Max Rivlin-Nadler, an investigative journalist, writes an article discussing the effects Business Improvement Directs have on a community specifically the social groups they exclude and the small business they hurt. He explains the devastating loss the government took on the bases of not being able to meet public expectations in maintaining public space and instead of handing it over to privatized business or to business improvement directs, BID. BID does give the public the use of clean, safe, and more aesthetically pleasing public space, but at the cost of privatization the control of public places which has given birth to a new outlet that reinforces social inequality. Max explains the innocent birth of the BID and how it quickly changed into this powerful private business outlet capable of shaping entire communities, attacking small business at its frontline. Max argues for government regulation of these privately funded but also governmentally subsided BID and to give control of public places back to the public. The only way to stop BID is for the majority of property owners to turn against it or there must be a direct order from the city council or the Mayor. Max uses the documentary, Jackson Heights, to showcase how BID transfer the neighborhood in less than a year forcing small discounted clothing stores to close down and being replaced with big business stores like Banana Republic and Gap. This article resonates completely with Sharon Zukins, The Naked City: The Life and Death of Authentic Public Places because she believes that public space is now a paradox and is actually not public at all. She uses Union Square as her example. One could take a stroll through union square and see all these people socializing, reading, admiring the beautiful landscape and the cops patrolling on horses, and at first glance you may fail to realize how private this public space actually is. How private business have a vested interest in renovating and restoring public spaces to succeed in their on capitalistic agenda, making public interest no longer the important voice or a voice at all for public spaces. Zukin points out how that BID organization come to power when government funds are low and the city dwellers are just not satisfied with the work the government is doing. So the property owners pay extra taxes and with money granted from the government these BID work to access the issues that the city dwellers had that weren’t being met, such as homelessness, muggers, and sanitation. They use the funding to hire private security and cleaning. Zukin highlights that the most important effect of BID is to increase property value. This then come in direct conversation with Max article on how these increased prices in rent then drive out small business and make room for bigger business and more affluent city dwellers changing the entire composition of the neighborhood in an extremely short amount of time reinforcing social equality and gentrifying entire neighborhoods. Privatized business must be removed from public places if we wish to retake our communities and try to maintain social equality because if public places are privatized there is simply nowhere for people to go.
Questions
- Would Sharon Zukins want to the government to adopt similar principles of the BID and just remove all private sectors from the equation or would that still in some way participate in the gentrification of the neighborhood.
- What other ways besides BID can you clean up public spaces when government funds are not sufficient?
- In regards to Zukins first chapter, How Brooklyn Became Cool, now that Brooklyn did become this artist hub and does host these underground party that does attract so many people how would she advise Brooklyn to use this it its advantage to prevent gentrification and instead as a positive impact for the community?
