DEMOCRATIC ACCOUNTABILITY AND BUSINESS IMPROVEMENT DISTRICTS

Business improvement districts (BIDs) fuse a public taxing entity and a private nonprofit into something neither completely public nor completely private. Not subject to the controls typically exercised by the private marketplace and by government, BIDs seemingly have the potential to exceed their mandates, but there are other mechanisms in place that ensure accountability. This article examines seven of the accountability mechanisms for BIDs in the United States, showing how prevalent they are and assessing how well they work.