism, included in the appendix to Andres Duany, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, and Jeff Speck, Suburban Nation, 256–57. See also, Peter Katz, The New Urbanism: Toward an Architecture of Community (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1994). 35. Center for the Urban Future. www.nycfuture.com (accessed January 4, 2004). 36. Dennis R. Judd, “Constructing the Tourist Bubble,” in The Tourist City, ed. Dennis R. Judd and Susan Fainstein, 36 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999). 37. David Brooks, Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000). 38. Richard Florida, The Rise of the Creative Class: And How It’s Transforming Work, Leisure, Community, and Everyday Life (New York: Perseus Books, 2002). 39. Ibid., 74. 40. Ibid., 7. 41. Ibid., 7. See also USA Today, “Mid-Sized Cities Get Hip to Attract Young Professionals,” October 10, 2003.

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42. Goktug Morcol and Ulf Zimmerman, “Metropolitan Governance and Business Improvement Districts, International Journal of Public Administration 29, no. 1–3 (January 2006): 10. 43. Charles Lindbloom, Politics and Markets: The World’s Political-Economic Systems (New York: Basic Books, 1977), 122. 44. The arguments for privatization have been addressed in E. S. Savas, Privatization and Public-Private Partnerships (New York: Seven Bridges Press, 2000). 45. For information about the federal role in local economic development, see United States Government Accountability Office, Economic Development Activities: Overview of Eight Federal Programs (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1997). 46. Springfield News-Leader, “Downtown Ozark Has Designs on Renaissance,” February 29, 2004. 47. Christopher D. Ringwald, “Return to Center,” Governing (April 2002): 34. 48. For a review of various local economic development programs, see Laura Reese, Local Economic Development Policy: The United States and Canada (New York: Garland, 1970) and Douglas J. Watson, The New Civil War: Government Competition for Economic Development (New York: Praeger, 1995). 49. Paul S. Grogan and Tony Proscio, Comeback Cities: A Blueprint for Urban Neighborhood Revival (Boulder, CO: Westview Press). See also, Emil E. Maliza and Edward J. Feier, Understanding Local Economic Development (New Brunswick, N J: Center for Urban Policy Research, 1999). 50. Paul S. Grogan and Tony Proscio, Comeback Cities: A Blueprint for Urban Neighborhood Revival, 70. 51. Ibid., 72. 52. Alison Isenberg, Downtown America: A History of the Place and the People Who Made It (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004), 271–96. 53. The New York Times, “Looking to Recapture Glory, Department Stores Revamp,” September 29, 2003. 54. The New York Times, “High Technology for a Historic City,” November 5, 2000. 55. The New York Times, “Weaving a Future from Old Threads,” October 7, 2000. 56. The New York Times, “Downtown Revival Comes to the South,” March 18, 2001 and The New York Times, “Decayed Cincinnati Area Gets High Tech Revival,” March 4, 2001. 57. The New York Times, “In St. Louis, Office Buildings are Becoming Lofts,” June 24, 2001. 58. The New York Times, “Renovation of Pabst Brewery Aims to Revitalize Downtown Milwaukee,” August 13, 2003. 59. The New York Times, “Restoring Landmark in Downtown Detroit,” October 15, 2003.

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60. The New York Times, “In Chicago, an Attempt to Upgrade a Neighborhood,” September 10, 2000. 61. The New York Times, “Midwest Towns Feel Gambling is a Sure Thing,” May 20, 2002. 62. The New York Times, “Ballpark is Inspiring Memphis Downtown,” August 15, 2001. 63. The New York Times, “City Where Visitors Never Sleep,” March 27, 2002. 64. The New York Times, “Suburban Restaurant Chains Learn about Life in the City,” September 25, 2002. 65. The New York Times, “A Little Something for the Philadelphia Skyline,” May 29, 2002. 66. The New York Times, “Catching the Urban Wave,” November 27, 2001 and The New York Times, “Sprawl-Weary Los Angeles Builds Up and In,” March 10, 2002. 67. From brochure of the New Orleans Downtown Development District. CHAPTER FOUR. THE O RGANIZATION OF INNOVATION 1. Rob Walsh quote cited in Crain’s New York Business, “Myrtle Ave. BID Raises the Stakes,” November 22, 2004, 2. For a discussion of the legal views of cities, see Gerald E. Frug, City Making: Building Communities without Building Walls (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999), 26–53. 3. Arkansas Code of 1987 Annotated, Title 14, Chapter 184. 4. Leah Brooks, “Unveiling Hidden Districts: Assessing the Adoption Patterns of Business Improvement Districts in California,” McGill University Working Paper (May 2006), 3. 5. Jeffrey L. Pressman and Aaron Wildavsky, Implementation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), xviii. 6. For the steps involved in creating a BID, see Bradley Segal, ABCs for Creating BIDs (Washington, DC: International Downtown Association, 2002). 7. Bradley Segal, Business Improvement Districts: Tool for Economic Development (Washington, DC: International City Management Association, 1997), 7. 8. New York Department of Business Services has produced a manual to help supporters manage the BID creation process: Starting a Business Improvement District: A Step-by-Step Guide (2004). 9. Jack W. Meek and Paul Hubler, “Business Improvement Districts in Southern California: Implications for Local Governance,” International Journal of Public Administration 29, no. 1–3 (January 2006): 35. 10. Alexander J. Reichl, Reconstructing Times Square: Politics and Culture in Urban Development (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1999), 155.

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11. There are many state-level guides on creating BIDs, such as the Pennsylvania Department of Community Affairs, Forming a Business District Authority in Pennsylvania; Massachusetts Department of Housing and Community Development, Business Improvement Districts: A Guide to Establishing a BID in Massachusetts; and Washington State Department of Community Development, Parking and Business Improvement Manual. 12. Bradley Segal, Business Improvement Districts: Tool for Economic Development, 5. 13. For a discussion of the equity issues surrounding BIDs, see Mark S. Davies, “Business Improvement Districts,” Washington University Journal of Urban and Contemporary Law 52, no. 2 (Summer 1997): 220–22. 14. This argument was used by those opposing the creation of a BID in Flushing, New York in 2003. See The Queens Gazette, “It’s Liu vs. Liu in Flushing BID Battle,” April 9, 2003. 15. Philadelphia Inquirer, “Proposed Business Zone Divides Norristown Merchants,” December 20, 2005. 16. Crain’s New York Business, “After Years of Fights, BID Takes Shape,” October 23, 2000. 17. The New York Times, “On Racy Christopher Street, Anxiety over a Possible BID,” September 22, 2002. 18. Jerry Mitchell, Business Improvement Districts and Innovative Service Delivery (Washington, DC: PricewaterhouseCoopers Endowment for Business of Government, 1999). 19. Downtown Idea Exchange, “Can One Administrator Meet the Needs of Two Downtown Organizations?” May 1, 2001. 20. State court ruling has concluded that assessments are not truely taxes, Downtown Idea Exchange, “Special Improvement District Assessment Upheld,” May 1, 1997. 21. City of Seattle v Rogers Clothing for Men, Washington State Supreme Court, 114 Wn.2d 213, 787 P.2d 39. 22. Lawrence O. Houstoun, Jr., BIDs: Business Improvement Districts (Washington, DC: Urban Land Institute, 2004), 54. 23. Bradley Segal, Business Improvement Districts: Tool for Economic Development, 5. 24. Fred E. Foldvary, “Proprietary Communities and Community Associations,” in The Voluntary City: Choice, Community, and Society, ed. David E. Beito, Peter Gordon, and Alexander Tabarrok, 269 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2002). 25. Henry George, Progress and Poverty (New York: Robert Schalkenbach, 1975). 26. Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership, The 1998 Customer Satisfaction Study Report among Downtown Property Owners (Pittsburgh, PA: The Partnership, 1998), 3. 27. Jonathan B. Justice and Robert S. Goldsmith, “Private Governments or Public Policy Tools? The Law and Public Policy of New Jersey’s Special Improvement Districts,” International Journal of Public Administration 29, no. 1–3 (January 2006): 112.

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28. General Municipal Law (§980 et seq.; L 1989, ch 282 as amended). 29. Richard Briffault, “A Government for Our Time? Business Improvement Districts and Urban Governance,” Columbia Law Review 99, no. 2 (March 1999): 452. 30. Mark S. Davies, “Business Improvement Districts,” 194–201. Also, see Daniel R. Garodnick, “What’s the BID Deal? Can the Grand Central Business Improvement District Serve a Special Limited Purpose?” University of Pennsylvania Law Review 148, no. 5 (May 2000): 1733–71. 31. For an examination of BID accountability structures, see Brian R. Hochleutner, “BIDs Fare Well: The Democratic Accountability of Business Improvement Districts, New York University Law Review 78, no. 2 (April 2003): 374–404. 32. Jonathan B. Justice, Business Improvement Districts, Reasoning, and Results: Collective Action and Downtown Revitalization (PhD Dissertation, Rutgers UniversityNewark, 2003). 33. Jerry Mitchell, Business Improvement Districts and Innovative Service Delivery, 5. 34. Alexander Garvin, The American City: What Works, What Doesn’t (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2002), 22. 35. Downtown DC BID, 4. 36. Patricia Keehley, Steven Medlin, Sue MacBride, and Laura Longmire, Benchmarking for Best Practices in the Public Sector (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1997), 26. 37. There are many factors that may lead to termination of a BID. See Lawrence O. Houstoun, Jr., BIDS: Business Improvement Districts, 52. CHAPTER FIVE. MAKING A DIFFERENCE 1. Jill Simone Gross, “Business Improvement Districts in New York City LowIncome and High-Income Neighborhoods,” Economic Development Quarterly 19, no. 2 (May 2005): 175. 2. Paul Levy quote cited in Lawrence O. Houstoun, Jr., BIDS: Business Improvement Districts (Washington, DC: Urban Land Institute, 2003), 70. 3. The virtues of signage is touted by the International Sign Association, Unmasking the Myths about Signs: Learning to Use Signage as a Planning Tool for Intelligent Community Development (Sherwood, OR: Signage Foundation for Communication Excellence, 2001). 4. Peter Hall, Cities in Civilization (New York: Fromm International, 1998), 39. 5. Elizabeth Strom, “Converting Port into Porcelain: Cultural Institutions and Downtown Development,” Urban Affairs Review 38, no. 1 (September 2002): 3. 6. The Kansas City Star, “To Restore Downtown’s Visibility, Kansas City Must Learn the Art and Sport of Entertaining,” October 6, 2002. 7. John Hannigan, Fantasy City: Pleasure and Profit in the Postmodern Metropolis (New York: Routledge, 1998), 51–64. For more examples of how BIDs highlight

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entertainment, see Ed Henning, “Business Improvement Districts,” in Economic Development in Local Government: A Handbook for Public Officials and Citizens, ed. Roger L. Kemp, 62–70 (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1995). 8. The New York Times, “Art on the Streets Till the Cows Come Home,” August 20, 2001. 9. Center City District, Newsletter (Summer 2000), 7. 10. Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958), 51. 11. Theodore Morrow Spitzer and Hilary Baum, Pubic Markets and Community Revitalization (New York: Project for Public Spaces, 1995), 1. 12. University City District, Quest: The Newsletter of the University City District (2000), 7. 13. James B. Twitchell, “‘But First a Word from Our Sponsor’: Advertising and the Carnivalization of Culture,” in Dumbing Down: Essays on the Strip Mining of American Culture, ed. Katharine Washburn and John F. Thornton, 198 (New York: W. W. Norton, 1996). 14. John Wanamaker quote cited in William Leach, The Land of Desire: Merchants, Power, and the Rise of a New American Culture (New York: Pantheon Books, 1993), 43. 15. Neil Gabler, Life the Movie: How Entertainment Conquered Reality (New York: Knopf, 1998), 16. 16. Thomas Hine, I Want That!: How We All Became Shoppers (New York: HarperCollins, 2002), xv. 17. Albany Times Union, “What is Downtown in a Word? Stay Tuned: Albany Campaign Seeks Brand Name That Can Be Used as Marketing Tool,” June 11, 2004. 18. Sinclair Lewis, Babbit (New York: New American Library, 1922), 133. 19. Tom Barbash’s The Last Good Chance (New York: Picador, 2002), 23. 20. www.downtownknoxville.org (accessed August 6, 2007). 21. The New York Times, “Lots of Neon, Yes, But Try to Buy a Table Lamp,” March 7, 2005. 22. Michael Schudsonn, Advertising: The Uneasy Persuasion (New York: Basic Books, 1984), 127. 23. Thomas Hine, I Want That!: How We All Became Shoppers, 199–202. 24. For a review of the problems with using sports stadiums as an economic development tool, see Neil J. Sullivan, The Diamond in the Bronx: Yankee Stadium and the Politics of New York (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001). 25. For a discussion of the power of markets in cities, see Alexander Garvin, The American City: What Works, What Doesn’t (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2002), 10–12. 26. The Atlantic Monthly, “What Main Street Can Learn from the Mall,” November 1995.

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27. Times Square Alliance, Annual Report (2001). 28. Capital Center, Inc., The Centerpiece (Winter, 1999), 5. 29. Anchorage Downtown Partnership Newsletter (2000). 30. Association for Portland Progress, 1999 Annual Report (1999), 4. 31. The New York Times, “On Madison Avenue, Trash and Class Meet,” May 4, 2003. 32. Suellen Hoy, Chasing Dirt: The American Pursuit of Cleanliness (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 75. 33. Milwaukee Downtown BID #21 Newsletter (2003), l. 34. Lawrence O. Houstoun, Jr., BIDs, 79. 35. Martin V. Melosi, The Sanitary City: Urban Infrastructure in American from Colonial Times to the Present (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000), 185. 36. Suellen Hoy, Chasing Dirt, 3. 37. The New York Times, “A Push for Security Gates That Invites Window Shopping,” August 1, 2001. 38. The New York Times, “You’re Welcome: At Last a Visitors Center Worthy of New York,” September 3, 1998. 39. For an examination of Main Street USA and the effect on real-world main streets, see Richard V. Francaviglia, Main Street Revisited: Time, Space, and Image Building in Small-Town America (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1996), 154–55. 40. Stacy Warren, “Disneyfication of the Metropolis: Popular Resistance in Seattle,” Journal of Urban Affairs 16, no. 2 (1994): 92. 41. New Jersey Online, “Cranford’s Revitalized Downtown a Model for Others to Follow,” July 2002. www.nj.com (accessed August 1, 2002). 42. A survey of businesses in Pensacola found the best way to improve a downtown was through parking, see Stephen J. Conroy and Rick Harper, Pensacola Downtown Improvement Board Project: Summary of Findings (Pensacola, FL: Haas Center for Business Research and Economic Development, 2000), 8. 43. The New York Times, “Walking and Talking,” February 9, 2005. 44. Rebecca Solnit, Wanderlust: A History of Walking (New York: Penguin, 2001), 176. 45. Tony Hiss, Experience of Place: A New Way of Looking At and Dealing with Our Radically Changing Cities and Countryside (New York: Vintage, 1990). 46. For a discussion of how small things create an overall ambiance, see Louis Lopilato II, Main Street: Some Lessons in Revitalization (New York: University Press of America, 2003). 47. Minneapolis Star Tribune, “Streetscapes/Beauty is a Public Work,” April 15, 2001.

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48. Virginia Postrel, The Substance of Style: How the Rise of Aesthetic Value is Remaking Commerce, Culture, and Consciousness (New York: HarperCollins, 2003), 5–6. 49. Paul Goldberger, “It Takes a Village,” The New Yorker (March 27, 2000): 133. 50. John Miller, Egotopia: Narcissism and the New American Landscape (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1997), 23. 51. John Carey, What Good Are the Arts? (London: Faber and Faber, 2005). 52. Sarah Williams Goldhagen, “Our Degraded Public Realm: The Multiple Failures of Architecture Education,” The Chronicle of Higher Education (January 10, 2002), B7. 53. Franck Vindevogel, “Private Security and Urban Crime Mitigation: A Bid for BIDs,” Criminal Justice 5, no. 3 (August 2005): 238. 54. Paul Levy, “Making Downtowns Competitive,” Planning 67, no. 4 (April 2001): 17. 55. Anchorage Downtown Partnership, “Security Ambassadors: Here is What is New from the Gold and the Blue,” The Ambassador Newsletter (August 2000). 56. Christopher Swope, “Paris on the Prairie,” Governing (July 2000): 28. 57. Lawrence O. Houstoun, Jr. BIDS, 90. 58. George L. Kelling and Catherine Coles, Fixing Broken Windows: Restoring Order and Reducing Crime in Our Neighborhoods (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996). 59. Ibid., 19. 60. Barry Glassner, The Culture of Fear: Why Americans are Afraid of the Wrong Things (New York: Basic, 1999), 24. 61. Dell Upton, Architecture in the United States (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 101. 62. Mitchell Duneier, Sidewalk (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1999), 315. 63. Ibid., 315. 64. The attributes of public places has been examined in Lewis W. Dijkstra, “Public Spaces: A Comparative Discussion of the Criteria for Public Space,” Research in Urban Sociology 5, no. 1 (2000): 1–22. 65. Franck Vindevogel, “Private Security and Urban Crime Mitigation: A Bid for BIDs,” 241. 66. Lawrence O. Houstoun, Jr., BIDS, 117. 67. The New York Times, “Striking Back at the Suburbs in the Battle for Business,” July 16, 2003. 68. Crain’s New York Business, “Taking Community to New Heights,” November 9, 1998. 69. The New York Times, “Taking the Plunge, Gown and All,” March 28, 2002.

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70. CenterCity Danbury, 2000 Marketing and Work Plan (2000). 71. Great Falls BID, New Business Activity Grant Program Application (2000). 72. www.downtownbillings.org (accessed March 1, 2000). 73. Downtown Dayton Partnership, Downtown Dayton: A Record Breaking Season, 1999–2000 (2000). 74. Lawrence O. Houstoun, Jr. BIDS, 92. 75. “BID Development Loan Program Grows to $30 Million,” The New Rochelle BID Report (Spring 2004). 76. The goals and techniques of economic development policy has been examined in Peter K. Eisinger, The Rise of the Entrepreneurial State: State and Local Economic Development Policy in the United States (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1988). 77. Laura A. Reese and Raymond A. Rosenfeld, “Yes, But . . . : Questioning the Conventional Wisdom about Economic Development, Economic Development Quarterly 15, no. 4 (November 2001): 306. 78. Stephen Goldsmith, The Twenty-First Century City: Resurrecting Urban America (Washington, DC: Rowan and Littlefield, 1999), 77. 79. The New York Times, “States Pay for Jobs, but It Doesn’t Always Pay Off,” November 10, 2003. See also, Greg LeRoy, The Great American Jobs Scam: Corporate Tax Dodging and the Myth of Job Creation (San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 2005). 80. Dallas Downtown Improvement District, Quarterly Report (1999). 81. Lawrence O. Houstoun, Jr., BIDS, 133. 82. Downtown Denver Partnership positions cited in Lawrence O. Houstoun, Jr., BIDS, 84. 83. Lawrence O. Houstoun, Jr, BIDS, 85. 84. Downtown Boise Association Annual Report (2003). 85. Media alert from the Downtown Bellevue Association, “Bellevue Downtown Association Opposes I-776,” October 30, 2002. 86. For a discussion of the roles and purposes of interest groups in American society, see David Lowery and Holly Brasher, Organized Interest and American Government (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2004). 87. USA Today, “Cities Put Shackles on Chain Stores,” July 20, 2004. 88. Kenneth E. Stone, Competing with Retail Giants: How to Survive in the New Retail Landscape (New York: John Wiley, 1995). 89. Jonathan Walters, “Anti-Box Rebellion,” Governing (July 2000): 48–49. 90. Miami Herald, “Cracking Down on Electronic Store Rip-Offs,” May 25, 1996. 91. The New York Times, “So, How Much is That Camcorder? No, Really,” December 15, 2002. 92. Brochure from the 14th Street-Union Square Development Corporation (2000).

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93. New York City Department of Small Business Services, Streetwise and Business Savvy: Best Practices and Accomplishments from New York City’s BIDs (2005), 56. 94. Lawrence O. Houstoun, Jr., BIDS, 84. 95. Kent Robertson, Downtown Development: Key Trends and Practices, Public Policy Research Center Policy Briefs (June 2001): 2. 96. Marco Li Mandri, “LoCogia and the Design of Our Neighborhood,” Little Italy Newsletter (Summer 2002). 97. Central Avenue BID, Ave2000: A Strategic Revitalization Plan for the Central Avenue Commercial Corridor (2000). 98. Lewis Mumford, The City in History: Its Origins, its Transformations, and its Prospects (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1961), 433. 99. Peter Calthorpe, The Next American Metropolis: Ecology, Community, and the American Dream (Princeton: Princeton Architectural Press, 1997), 23. 100. Michael J. Sandel, Democracy’s Discontent: America in Search of a Public Philosophy (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996), 319. 101. Roy Porter, The Creation of the Modern World: The Untold Story of the British Enlightenment (New York: W. W. Norton, 2000), 220. 102. Ray Oldenburg, The Great Good Place: Cafes, Coffee Shops, Bookstores, Bars, Hair Salons, and the Other Hangouts at the Heart of a Community (New York: Marlowe, 1999). 103. Walter E. Weyl, The New Democracy (New York: Macmillian, 1912), 69. 104. For a discussion of Patton’s theories, see Daniel M. Fox, The Discovery of Abundance: Simon N. Patten and the Transformation of Social Theory (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1967). 105. Mitchell Duneier, Sidewalk, 317. CHAPTER SIX. EVALUATING EVALUATIONS 1. Downtown Idea Exchange, “The Importance of Measuring Progress in Your Downtown,” December 1, 1998. 2. New York City Department of Small Business Services, Streetwise and Business Savvy: Best Practices and Accomplishments from New York City’s BIDs (2005). 3. Center City District Digest, “A Brighter Holiday Season,” Winter 2002. 4. Fashion District of Los Angeles, Monthly Report Operations Summary (May 2001). 5. Danbury News-Times, “CenterCity Doubled Visitors to Downtown,” January 5, 1999. 6. Lawrence O. Houstoun, Jr., BIDS: Business Improvement Districts (Washington, DC: Urban Land Institute, 2003), 79. 7. Grand Central Partnership News e-mail (January 10, 2003).

138

NOTES TO CHAPTER SIX

8. Lincoln Downtown Association, Downtown Growth Report (October, 2002). 9. Lawrence O. Houstoun, Jr., BIDS: Business Improvement Districts (Washington, DC: Urban Land Institute, 2004). 10. Downtown Dayton Partnership, Downtown Dayton: A Record Breaking Season, 1999–2000, (2000). 11. Times Square BID, Annual Report (2000). 12. Buffalo Place, Attendance at Downtown Attractions (1999). 13. City Avenue Special Services District, City Avenue News (Fall 2002). 14. www.communitymainstreet.com (accessed August 10, 2002). 15. www.downtownresources.com/bids (accessed August 1, 1999). 16. Lawrence O. Houstoun, Jr., BIDS, 12. 17. City of New York Department of Business Services, New York City Business Improvement Districts (New York: Department of Business Services, 1998), 55. 18. Chuck Law, “Business Improvement District Development (BID) in Wisconsin,” Let’s Talk Business, March 2001. 19. Darryl Holter, “BIDs: A Quiet Revolution in Urban Management,” California Policy Options 2002 (2002): 47–52. 20. New York Department of Small Business Services, Starting a Business Improvement District: A Step-by-Step Guide (2004). A 100 percent rating was scored by the Lincoln Center BID in New York City, see Lincoln Center BID Newsletter, “LCBID Scores Again” (Spring 1992). 21. Lorlene Hoyt, “Collecting Private Funds for Safer Public Spaces: An Empirical Examination of the Business Improvement District Concept,” Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design 31, no. 3 (May 2004): 367–80. 22. Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy, New York University, The Benefits of Business Improvement Districts: Evidence from New York City (2007), 4. 23. National League of Cities, Accepting the Challenge: The Rebirth of America’s Downtowns (Washington, DC: NLC, 1994). 24. The New York Times, “Falling Crime in New York Defies Trend,” November 29, 2002. 25. Dallas Downtown Improvement District Quarterly Report (Spring 1999). 26. Lawrence O. Houstoun, Jr., BIDS, 75. 27. Ibid., 86. 28. Memphis Center City Commission, Center City Commission Downtown Study Summary (March 1999). 29. Downtown Lincoln Association, Downtown Lincoln: A Captive Audience (April 2000). 30. Downtown Boulder BID, Downtown Boulder Users Survey (January 2004).

NOTES TO CHAPTER SIX

139

31. City of Manhattan, Kansas, Downtown Business Improvement District Survey (2003). 32. New York City Council Finance Committee, Cities within Cities: Business Improvement Districts and the Emergence of the Metropolis (1995). 33. Edward T. Rogowsky and Jill Simone Gross, “Managing Development in New York City: The Case of Business Improvement Districts,” in Managing Capital Resources for Central City Revitalization, ed. Fritz W. Wagner, Timothy E. Joder, and Anthony J. Mumphrey, Jr., 102–6 (New York: Garland, 2000). 34. Los Angeles Community Action Network and the Los Angeles Coalition to End Hunger and Homelessness, Business Improvement Districts: Protecting or Provoking (Los Angeles: The Network and Coalition, 2000), 7. 35. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, “Downtown Gets Thumbs Up,” September 4, 2003. 36. Minneapolis Star Tribune, “Downtowns Use Events, Nostalgia to Lure Shoppers,” December 17, 2002. 37. New Haven Town Green District Newsletter (1999). 38. Pacific Business News, “Waikiki Businesses Support, Even Want, This Tax,” June 10, 2002. 39. Toledo Blade, “Mayor Pushes Downtown Projects to Attract People, Businesses,” March 19, 2005. 40. Darryl Holter, “BIDs a Quiet Revolution in Urban Management,” 49. 41. The New York Post, “Flatiron Strikes $1.7M While It’s Hot,” April 4, 2004. 42. Dallas Downtown Improvement District, Quarterly Report (1999). 43. Memphis Center Commission, The Downtown Developer (May 1999). 44. From a promotional brochure of the Downtown Dayton Partnership (2000). 45. Anchorage Downtown Partnership, The Ambassador (Summer 2000). 46. Hollywood Entertainment District, 1999 Annual Report (1999). 47. Downtown Eugene, Inc., Discover Downtown (1995). 48. www.milwaukeedowntown.com (accessed August 6, 2007). 49. The Philadelphia Inquirer, “Center City is Now Know Far and Wide for Being Clean,” March 8, 1992. 50. The Philadelphia Inquirer, “Over a Decade, Downtown Finds New Life,” March 20, 2001. 51. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, “Urban Revival Spreads Across the Country,” June 23, 1999. 52. The Lincoln Journal Star, “Downtown Still Requires Strong Advocate,” April 27, 1999. 53. Alexander Garvin, The American City: What Works, What Doesn’t (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2002), 189.

140

NOTES TO CHAPTER SIX

54. The New York Times, “Patching up a Boulevard of Broken Dreams,” December 2, 2001. 55. The New York Times, “On the Boulevard, the Nights are (Still) Hard,” October 12, 2002. 56. Robert K. Haelig, Jr. quote cited from www.oceancountypolitics.com (accessed May 1, 2005). 57. Quote from The Philadelphia Inquirer, “Bustling Downtown, But at What Cost?” October 20, 2000. 58. Resident quote from a public forum of the Charles Village Community Benefits District in Baltimore, Maryland, reported in Audrey G. MacFarlane, “Preserving Community in the City: Special Improvement Districts and the Privatization of Urban Racialized Space,” Stanford Agora 4, (2003). www.agora.standford.edu (accessed August 6, 2007). 59. The Austin Chronicle, “The Lay of the Land,” September 7, 2000. 60. Los Angeles Community Action Network and the Los Angeles Coalition to End Hunger and Homelessness, Business Improvement Districts: Protecting or Provoking (2000), 10. 61. The Los Angeles Times, “Street Vendors Allege Extortion,” May 16, 2004. 62. The “goon squad” charges are discussed in Heather McDonald, BIDs Really Work,” The City Journal (Spring 1996): 37–38. 63. New York City Council, Cities within Cities, 86–93. 64. Mark Rosenman, “A Class of Charity That’s Bad for the Public Good,” Journal of Philanthropy (August 1999), 10. 65. Ibid., 10. 66. Andrew Stark, “America, The Gated?” Wilson Quarterly (Winter 1998): 64. 67. Ibid., 74. 68. Mitchell Duneier, Sidewalk (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1999), 233. 69. Rose Hill Neighborhood Association, Save Rose Hill Update (September 2000). 70. The New York Times, “Why BIDs are Bad Business,” April 12, 2000. 71. New York City Council, Cities within Cities, 57. 72. The Associated Press, “Homeless Win BID Lawsuit,” October 29, 2000. 73. Mark S. Davies, “Business Improvement Districts,” Washington University Journal of Urban and Contemporary Law 52, no. 2 (Summer 1997): 197–201. 74. New York City Council, Managing the Micropolis: Proposals to Strengthen BID Performance and Accountability, 2. 75. Association for Portland Progress, Business Improvement District Customer Satisfaction Survey (2000). 76. Margaret Kohn, Brave New Neighborhoods: The Privatization of Public Space (New York: Routledge, 2004), 85.

NOTES TO CHAPTER SEVEN

141

77. Gerald E. Frug, City Making: Building Communities without Building Walls (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999), 23. 78. Lizabeth Cohen, A Consumer’s Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America (New York: Random House, 2003), 277. 79. Morris Berman, The Twilight of American Culture (New York: W. W. Norton, 2000), 116–17. 80. Robert H. Nelson, “Privatizing the Neighborhood: A Proposal to Replace Zoning with Private Collective Property Rights in Existing Neighborhoods,” in The Voluntary City: Choice, Community, and Society, ed. David E. Beito, Peter Gordon, and Alexander Tabarrok, 330 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2002). 81. While this critique is leveled generally to contemporary downtown development, it is very applicable to BIDs. For the general critique, see Susan S. Fainstein and David Gladstone, “Evaluating Urban Tourism,” in The Tourist City, ed. Dennis R. Judd and Susan S. Fainstein, 34 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1999). 82. Nathan L. Clough and Robert M. Vanderbeck, “Managing Politics and Consumption in Business Improvement Districts: The Geographies of Political Activism on Burlington, Vermont’s Church Street Marketplace,” Urban Studies 43, 12 (November, 2006), 2280. 83. Atlantic City Special Improvement District, Annual Report (1999). 84. Fashion District of Los Angeles, Monthly Report Operations Summary (May 2001). 85. Lawrence O. Houstoun, Jr., “Are BIDs Working?” Urban Land (January 1997): 58. 86. Ibid., 58. 87. Memes have been explored generally by Susan Blackmore, The Meme Machine (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000). Also, see Robert Wright, Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny (New York: Random House, 2000), 88. CHAPTER SEVEN. THE PROSPECTS FO R BIDs 1. The New York Times, “So Many Automobiles, So Little Turnpike,” May 26, 2002. 2. The New York Times, “One Vehicle on the Road, Two Others in the Garage,” August 30, 2003 and The New York Times, “So Many Automobiles, So Little Turnpike,” May 26, 2002. 3. The New York Times, “A Suburb All Grown Up and Paved Over,” June 19, 2002. 4. The New York Times, “Technology Puts Gridlock to Business Use,” August 15, 2000. 5. The New York Times, “90’s Suburbs of West and South: Denser in One, Sprawling in the Other,” April 17, 2001.

142

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6. The New York Times, “An Appetite for Construction,” March 11, 2001. 7. The New York Times, “Be it Ever Less Humble: American Homes Get Bigger,” October 22, 2000. 8. The New York Times, “Why ‘New Urbanism” Isn’t for Everyone,” February 20, 2005. 9. Gregg Easterbrook, The Progress Paradox: How Life Gets Better While People Feel Worse (New York: Random House, 2003). 10. J. B. Jackson, A Sense of Time, A Sense of Place (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994), 157. 11. The New York Times, “An Enormous Landmark Joins Graveyard of Malls,” December 24, 2003. 12. The New York Times, “Two Ways to Defy a Recession,” December 21, 2001 and The New York Times, “Downtown Columbus Loses Out to Its Fringe,” June 19, 2002. 13. The New York Times, “As Biggest Business, Wal-Mart Propels Changes Elsewhere,” October 22, 2000. 14. The New York Times, “Shopping Malls Adopting New Strategies to Survive,” March 2, 2005. 15. The New York Times, “Trying to Turn Old Shopping Mall Inside Out,” July 5, 2002. 16. The New York Times, “Five Rooms, Gucci View,” February 21, 2002. 17. Pamela Klaffke, Spree: A Cultural History of Shopping (Vancouver, BC: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2003), 54–55. 18. The New York Times, “Yes, God is Everywhere, Even at the Local Mall,” March 2, 2002. 19. The New York Times, “It Depends on How You Define Real,” June 23, 2002. 20. The New York Times, “In a Town Built Almost Entirely on Tourism, Business Booms,” December 31, 2001. 21. Ibid., 148. 22. Nicolas Lemann, “The Myth of Community Development,” The New York Times Magazine (January 9, 1994). 23. The New York Times, “Reviving Main Street, Or Living in the Past?” October 15, 2000. 24. The New York Times, “Minor Leagues Hit the Mark,” July 28, 2002. 25. St. Paul Pioneer Press, “Mill City Revisited,” September 4, 2001 and The New York Times, “Next for Stamford’s Harbor: A 40 Acre Development,” March 31, 2002. 26. City of Pittsburgh, Department of City Planning, The Pittsburgh Downtown Plan (1998) and The New York Times, “In Pittsburgh, a Redevelopment too Far?” May 2, 2000.

NOTES TO CHAPTER SEVEN

143

27. The New York Times, “In the Arch’s Shadow: Signs of Renewal,” March 30, 2005. 28. Christopher Swope, “The 21st-Century City Hall,” Governing (October 2000), 20. 29. The New York Times, Destroy a Freeway, Save a City,” August 23, 2001. 30. The New York Times, “Boston’s Digging Produces a Green Jewel,” December 12, 2000. 31. Alen Amirkhanian, “This Works: Encourage Economic Growth,” Civic Bulletin of the Manhattan Institute (March, 2003), 2. 32. The New York Times, “An Urban Attraction for Students,” December 4, 2002. 33. The New York Times, “Fostering the Links of Colleges to Neighborhoods,” January 16, 2000. 34. The New York Times, “When the Green Grass is Concrete,” September 12, 1999. 35. Report on a report Downtown Living: A Deeper Look, which was covered in The New York Times, “More People Calling Cincinnati Home,” July 30, 2000. 36. Alan Ehrenhalt, “Sprawl, Passion and Common Sense,” Governing (April 2000), 7. 37. Paco Underhill, Call of the Mall (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2004), 88. 38. Pamela Klaffke, Spree: A Cultural History of Shopping, 38. 39. H. V. Savitch and Paul Kantor, Cities in the International Marketplace: The Political Economy of Urban Development in North America and Western Europe (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002), 17. 40. Atlantic Monthly, “What Main Street Can Learn from the Mall,” November 1995. 41. The New York Times, “U.S. Warning of Death Toll from Obesity,” December 14, 2001. 42. Lawrence D. Frank, Martin Anderson, and Thomas J. Schmid, “Obesity Relationships with Community Design, Physical Activity, and Time Spent in Cars, “American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 27, no. 2 (August 2004), 20. 43. Pamela Klaffke, Spree: A Cultural History of Shopping, 77. 44. The New York Times, “Broad Gains in Online Shopping,” March 29, 2004. 45. Edward L. Glaeser, Jed Kolko, and Albert Saiz, “Consumer City,” Harvard Institute of Economic Research Discussion Paper (June 2000). 46. The New York Times, “Championing Cities,” April 26, 2001. 47. Philip Bobbitt, The Shield of Achilles: War, Peace, and the Course of History (New York: Anchor, 2002), 470. 48. Donald F. Kettl, “The Transformation of Governance: Globalization, Devolution, and the Role of Government,” Public Administration Review, 60, no. 6 (November/December 2000), 488–97.

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49. Ibid., 489. 50. Metropolis, “Can the Public City Be Saved?” April 1992. 51. The New York Times, “Charges Fly as Mayor is Accused of Dismantling Grand Central Civic Group, December 4, 1998, New York, “BID for Power,” August 17, 1999, and Crain’s New York Business, “BIDs Face Service Custs as Budgets Get Squeezed,” May 2, 2000. 52. Rudolph W. Giuliani, “On Restoring Accountability to City Government,” The Business of Government (Summer 2000), 4. 53. Quote from Mayor Michael Bloomberg appeared in The New York Times, “Mayor Sees Bigger Public-Private Partnerships,” May 15, 2002, 10. The quote from Daniel Doctoroff, Deputy Mayor for Economic Development appeared in Crain’s New York Business, “City Revamps Business Units,” May 14, 2002. 54. The New York Times, “Under Bloomberg, New Life for Business Districts,” July 7, 2002 and The New York Times, “For Improvement Districts, Restored Alliance with City,” February 18, 2002. 55. Lawrence O. Houstoun, Jr. BIDs, 117. 56. Darryl Holter, “BIDs: A Quiet Revolution in Urban Management,” California Policy Options 2002, UCLA School of Public Policy and Social Research (2002), 52.

Index

Atlantic Group, 59 Attoe, Wayne, 48 Austin, Texas, 76, 105

Abyssinian Development Corporation, New York City, 99 Adams, Jane, 21 Adams Morgan, Washington, D.C., 4 Advertising, 19 Agora, 7, 15, 28, 31, 38, 46, 47, 60, 72, 77, 94 Agrippa, 7 Albany Downtown BID, 68, 78 Albany, New York, 51, 93 Allentown, Pennsylvania, 19, 72 Alliance for Downtown New York, 5, 57, 67, 87 America Online, 52 American Institute of Architects, 24 American Planning Association, 117 American Revolution, 16, 34, 36 Amoco, 36 Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 8 Anchorage, Alaska, 63 Anchorage Downtown Partnership, 76, 80, 85, 103 A&P, 26 Appleton, Wisconsin, 11 Arendt, Hannah, 76 Aristotle, 7, 93 Arizona, 6 Arkansas, 56 Athens, Greece, 7, 114 Atlanta, Georgia, 5, 29, 36, 40, 41, 60, 76 Atlantic City Special Improvement District, 108

Baer, William C., 37 Bainbridge Island (Washington) Downtown Association, 75 Baltimore Downtown Partnership, 97, 100 Baltimore, Maryland, 11, 16, 28, 63, 86, 105, 119 Barbash, Tom, 78 Barcelona, Spain, 8 Baskin Robins, 36 Bauhaus, 29 Bayside Marketplace, Miami, Florida, 11 Baton Rouge (Louisiana) Downtown Development District, 67 Bellamy, Edward, 21 Beaux-Arts, 22, 52 Bellevue (Washington) Downtown Association, 90 Bentonville, Arkansas, 11 Best Buy, 11, 79 Bloomberg, Michael, 6, 118 Bloomingdale’s, 25 Bloor West Village, Toronto, Canada, 35 Bobo, 49–50 Boonville, Missouri, 52 Boston, Massachusetts, 1, 11, 16, 22, 25, 36, 37, 40, 48, 52, 115, 119

145

146

INDEX

Box store, 11 Briffault, Richard, 69 Broadacre City, 27 Broken windows theory, 85 Bronx. See New York City Brooks, David, 12, 49 Brooklyn. See New York City Bruges, Belgium, 8 Bryant Park, New York City, 48, 76 Buenos Aires, Argentina, 3 Buffalo, New York, 11, 29, 41, 76, 99 Buffalo Place BID, 67, 98, 100 Burger King, 28, 36 Burlington (Iowa) Downtown Partners, 75 Burlington, Vermont, 107 Burnham, Daniel H., 22 Business improvement districts (BIDS) character, 18 challenges, 12 creation, 58–62, 118 enumeration, 57 evaluation, 95–109 finances, 4, 63–67 governance, 4, 67–69 legal status, 56–58 management, 5, 69–70 mission, 2, 4 organization, 4, 62–63 reauthorization, 71–72 service delivery, 73–93 Business management, 13 California, 56, 57, 59, 71 Canada, 35 Capitalism, 16 Carnegie, Andrew, 18 Cedar Falls (Iowa) Community Main Street, 65, 98 Cedar Rapids, Iowa, 40, 75, 76, 82 Center City District (CCD), Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 5, 38, 73, 76, 77, 85, 90, 96, 104 Center for an Urban Future, 49 Central Atlanta Progress, 5, 29 Central Avenue BID, Albany, New York, 93

Central Houston (Texas) BID, 98 Central Park, New York City, 21 CEOs for Cities, 117 Chain store, 26–27, 30, 32 Charleston, South Carolina, 2, 16 Charlotte, South Carolina Center City Partnership, 80 Chicago, Illinois, 3, 8, 18, 19, 20, 25, 30, 34, 35, 36, 40, 41, 52, 57, 67, 75, 80, 115, 116 China, 8, 100 Chrysler building, 26 Church of the Holy Apostles, 7 Cincinnati, Ohio, 52, 116 City Avenue Special Services District, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 98 City Beautiful, 20–25, 31, 37, 38, 41, 47, 48, 50, 52, 60, 75, 80, 83 City planning, 13 City University of New York, 101 Civic humanism, 15, 18, 93 Civil engineering, 13 Civil rights, 30, 32 Civil War, 2 Clark Street, Chicago, Illinois, 1 Cleveland, Ohio, 20, 23, 48 Cohen, Lizabeth, 30 Coles, Catherine, 85 Coliseum Central BID, Hampton, Virginia, 75 Collierville, Tennessee, 34 Colony Square, Atlanta, Georgia, 41 Colorado Boulevard, Pasadena, California, 48 Colorado Springs Partnership, 89 Columbia (South Carolina) Center City Partnership, 65 Columbus Avenue BID, New York City, 67 Columbus, Georgia, 75 Columbus, Ohio, 113 Community Development Block Grant, 52 Community development corporation (CDC), 3, 51 Community improvement district. See business improvement district

INDEX

Congress for the New Urbanism, 49, 91, 117 Copland, Aaron, 28 Copley Place, Boston, Massachusetts, 1 Corpus Christi Downtown Management District, 85 Cosmopolitanism, 8 Costa Mesa, California, 113 Country Buffet, 79 Cranford, New Jersey Special Improvement District, 82 Creative class, 50, 116 Creve Coeur, Missouri, 34 Criminal justice, 13, 84–87 Dallas Downtown Improvement District, 97, 100, 103 Dallas, Texas, 23, 40, 41, 75 Danbury (Connecticut) Special Services District, 67, 87, 96 Dayton Downtown Partnership, 98 Dayton’s, 30 de Forest, Robert, 21 Denver, Colorado, 19, 22, 34, 36, 41, 119 Department store, 8, 9, 19 de Tocqueville, Alexis, 17 Detroit, Michigan, 11, 30, 34, 42, 52 Dinkins, David, 118 Disney, 76, 82, 107, 114 Doctoroff, Daniel, 118 Domino’s Pizza, 36 Downtown Association of Ocean City, Maryland, 75 Downtown Boise Association, 77, 80, 90 Downtown Baltimore (Maryland) Partnership, 88 Downtown BID, Hampton, Virginia, 97 Downtown Billings (Montana) Partnership, 88 Downtown Boulder (Colorado) BID, 101 Downtown Community Improvement District, Kansas City, Missouri, 6 Downtown Dayton (Ohio) Partnership, 88

147

Downtown DC BID, 5, 57, 65, 71 Downtown Denver Partnership, 63, 90, 98, 104 Downtown Eugene, Oregon, 103 Downtown Green Bay, Wisconsin, 75 Downtown Lincoln (Nebraska) Association, 80, 96, 101, 104 Downtown Manhattan, Kansas, 75 Downtown Mesa Association, Mesa, Arizona, 6 Downtown Miami Partnership, 92 Downtown Phoenix Partnership, 77, 98, 100 Downtown Red Bank, New Jersey, 76 Downtown Sacramento Partnership, 98 Downtown Salt Lake City (Utah) Alliance, 75 Downtown Spokane Partnership, 92 Downtown Tempe (Arizona) Community, 67, 90 Downtown Toledo Improvement District, 102 Downtown Visions, Wilmington, Delaware, 57 Dover, New Jersey, 105 Duany, Andres, 44 Duneier, Mitchell, 86, 106 Dunkin’ Donuts, 28, 36 Dupont Circle, 4 East Midtown BID, New York City, 82 East Orange, New Jersey, 36 Ecole des Beaux-Arts, 22 Economics, 13, 15 Economic development policy, 39, 51, 87 Edge city, 35 Edinburgh, Scotland, 8, 22 Egyptians, 8 Ehrenhalt, Alan, 116 Einhorn, Robin L., 20 El Dorado, Arkansas, 76 Embarcadero Center, San Francisco, California, 41 Empire State Building, 26 Empowerment zone, 2 Empty nester, 116

148

INDEX

Enlightenment, Age of, 15 Enterprise zone, 3, 51, 88 Europe, 15, 18, 22, 25, 27, 114 Famous Barr, 25 Faneuil Hall Marketplace, Boston, Massachusetts, 11 Fashion Center BID, New York City, 92 Fashion District, Los Angeles, California, 96, 98, 105, 108, 120 Federal Housing Administration (FHA), 33 Federal Reserve, United States, 100 Federalist Papers, 16, 90 Fifth Avenue BID, New York City, 105 Figueroa Corridor BID, Los Angeles, California, 103, 120 Filene’s, 25 Flatiron/23rd Street Partnership, New York City, 91 Florence, Italy, 8 Florida, 46 Florida, Richard, 50 Ford, Wallace L., 118 Forest Hills, Queens, 28 Fortune 500, 12 Fort Worth, Texas, 115 Foshay Building, 30 Franklin, Benjamin, 15 Freehold (New Jersey) Center Partnership, 65 Freemasons, 17, 23 Friends, 116 Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy, New York University, 99 Galleria Plaza, White Plains, New York, 41 Gallery at Market East, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 41 Galveston, Texas, 1 Garvin, Alexander, 70, 104 Gated communities, 106 Gateway Plaza, Newark, New Jersey, 42 General Federation of Women’s Clubs, 21

General Services Administration (GSA), United States, 66 George, Henry, 66 Georgetown, 4 Georgia, 4, 59 Georgia Institute of Technology, 117 GI Bill, 33 Gilbert, Cass, 24 Giuliani, Rudolph, 118 Gladwell, Malcolm, 9 Glassner, Barry, 86 Goldberger, Paul, 83 Government corporation, 33, 35 Gozza, Pete, 102 Grand Central Partnership, New York City, 96, 98, 105, 106, 107 Grand Forks, North Dakota, 114 Grass Valley, California, 4 Gratz, Roberta Brandes, 47 Great Britain, 16 Great Colombian Exposition (1893), 21 Great Depression, 25 Great Falls, Montana BID, 87 Green Bay, Wisconsin, 75 Grogan, Paul S., 52 Haelig, Robert Jr., 105 Hamilton, Alexander, 15 Hampton, Virginia, 75 Hannibal, Missouri, 114 Harborplace, Baltimore, Maryland, 11 Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, 23 Harvard Business School, 25 Helena, Montana, 82 Heruli, 7 Highland Park, Michigan, 34 Hill District, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 48 Hine, Thomas, 77 Hiss, Tony, 83 Historic Third Ward Association, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 6 Hollywood, 25, 30 Hollywood Entertainment District, 6, 103, 104 Holter, Darryl, 103, 120 Home Depot, 11, 79, 91, 108, 112

INDEX

Home Shopping Network, 117 Houston, Texas, 36, 40, 115 Houstoun, Lawrence, O. Jr., 108 Hoy, Suellen, 80 Hoyt, Lorlene, 99 Hudson’s, 30 Huntsville, Alabama, 52 HyettPalma, 59 IDS Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 42 Ikea, 11 Illinois, 4, 57 Immigrant, 10, 18, 25,27 Immigration Restriction Act of 1924, 25 International Downtown Association, 49, 92, 117 Internal Revenue Service (IRS), 62 Ireland, 19 Italy, 19 Jackson, J.B., 12, 112 Jackson, Kenneth T., 34 Jackson, Mississippi, 80 Jacobs, Jane, 47, 50, 94 Japanese, 8 Jazz Age, 25 Jefferson, Thomas, 15, 26, 32 Jiffy Lube, 36 Johannesburg, South Africa, 3 Jones’, 30 Juvenile Street Cleaning League, 23 Kansas, 57 Kansas City, Missouri, 6, 19, 22, 30, 36, 50, 62 Kantor, Paul, 116 Kelling, George L., 85 Kentucky Fried Chicken, 28 Kettl, Donald F., 118 Knaak, Frederic W., 12 Knoxville (Tennessee) Central Business Improvement District, 78 Kohn, Margaret, 107 Kolson, Kenneth, 48 Kowinski, William S., 44 Krakow, Poland, 8

149

Kroger, 26 Kunstler, James Howard, 11, 44 Lakewood, Colorado, 113 Landon, Philip, 44 Las Vegas, Nevada, 34 Leach, William R., 12 League of Historic American Theaters, 117 League of Nations, 25 Leavenworth, Washington, 114 Lebhar, Godfrey, H., 30 le Corbusier, 42 Leiden, Netherlands, 8 Letchworth, 28 Levittown, Long Island, New York, 34 Levy, Paul, 73 Lewis, Sinclair, 78 Li Mandri, Marco, 92 Lincoln Square BID, New York City, 75 Little Italy BID, San Diego, California, 1, 92 Littleton, Colorado, 34 Little Rock, Arkansas, 11, 63 Logan, Don, 48 London, Great Britain, 3, 28 Los Angeles, California, 3, 18, 29, 34, 35, 36, 53, 57, 60, 62, 96, 98, 105, 119 Los Angeles Coalition to End Hunger, 101 Los Angeles Community Action Network, 101 Los Angeles Downtown BID, 92 Louisville, Kentucky, 41 Louisville (Kentucky) Downtown Management District, 67, 80 Lowell, Massachusetts 19 Lower East Side BID, New York City, 87 Macy’s, 19, 30, 52 Madison, James, 15, 90 Madison Avenue BID, New York City, 80 Madrid, Spain, 23 Main Place, Buffalo, New York, 41 Main street, 1, 9, 20, 47, 50

150

INDEX

Mall. See shopping mall Manassas, Virginia, 52 Manhattan, Kansas, 101 Manhattan. See New York City Market Street Galleria, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 41 Marshall Field’s, 19, 25, 30 Maryland, 56 Mayans, 8 McDonald’s, 28, 36 McKim, Charles, 22 Meme, 109 Memphis Center City Commission, 101, 103 Memphis, Tennessee, 11, 23, 34, 53, 63, 82, 119 Mesa, Arizona, 6 Miami, Florida, 11, 34, 72, 86, 116 Miller, John, 44, 83 Miller, Laura, 41 Milwaukee Downtown BID #21, 80, 104 Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 6, 18, 29, 52, 57, 101 Minneapolis, Minnesota, 1, 12, 18, 29, 30, 40, 41, 42, 101, 113, 115 Mississippi, 59 Montana, 57 Moses, Robert, 34, 47 MTV, 48 Mumford, Lewis, 2, 28, 29, 32, 93 Napoleon, 8 Nashville, Tennessee, 11, 22 Nashville Downtown Partnership, 75 National Chain Store Association, 27 National League of Cities, 49 National Trust for Historical Preservation, 117 National Trust Main Street Center, 49 Newbury Place, Boston, Massachusetts, 48 Newark, New Jersey, 34, 42, 115 Newark Downtown District, 75 New Brunswick (New Jersey) Special Improvement District, 76 New Haven (Connecticut) Town Green District, 102

New Jersey, 4, 56, 57, 59, 69, 71, 112 New Jersey Turnpike Authority, 34 New Orleans (Louisiana) Downtown Development District, 35, 53, 66 New Rochelle, New York BID, 88 New York City, 1,3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 11, 16, 18, 19, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 30, 34, 35, 41, 43, 48, 52, 55, 57, 58, 61, 62, 71, 73, 75, 80, 82, 86, 87, 91, 92, 96, 99, 101, 105, 106, 107, 116, 118, 119 New York State, 56, 57, 68 New Urbanism, 11, 49 Nicollet Mall, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 1 Nonprofit sector, 2, 62 Norquist, John O., 6 Norris, Frank, 21 Norristown, Pennsylvania, 61 Oakland, California, 29 Odeon, 7 Olmsted, Frederick Law, 21, 22, 83 Olmsted, Frederick Law, Jr., 23 Omaha, Nebraska, 19 Oregon, 56 Ottomans, 8 Ozark, Missouri, 51 Paramus, New Jersey, 114 Park Central Plaza, Denver, Colorado, 41 Paris, France, 8, 16, 22, 23 Parthenon, 7, 37 Pasadena, California, 48 Paseo, Kansas City, Missouri, 23 Patchogue, New York, 4 Patten, Simon, 94 Penny’s, J.C., 26 Pennsylvania, 63 People’s, 26 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 5, 8, 11, 16, 19, 34, 38, 51, 63, 73, 85, 96, 104, 116 Phoenix, Arizona, 34, 36, 63 Pike Place Market, 1, 80 Pioneer Place, Portland, Oregon, 11 Pioneer Square, Seattle, Washington, 9

INDEX

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 48, 115 Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania) Downtown Partnership, 66, 80, 96 Plater-Zyberk, Elizabeth, 44 Plato, 7 Poland, 19 Political science, 13 Portland Business Alliance, 80, 91, 107, 119 Portland, Oregon, 11, 46, 91 Postrel, Virginia, 83 Privatopia, 106 Progressive Era, 21 Project for Public Spaces, 49 Property tax, 20, 37, 42, 51, 64 Proscio, Tony, 52 Providence, Rhode Island, 23 Provo, Utah, 50 Public administration, 13, 17, 33, 44, 70 Public authority. See government corporation Public Works Administration, United States, 26 Putnam, Robert D., 10 Queens. See New York City Radburn, New Jersey, 28 Rand, Ayn, 25 Real estate investment trust, 2 Red Bank, New Jersey, 4 Red Bank Special Improvement District, 67, 98 Renaissance, 7 Renaissance Center, Detroit, Michigan, 42 Riis, Jacob, 21 River City Mall, Louisville, Kentucky, 41 Riverwalk, San Antonio, Texas, 1 Rockford, Illinois, 72 Rome, Italy, 7, 8, 9, 22 Roosevelt, Franklin D. (FDR), 26, 34 Rosenman, Mark, 106 Rotary Club, 94 Rouse Company, 11 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 15 Rutland, Vermont, 91

151

Sacramento, California, 63 Salem, Massachusetts, 16 Salvation Army, 50 San Antonio, Texas, 1 San Diego, California, 1, 57 San Francisco, California, 8, 41, 48 San Jose, California, 113, 115 San Jose Downtown Association, 65 Santa Claus, 30 Santa Monica (California) Third Street Promenade and Downtown District, 65 Savannah, Georgia, 48 Savitch, H.V., 116 Sears-Roebuck, 25 Seattle, Washington, 1, 9, 11, 23, 36, 50, 72 Seattle Metropolitan Improvement District, 72, 120 Segregation, 11 Seinfeld, 116 Seville, Spain, 8 Shopping mall, 1, 2, 10, 32, 37, 41, 44, 46, 116 Sinatra, Frank, 31 Skywalk, 40 Smart growth, 45 Smith, Adam, 16 Socrates, 7 SoHo, New York City, 48 South Carolina, 2 South Dakota, 3, 56 South of the Market, San Francisco, California, 48 South Street Seaport, New York City, 11 Sociology, 14 Sprawl, 11, 12 Special assessment, 20, 34, 55 Special benefit corporation. See government corporation Special district, 34, 43, 56 Special improvement district. See business improvement district Special service area. See business improvement district Speck, Jeff, 45

152

INDEX

Sprawl, 1, 45 Square, 1 Stamford, Connecticut, 115 Staten Island. See New York City St. Louis, Missouri, 11, 18, 22, 23, 34, 52, 115 St. Paul, Minnesota, 75 Strand, Galveston, Texas, 1 Stone, Kenneth E., 91 Suarez, Ray, 31 Suburb, 2, 16, 33, 35, 37, 38, 44–45, 49, 112 Sulla, 7 Sullivan, Louis, 22, 36 Sulzberger, Arthur Ochs, 59 Supreme Court, United States, 24 Tampa, Florida, 36 Tax increment financing (TIF), 52, 57, 89 Texas, 27, 46, 56, 90 Tiffany ball, 4 Times Square Alliance, 4, 79, 80, 82, 92, 98 Times Square, New York City, 1, 9, 30, 59 Tipping point, 9 Toledo, Ohio, 82 Toms River BID, New Jersey, 105 Toronto, Canada, 3, 35 Tourism, 8 Trenton, New Jersey, 53 Union Hill Special Business District, Kansas City, Missouri, 62 University City BID, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 77 Uptown BID, Columbus, Georgia, 75 Urban catalyst, 48 Urban husbandry, 47 Urban Land Institute, 29, 117 Urban planning, 70 Urban renewal, 2, 41 Utrecht, Netherlands, 8

Venice, Italy, 22, 114 Virginia, 46 Waikiki, Hawaii BID, 75, 102 Wallace, David Foster, 49 Walgreen’s, 26 Wal-Mart, 11, 26, 79, 86, 91, 102, 108, 113 Wall Street, 5 Walsh, Robert, 55, 103 Wanamaker, John, 19, 77 Waring, George W. Jr., 23, 24, 80 Washington, D.C., 4, 5, 6, 23, 34, 40, 56 Washington Heights BID, New York City, 87 Washington State, 56, 64 Waterloo, Iowa, 4 Wechsler, Alan, 78 Wendy’s, 36 Westlake Center, Seattle, Washington, 11 Westport Special Business District, Kansas City, Missouri, 62 White City. See City Beautiful White Plains, New York, 41 White Wings, 23 Whyte, William H., 41, 42 Willimantic, Connecticut, 52 Wilmington, Delaware, 57 Wisconsin, 56, 57, 58 Wizard of Oz, 28 Woolworth’s, 26, 37 World’s Fair (1939), 28, 29 World Trade Center, New York City, 42 World War I, 24, 25 World War II, 29 Wright, Frank Lloyd, 27, 29, 32, 35 Wyoming, 3, 56 Yonkers Downtown Waterfront BID, 67 Yonkers, New York, 52 Zip city, 78

POLITICAL SCIENCE / PUBLIC POLICY

Business Improvement Districts and the Shape of American Cities JERRY MITCHELL Jerry Mitchell provides a comprehensive analysis of business improvement districts (BIDs)—public-private partnerships that shape city places into enticing destinations for people to work, live, and have fun. Responsible for the revitalization of New York’s Times Square and Seattle’s Pioneer Square, BIDs operate in large cities and small towns throughout the United States. Mitchell examines the reasons for their emergence, the ways they are organized and financed, the types of services they provide, their performance, their advantages and disadvantages, and their future prospects. “Mitchell does a superb job of placing these important, recently arrived institutional actors on the urban revitalization stage into their historical policy context and nicely presents them in their appropriate place in the broad framework of American political and social thought. The book skillfully bridges questions central to public administration, urban planning, real estate, and political science, and will not only be invaluable to interdisciplinary scholars but also to local officials, including the thousands of people who staff and sit on BID governing boards and need to appreciate the wider framework in which they should view their mission. This is a seminal work.” — Dennis C. Muniak, Towson University JERRY MITCHELL is Professor of Public Affairs at Baruch College, the City University of New York, and the author of The American Experiment with Government Corporations.

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VOLUME IN THE

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C. Theodore Koebel and Diane L. Zahm, editors STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK PRESS www.sunypress.edu