I. Introduction
A. Purpose of the Study
US-American Cities have gained experiences with urban development partnerships since the
Urban Renewal Program in the 1950’s. The partnership model is a widespread and overall
used approach in urban development in the US and has affected particularly development in
Central Business Districts (CBDs) for around 40 years. The purpose of this study is to
examine partnership approaches in urban renewal and urban development projects in the US.
The study looks at how important public-private partnerships have been in city planning and
how they have affected urban revitalization in the US. In the first chapter I discuss the reasons
for public-private partnership building in the US while taking social, political, and economic
circumstances into account. In the second part the analysis attempt to define distinct types of
partnerships that have developed since their emergence in the 1950s and particularly in the
boost years in the 1980s.
To develop an understanding of public-private partnerships in the US, it is useful and
necessary to explore the forms these processes have taken, their legal structure, primary
sources of funding, and their leadership arrangements. This leads to consideration of specific
strategies and planning tools that have been used by development partnerships. The study
attempts to catalog specific partnership activities. The proposed classification of public-
private partnerships is based on three factors that strongly reflect different types of
development partnerships to my mind. The first component, and in many respects foremost, is
the involvement of the public sector regarding financing of specific partnership projects and
provision of financial or not primarily financial incentives in order to attract private
investment. A second factor refers to the organizational structure of partnerships in terms of
formal agreements. Third, chief objectives of cooperative efforts including partnerships
spatial foci are considered as well.
The third part of this paper represents the empirical part of the research. Here, partnership
approaches in three cities in Southern California are analyzed. In this regard, public-private
cooperation caused by redevelopment and the Business Improvement District program (BID)
are discussed. The objective of the latter chapter of the study is to provide a summary of the
research. Beside a summary of the results of this study I attempt to highlight new trends in
public-private partnership approaches in urban development based on literature research and
interviews with city staffers.
B. Methodology
To discuss the complex subject of public-private partnerships in urban development, I review
US-American literature in the first part of my study. As the examined term public-private
partnership is defined by different scholars in a different way, I have to define terms precisely,
so as to proceed with a common vocabulary.
For the empirical part of my study I chose Santa Ana, San Diego and Los Angeles as case
studies. Whereas San Diego and Los Angeles are big cities in Southern California, Santa Ana
is a medium-sized city with over 300.000 people. Hence, it is intriguing to compare
partnership strategies in urban development in different types of cities. Since I didn’t get
sufficient data and information from the Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency
(CRA) about partnership projects and activities, I focused my research on Santa Ana and San
Diego.