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

ISBN-13: 9783319322933 / Angielski / Twarda / 2016 / 206 str.

Abraham Unger

Opis

This book examines how privatization has transformed cities, particularly through the role of Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) in the revitalization of America's downtown.

Recenzje

"Abraham Unger provides readers with a new lens for understanding the inner workings of Business Improvement Districts (BIDs). ... The author's in-depth analysis and methodological approach to reviewing New York BIDs will serve countless practitioners and academics studying internal complexities of BIDs and the role of government and private sector and may ultimately lead to improved levels of accountability and transparency in BIDs and improved models of governance in PPPs." (Haris Alibasic, Public Administration Review, Vol.78 (1), 2018)

Spis treści

Preface

1. Privatization in the Neighborhood

2. The Structure of Bids: Public-Private Hybrids

3. The Real Lives of BIDs

4. How BIDs Behave: Publicness and Privateness in BID Organizational Life

5. DSBS and BIDs: Advocacy, Not Oversight

6. Epilogue

References

O autorze

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

Blurb

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