‘Clean and safe’ passage: Business Improvement Districts, urban security modes, and knowledge brokers

Abstract

This paper interrogates the complex role of Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) in securing and shaping conduct in public retail and ‘entertainment’ spaces in Canadian cities. Adopting a Foucault-inspired sociology of governance perspective, this paper uncovers key features of the role of BIDs therein and casts doubt upon assumptions evident in previous research, including in relation to urban neo-liberalism. BIDs seek to exclude obstacles, which include ‘panhandlers’ and the homeless, from public spaces. Yet, other barriers are placed into relief by a proliferating ‘clean and safe’ rationality and are deemed to interfere with consumption conduct and pedestrian flow. These include BID members engaged in moralized enterprises. Some BIDs are deploying CCTV surveillance arrangements and interactive ‘ambassadors’ consistent with ‘clean and safe’, whereas others avoid these modes and rely upon and lobby for public sources. The role of BID coordinators in brokering specialized knowledge is pivotal in these varied security arrangements. Theoretical implications of this analysis are discussed.

Confused branding? An exploratory study of place branding practices among place management professionals

“…The proliferation and evolution of place management schemes in the UK and elsewhere (Coca-Stefaniak, Parker, Quin, Rinaldi, & Byrom, 2009) over time has resulted in a number of different typologies including the BIDa rather contested (Lippert, 2012;Schaller & Modan, 2005;Steel & Symes, 2005) though rapidly growing format (Hoyt & Gopal-Agge, 2007;Ruffin, 2008) that relies on businesses in a selected area agreeing to pay an additional levy directed towards the amelioration of places (Peyroux, Pütz, & Glasze, 2012).…”

The body politics of the urban age: reflections on surveillance and affect

“…Priorities may change rapidly with the more general security environment, but urban studies research shave shown a general shift toward making perceptions a main object of urban governance (Taylor Buck and While, 2017;Helms et al, 2007;Pain, 2009;Raco, 2003;Svenonius, 2012). In Europe and North America, three aspects of local security policy are shared between most cities: a focus on security as an experience, the body as the site of this experience, and visual surveillance as the tool to render bodies more transparent and manage threats against them (Galdon-Clavell, 2015;Lippert, 2012;Tulumello, 2017). In this article, I address these points from a perspective of local security policy and affect.…”

Business Improvement Associations and Public Area Video Surveillance in Canadian Cities

“…Recognising that not all BIAs have the same resources or identical ideas about how to address crime (see Lippert, 2012;Cook, 2009Cook, , 2008Ward, 2007), we demonstrate that BIA involvement in implementation of public video surveillance programmes across Canada has not been as uniform as urban studies literature on neo-liberalism and security in the city might suggest. BIAs share the 'clean and safe' mantra as a start point, with the aim of making consumption districts amenable to competitive commercial ventures and fostering what have variably been referred to as neo-liberal cities (Peck and Tickell, 2002), competitive cities (Kipfer and Keil, 2002) and revanchist cities (Smith, 1996).…”