Political Science Commons^™

By The People, For The People: Participatory Budgeting From The Bottom Up In North America, Josh Lerner, Donata Secondo

Journal of Public Deliberation

In the pilot year of Participatory Budgeting in New York City, around 8,000 people decided how to spend almost $6 million across four city districts. After years advocating for participatory budgeting (PB) in the US, our organization - The Participatory Budgeting Project (PBP) - served as lead technical assistance partner. In this article, we share some of the lessons learned from our work in New York and other North American cities. Two main concerns have haunted PB in the US (and elsewhere) - that it will only attract the “usual suspects” and that it will merely be a token effort. We argue ...