Impacts of COVID-19 on Business Improvement Districts and Prospects for Recovery: A Survey of Executive Directors in Canada and the United States

The COVID-19 pandemic challenged all actors in metropolitan governance. In this study, we investigated the impacts of the pandemic on business improvement district/area management organizations and their responses to it, with a survey among and interviews with the directors of these organizations in Canada and the US. We aimed to find out how the pandemic affected the roles/functions of the management organizations and their collaborations/partnerships and the directors’ assessments of the prospects for recovery from the pandemic. The results show that these organizations took on new functions or expanded their involvements in functional areas that were marginal before the pandemic. Their pre-pandemic collaborations/partnership with governmental agencies, nonprofits, and businesses in their operations intensified and became more frequent during the pandemic.