Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito and the New York City Council announced the voting results and winning proposals of the 2015-2016 Participatory Budgeting cycle. During the voting period of March 26th through April 3rd, over 67,000 New Yorkers voted to allocate $38 million dollars for locally developed capital projects across 28 Council Districts in New York City…. Read More
Case studies
Brief overviews of experiences of Participatory Budgeting
UCL Sustainability Team wins Award for Innovation with PB online platform
The Sustainability Team at University College London has received an award from UCL’s President and Provost Professor Michael Arthur for its innovative approach to academic collaboration and communicating the University’s carbon reduction challenge. Building on research from Deputy Director of the UCL Transport Institute Dr Tom Cohen, the Sustainability Team led the development of a… Read More
Miles Platting groups get a share of £25,000
£25k worth of funding from Adactus Housing Association will be split between nine community groups operating in Miles Platting, East Manchester. The groups offer a wide cross section of activities, events and equipment that local East Manchester residents will benefit from. 16 groups originally applied for and after a voting process where Adactus Housing Association… Read More
Iceland adopts participatory democracy over austerity as its solution to the banking crisis… and it works
Iceland was one of the worst hit countries of the international banking crisis of 2008, with many of its major banks bankrupted. Since then, whilst going through some hard times it has been recognised as bouncing back. Participatory democracy, including forms of participatory budgeting, has been at the core of its strategy to re-engage citizens… Read More
Rochdale Residents celebrate with another £47,000 of Our Choice funding
This spring Rochdale Boroughwide Housing (RBH) once again rolled out their award-winning “Our Choice” project, which gives residents control of how money is spent improving their neighbourhoods. £47,000 of funding to thirteen neighbourhoods was up for grabs and only local people could decide how it was spent. Since 2013 more than £120,000 has been distributed… Read More
Thinkpiece on democratic innovation published by Foreign Affairs website
In an article published on the 11th March 2015 on the respected Foreign Affairs website, Paolo Spada and Hollie Russon Gilman provide a overview of the development of participatory budgeting (PB) in the city of Porto Alegre, Brazil since the late 1980’s. They consider what’s been achieved in the birthplace of PB, as it evolves… Read More
Tower Hamlets “You Decide!”
In Tower Hamlets, a Participatory Budgeting project known as “You Decide!” was carried out across the whole Borough in 2009 and 2010. The Cabinet allocated £2.38 million per year for a two year period (total of £4.76 million) with £300,000 added by the local Primary Care Trust (PCT) in year two. A total of over… Read More
Dulverton Council and Devon and Cornwall Fire and Rescue Service combine forces on Our Place
Partnership working is at the heart of successful Participatory Budgeting and this is nowhere more true in Dulverton, that has been pathfinding an ‘Our Place‘ approach to PB for many years. By combining forces with agencies like Devon and Somerset Fire Service, Dulverton was recently awarded Our Place status and is looking to develop it… Read More
Boston youth among 15 international examples of PB
Cat Johnson has posted a useful blog offering a list of 15 innovations in citizen participation, running from Porto Alegre to Boston’s recent youth led programme. She lists 15 projects from around the world that demonstrate the potential of the PB process. Citing from the report "The first city in the U.S. to instate youth… Read More
TravelSMART funds £1m of community transport projects in Surrey
Surrey County Council have been using Participatory Budgeting to share £1m of funding between various communities in Surrey. The aim of the TravelSMART community funding is to make the county a better place for residents, by improving public transport, encouraging cycling and cutting carbon emissions. Harris Vallianatos, Sustainable Transport Officer at Surrey County Council recently… Read More
