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gain a 100% ownership at the end of the lease. The city is allowed to use the Ballpark on 240
days a year (Padres: 125 days).
The project is unquestionable a sound idea, but delays due to litigation are a big problem for
the city and the Padres. The delay is considered 6 month so far. Moreover, CCDC could not
sell bonds because of the law suits. Like Horton Plaza, the Ballpark project is a perfect
example of a formal public-private partnership for economic development of downtown.
V. Summary of Findings and Conclusions
Initially, I intended to compare public-private partnerships in the United States and California
in particular and Germany with a focus on the Capital Berlin. In fact, partnership planning in
urban development in Germany is a new experience. Some cities including Berlin have tried
to cooperate with the private sector in urban development projects for about a decade. In order
to support partnership building in urban development new planning tools have been
established in the 1990s. I wanted to examine similarities and distinctions between the two
partnership approaches while analyzing which elements of US-American public-private
partnerships are suitable and recommendable for using in German cities? And what lessons
can be learned from the US approach in Germany? But since the federal systems including the
patterns of federal support for urban development and the nature of state bureaucracy as well
as the organization of the private sector and the planning culture is considerably different in
both countries, such an international comparison would far exceed the scope of this paper.
Even the term public-private partnership is differently defined in the US and Germany. In the
German literature, public-private corporations are predominately considered as public-private
partnership.
In the following I will give some examples of fundamental differences of public-private
partnership prerequisites in both countries. The key to public-private partnerships in
American cities has been the ability of the private sector to organize itself effectively. Not
only business organizations have a long tradition in the US but also their profound impact on
urban policies and their ability to channel their economic clout into political power. A
substantial feature of a lot of long-standing public-private cooperation in urban development
was the leadership of the mayor. In Germany, however, the organization of the private sector
is weak. Organized business interest do not play the leading role in urban development that
they do in American cities since social welfare, community improvement and cultural
functions are funded by the state. Strong leadership to mobilize public and private powers is
more difficult to achieve due to multiparty coalitions and a less powerful influence of the
mayor. Many incentives for cooperation between the public sector and business interest are
due to the autonomy of local governments in the federal system of the U.S. Moreover, the
profound autonomy of local governments enables deal-making and negotiation between both
sectors. The incentives, however, that bring about public-private partnerships differs in
different governmental systems with different legal structures and different traditions. In this
context, Newman and Verpraet provide an interesting analysis of public-private partnership
approaches in different countries with different political systems, though they focus their
research only on Europe. They argue that public-private cooperation has emerged in many big
European cities around economic development projects. They state that national
circumstances and institutional differences have an impact on the forms partnership may take
in different countries. They argue that different types of partnerships reflect deep rooted
national traditions. By and large they distinguish between a “strong state European model”
and a “market oriented US” model of partnerships (Newman, P.; Verpraet, G., 1999:488).