Business Improvement Districts in Urban Governance

Using a longitudinal case study, we analyzed the centralities and roles of the actors in an urban governance network. The results of our network text analyses and social network analyses of newspaper articles show that the director of the business improvement district, the city council, and mayors were the most central actors in the governance network. Our thematic content analyses of the policy-related actions of these actors show that while the council and mayors played their prescribed roles, the director’s roles were more diversified than what his position requires. We discuss the implications of these findings for urban governance.

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