GivingResidentsa Say in CitySpendingFive years after its U.S. debut, participatorybudgeting is growing. Informal opinionssuggest this is good for residents, who gainnew insight into community needs, whatmakes local government work, and whyplanning is integral to that process.

It's good for planners, too. "It alertsplanners to the needs and desires of peopleand places in communities," says RachelWeber, an associate professor of urbanplanning and policy in the University ofIllinois at Chicago's Department of UrbanPlanning and Policy. "We don't have toomany systems in place intended to providethat kind of information."

Vallejo, California (pop. 115,942), onthe northern shore of San Francisco Bay,is the latest place to employ participa-tory budgeting, having adopted it in 2013following its emergence from municipalbankruptcy. It is the country's first citywideapplication of PB. In February, Vallejo be-gan its second cycle under the PB scheme.

"It's great from an educational point ofview as far as learning what goes into plan-ning," says Andrea Ouse, AICP, planningmanager of Vallejo's Economic Develop-ment Department's Planning Division."We've found it's a good process to conveythe importance of planning very early onin a project."

PB began in Porto Alegre, Brazil, in1989, as a way to overcome inequality andimprove living standards in the city's poor-est neighborhoods. The notion has sincespread to hundreds of cities worldwide.

Chicago's 49th Ward was the first U.S.jurisdiction to adopt it, for the 2009-10fiscal year, followed by three more wards,eight New York City districts, and one

The Vallejo Peopie's Garden program educates residents about healthy food, grows produce forthe needy, and encourages social interaction, it got funding in Valiejo's first PB cycle last year.

district in San Francisco.The Obama administration approved

PB in December 2013 as a legitimate publicinput vector for determining how to spendfederal Community Development BlockGrant funds. This year, Boston launches"Youth PB," in which schoolchildren willdecide how to spend $1 miflion.

council (she stepped down in January),says she found it while researching alterna-tive budget methods and thought it couldhelp heal rifts between citizens and cityhall.

The city is beginning its first generalplan update since 1983, and "it'll be inter-esting to see, especially this year, now that

Vallejo's 2013-14 PB Projects

Pothole repairs

Lighting improvementsPark improvements

School libraries

Street cleaning

College readiness

SOURCE: City of Vsllejo

cosr/vorES COST/VOTES$550.000/ 2,298 Community gardens $146.500/954

$170.000/1.620 Small business grants $300.000/889

$621,500/1,323 Spay/neuter project $165,000/861

$270,000/ 1,163 Senior center improvements $109,150/860

$120,000/1,153 Gym renovation $60,000/830

$320,000/1,101 Police cameras $450,000/802

PB works roughly this way: A steeringcommittee organizes neighborhood assem-blies to solicit project ideas and volunteersto vet them. The volunteers determine vi-able projects and their estimated price tags,and place them on a community ballot.Winning projects receive funding, givingresidents control over a portion of the city'sactual budget. (More on the process is atwww.participatorybudgeting.org.)

Marti Brown, the planner who broughtPB to Vallejo when she sat on the city

the general plan is on everybody's mind,"how experience with PB affects that under-taking. Brown adds.

Brown, who is the executive director ofthe North Franklin District Business Asso-ciation in Sacramento, is trying to bring PBto California's capital, but "the politics arevery different than in Vallejo," she says.

—Jon Davis

Davis is a Chicago-based freelance writer. He is avoiunteer on the PB49 Leadership Committee, v^hich

helps steer the participatory budgeting process inChicago's 49th Ward.

10 Planning March 2014

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