Business Improvement Districts in North America

TAKAHASHI Koki

doi:10.24586/jags.9.1_1

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Other Title

北米都市の業務改善自治地区BID
北米都市の業務改善自治地区BID : トロントにみるローカルガバナンスとエスニックブランディング
ホクベイトシノギョウムカイゼンジチチク BID : トロントニミルローカルガバナンストエスニックブランディング
Business improvement districts in North America: Urban revitalization, local governance, and ethnic branding in Toronto
トロントにみるローカルガバナンスとエスニックブランディング
Urban Revitalization, Local Governance, and Ethnic Branding in Toronto

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Description

This paper aims to clarify the significance of business improvement districts (BIDs) as geographical analysis units in contemporary North American cities. The BID model is an urban revitalization policy at the neighbourhood level; it is formulated by local stakeholders paying self-imposed levies but carried out in partnership with the city government. The thirty largest cities in Canada and the U.S. were examined for adoption of the urban policy through an Internet-based survey. In Toronto, the birthplace of BIDs, fieldwork was conducted in traditional ethnic neighbourhoods from 2012 through 2015. Following the initiation in Toronto in 1970, BIDs diffused into Canada’s major cities by the 1980s and into most of the U.S. after the 1990s. Toronto’s BID model is the most developed compared to that of other cities; the number of BIDs reached 31 in 1987 and has now grown to 81—the highest in North America. In the 1980s, ethnic BIDs, named after ethnic groups by local entrepreneurs and property owners in an ethnic neighbourhood, proliferated rapidly. The emergence of ethnic BIDs indicates a change in the way in which ethnic minorities are viewed in mainstream society. They reflect Canada’s policy shift to bilingualism and multiculturalism in 1971. In ethnic BIDs, although ethnic branding that commodifies ethnicity could be found, success related to ethnic branding is dependent primarily on the composition of the BID board and its chair, all of whom are locals. By focusing on local actors, BIDs are keys to better understanding today’s North American cities on a neighbourhood scale.

Journal

Geographical Space

Geographical Space 9 (1), 1-20, 2016

Japan Association on Geographical Space

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