Participatory budgeting (PB) gives residents a voice in how their ward’s menu money is spent. The attached reports detail menu money spending in all fifty wards for 2012, 2013, and 2014. As you’ll see, the money can be spent solely on infrastructure improvements, such as lighting, trash cans, speed bumps, alley aprons, park improvements, and street resurfacing.
It’s interesting to compare the spending ward by ward, and to see the difference that citizen participation makes in those wards, like the 49th, where the process is resident-driven.
More information about PB and how it has worked since 2012 can be found here.
