Governing? Gentrifying? Seceding? Real-time Answers to Questions About Business Improvement Districts

Authors

Nicole Stelle Garnett, Notre Dame Law SchoolFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2010

Publication Information

3 Drexel L. Rev. 35 (2010-2011)

Abstract

Business improvement districts (BIDs) have become a ubiquitous feature of the urban development toolkit. An important - perhaps the most important - instantiation of the trend in urban governance toward the devolution of local authority to new sublocal, quasi-governmental institutions, BIDs play an important role in urban re-development efforts, especially efforts to revitalize downtowns and satellite center-city business districts. Drawing upon case studies of Philadelphia’s BIDS, this symposium essay seeks to answer three questions about how BIDs actually work on the ground: First, whether BIDs are actually functioning as local governments rather than quasi-private providers of supplemental services; second, whether BIDs either generate an insider/outsider problem within urban neighborhoods; and, third, whether BIDs exacerbate the pre-existing inequalities between urban neighborhoods.

Comments

Reprinted with permission of Drexel Law Review.

Recommended Citation

Nicole S. Garnett, Governing? Gentrifying? Seceding? Real-time Answers to Questions About Business Improvement Districts, 3 Drexel L. Rev. 35 (2010-2011).
Available at: https://scholarship.law.nd.edu/law_faculty_scholarship/86