San Diego's Business Improvement District

San Diego's Business Improvement District (BID) program is a precedent setting collaboration between the City of San Diego and San Diego's small business community. For over 20 years, San Diego's BID system has sponsored various activities designed to improve business conditions in San Diego's older business districts. The seventeen local BID programs organize the City's largest outdoor festivals, manage street banner programs, provide newsletters, websites and business directories, generate special marketing campaigns, manage public parking programs, drive redevelopment activities, organize security programs, supervise public right-of-way maintenance, manage public improvement and beautification projects, recruit new business starts, and sponsor various neighborhood activities such as farmers' markets and restaurant walks. The dramatic turnaround of some of San Diego's older commercial areas is a direct result of the BID system's activities, advocacy, and ingenuity.

Twenty percent of the City's small business operators are located within the boundaries of one of the City's BIDs. Merchants in these neighborhood shopping areas have chosen to assess themselves an annual fee to establish Business Improvement Districts that are authorized by state statute and local City Council policy. Each commercial district, comprised of hundreds of businesses, is in turn represented by a constituent-led, neighborhood chamber or Mainstreet organization incorporated as a nonprofit management corporation. Under contract with the city, these nonprofit management corporations are responsible for administering programs and activities to promote and revitalize San Diego’s original historic shopping districts.

Sunset over San Diego