Legislation passed in the 1980s allows property owners in New York City to create Business Improvement Districts (BIDs), i.e. nonprofit organizations aimed at improving the business environment in designated areas. In the context of massive cutbacks in NYC’s sanitation department, BIDs have come to play an important role in the restructuring of the city’s public services. The new labor division between the city and the private sector is based on the exploitation of a labor force recruited among the weakest categories of the population as well as using the labor force of those sentenced to community services.