Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Business improvement districts (BIDs) have been adopted for urban development to revitalize small businesses and improve depilated streets. Partly, BIDs have many similarities with other types of special districts and special purpose governments. However, unlike other special arrangements for public services, BIDs are known as special districts with voluntary taxation for special public services and participatory governance for community development (Becker, 2010; Grossman & Holzer, 2016). The complexity of policy tasks requires public entrepreneurs to incorporate new governance and management strategies through cross-sector collaboration (CSC), and BIDs are good examples of it. BIDs are based on the partnership of multiple stakeholders, involving the management of non-governmental entities. The creation and management of BIDs reveals the complex reality of CSC in public service. These special arrangements for public service are creating not only opportunities to solve complex policy issues but also challenges of accountability (Justice & Skelcher, 2009; Steel & Symes, 2005). Questions have been raised by advocates and opponents of BIDs about whether they are valuable tools for community development and revitalization, which lead to concerns of validity and methods of success regarding CSC in public management.

            The purpose of the study is to address the critical challenges and opportunities of cross-sector collaboration in the context of special district governance and management. For this, partnerships in special districts among public, nonprofit, and private partners will be examined. The challenges regarding cross-sector governance and management of BIDs can be more observable when the districts have concurrent conflicts or decide ultimately to dissolve their districts. Although the number of BIDs has been increased, there are a few cases of their dissolution. The process of dissolution is not uniform across BIDs, and the conflicts on BIDs have been reported frequently in the local news.

            Through a news article archival search, the overall trend of reporting regarding BIDs will be examined. The frequency analysis will confirm the popularity of BIDs among local governments, particularly how frequently BIDs are mentioned in local newspapers. Furthermore, the content analysis in news articles will explain how the BIDs are reported in the news. It is assumed that according to the phase of creation, management, or dissolution of BIDs, the contents of reporting will be different. The analysis on local news will be helpful to identify districts experiencing conflicts. Then, interviewing stakeholders of troubling BIDs will be helpful to acquire details regarding the issues. Through this research, this paper will suggest the relevant factors for achieving successful district management within collaborative governance structures.