A shrewd point. I have found almost no ordinary people, in fact -- and
news reporters without extensive experience in this subject are just as
ordinary as anybody else-- who have any idea what the differences are
between Business Improvement Districts, Neighborhood Improvement
Districts and Special Services Districts. It isn't obvious to, I'd
guess, 99.9% of all citizens, including educated citizens who are
actually dealing with them. I repeat: one out of 1000. On UC-list, for
instance, I know of only one subscriber who had learned these
distinctions and could explain them accurately when I began to work on
this question.
People who are involved in SSD/BID/NID work in other neighborhoods echo
this report. Nobody anywhere is familiar with these distinctions.
They're pretty obscure, frankly.
Which is not to say they're unimportant. When you receive medical
treatment, some of the processes you undergo involve intellectual
distinctions that escape 999 out of 1000 Americans. Degreed or not,
Penned or not, we still do have to grapple with these distinctions
before the opinion we form on an SSD/NID/NID can be an informed opinion.
Unlike, say, your proposed kidney transplant, though, failing to grasp
these distinctions probably won't kill you. That should set an outer
limit on how much you worry about studying for the procedure, and how
much you should worry the people around you.
-- Tony West
I thought it was interesting how in the new york observer article they
were already equating penn's ucd with a bid:
"Penn, for example, donated land for a public school and
helped plan and run it. The university set up a
business-improvement district that picked up litter and
brightened street lights."
[aka ray]
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