But this year is looking different. “In Massachusetts, politics is a contact sport,” said John Rattigan, chairman of the Downtown Crossing Partnership, which is spearheading the BID initiative in Boston. “Rather than get tangled up with the politicians, our approach is to get the property owners to look each other in the eye and say, ‘We’re going to work together on this.’” If they are successful, Boston will join the many American cities that have bid hello to BIDs, with all the benefits and headaches that come.

San Diego was the first to legally allow for the creation of a BID, establishing the Downtown Improvement Area in 1970. But the movement did not really take off until the mid-to-late-’90s, when cities hit hard by recession and crime began looking at BIDs as a way to revitalize urban neighborhoods, with an eye towards transforming them into dining, entertainment and residential destinations. Over the next 15 years, their numbers have grown to over 1,000, in cities like Atlanta, Philadelphia, Houston, Seattle, San Francisco, Washington and Los Angeles. New York alone has over 64 BIDs.

Many cities look to New York, specifically the Grand Central Partnership, the city’s first BID, as a shining example of how these zones should look.

“We borrow a lot of ideas from [New York],” said Paul Levy, president of Philadelphia’s Center City District, a BID located in the city’s downtown area.

One thing New York has that Philadelphia does not, though, is a city-operated Small Business Services office that helps coordinate BIDs throughout New York. Levy said that the lack of that kind of centralized coordination has led some of Philadelphia’s smaller BIDs to flounder.

BIDs differ structurally from city-to-city, just as the laws governing them vary. Whereas New York’s are non-profit corporations, Philadelphia’s are municipal authorities, which allow those BIDs to bill and collect fees directly from property owners. In New York, those fees are tacked onto property owners’ real estate taxes.

Relations between BIDs and city governments can also vary from city-to-city. In New York, Rudy Giuliani famously clashed with BID leaders in what many saw as a fight over who could take credit for lowered crime rates and improved conditions in some neighborhoods.

Leona Agouridis, executive director of the Golden Triangle BID in D.C., which stretches from the White House to Dupont Circle, said that even though her organization is a 501(c)6 corporation, which prohibits it from lobbying government, she still sees the BID as a conduit between local authorities and the business community.

“Our role is to be a facilitator between the two,” Agouridis said. “The two worlds are different, so you need someone to bring those worlds together.”

Other BIDs take a less sympathetic approach to their relationship with city officials. Critics often grumble that BIDs perform tasks that cities are mandated to provide, like street cleaning and safety patrolling. Carol Schatz, president and CEO of the Downtown Center BID in Los Angeles, embraces that perception.

“On one level, it shows the failure of government in providing the basic services, that you need these things at all,” Schatz said. “The property owners have control over their own environment.”

As L.A.’s local government is hit hard by the economic downturn, forcing officials to scale back city services, Schatz said that the BIDs have a responsibility to step into the vacuum.

And in times like these, running a BID can feel empowering, Schatz said.

“You’re really, quite frankly, creating a city-withina-city,” she said. “You have your own little police force, your own little sanitation department. In our case we have an economic development department.”

“And,” she added with a laugh, “I’m the mayor.”