The Formation of Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) in Low-Income Multiethnic Neighborhoods of Los Angeles

Background and Purpose:  Commercial areas of American inner city have been exposed to problems such as disinvestment, high crime rates, haphazard development, and lack of public services over the last couple of decades. When commercial areas do not receive adequate government attention and services, the burden of attending to these areas falls to property owners, business owners, and nearby residents: in many cases, it falls to no one at all. In response to communal problems such as trash, graffiti, and crime, local stakeholders have sought a self-help sublocal governance structure, commonly known as business improvement districts (BIDs). BIDs have proven to be efficacious for improving streetscapes and socioeconomic condition of neighborhoods. However, not every neighborhood has BIDs. In Los Angeles, the areas with unsuccessful attempts of BID formation are mostly low-income immigrant neighborhoods. The main purpose of this research is thus to examine what factors could hinder or facilitate successful formation of BIDs in low-income multiethnic neighborhoods.

Methods:  This study adopts a case study design that compares two low-income multiethnic neighborhoods—MacArthur Park and the Byzantine Latino Quarter (BLQ). Despite geographical adjacency, these two neighborhoods have shown contrasting history of BID formation. MacArthur Park did not succeed in BID formation, whereas the BLQ has had a BID for the last ten years and is currently in the process of renewing the BID for another five years, as of 2013. This study collected data through a year-long fieldwork in Los Angeles. Data were collected through 35 semi-structured open-ended interviews, archival research of census data, media sources, and government files, and observations of meetings and open spaces (e.g., streets and parks). The collected data were analyzed at the individual, organizational, and network levels of social agency.

Results: The two neighborhoods showed several contrasting characteristics of community organizing. At an individual level, the BLQ had grassroots leadership that is grounded inside the community, whereas BID formation in MacArthur Park was initiated by the city authority, i.e., outside the community. At an organizational level, the BLQ has worked with public, non-governmental, and non-profit organizations, but MacArthur Park has been mainly working with public institutions. In the BLQ, human capital and organizational resources are closely networked while the relationship is looser in MacArthur Park.  

Conclusions and Implications: This study identified several characteristics of community organizing that can facilitate the formation of self-help organization, including bottom-up leadership that is grounded inside the community, collaboration with various sectors, and a close relationship among individual and organizational resources. In practice, these findings can help community workers in disadvantageous neighborhoods organize collective action for solving communal problems. In social work literature, this study contributes to broadening the current theoretical and empirical understandings of multicultural community organizing.