Managing Politics and Consumption in Business Improvement Districts: The Geographies of Political Activism on Burlington, Vermont's Church Street Marketplace

Nathan L. Clough and Robert M. Vanderbeck
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Nathan L. Clough: Department of Geography, University of Minnesota, 414 Social Sciences Building, 267 19th Ave. South, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA, clou0062@umn.edu
Robert M. Vanderbeck: School of Geography, University of Leeds, Woodhouse Lane, Leeds, LS2 9JT, UK, r.vanderbeck@leeds.ac.uk

Urban Studies, 2006, vol. 43, issue 12, 2261-2284

Abstract: Business improvement districts (BIDs), which are formed when spaces that are legally public are put under private or semi-private forms of administration, have become increasingly prominent features of many cities internationally. This paper provides an in-depth, empirically grounded analysis of the practices of political activism and issue advocacy in one widely admired BID (Church Street Marketplace, Burlington, Vermont) in light of recent theoretical concerns about the decline of 'public' space within the current neo-liberal context of privatisation. The paper examines the ways in which various kinds of political activity are constructed by Marketplace management as either assets or liabilities, and how different forms of activism are differentially regulated and policed in pursuit of maintaining the carefully themed environment of the BID. The research raises important questions about the extent to which downtown (and other) spaces that have been (re)organised as BIDs can fulfil the role of public space in democratic societies.

Date: 2006
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:43:y:2006:i:12:p:2261-2284

DOI: 10.1080/00420980600936517

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