Youth Lead the Change: A case study in participatory budgeting
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USA/Canada, Boston, MA, USA, Offline+Online- Where did this use case occur?
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2014 - ongoing (Latest: 2022)- When did this use case occur?
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Department of Youth Engagement and Advancement (Government), New Urban Mechanics- Who were some of the key collaborators
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Since inception, over ~1,500 young people cast votes each cycle on 400+ ideas generated. Over the years, 5,000+ young people from Boston have participated.- How many people participated?
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Municipality, Public, Urban- What are some keywords?
What was the problem?
Public offices allocate budgets for several projects and initiatives, however, citizens rarely receive an opportunity to influence the outcomes. For the youth, this is especially relevant since many investments will have long-term relevance. Capital projects must reflect the aspirations of the youth and offer an opportunity to understand the working of the city office.
How does the community approach the problem?
The City of Boston has a five-step process: Writing the rules, inviting ideas, developing proposals, community voting, and funding winning projects.
No Specified Tools
What were the results?
• The program has been successfully running since 2014, initially on an annual cycle, which was revised to two years to allocate sufficient time for implementation.
• Each year received 100s of ideas and 1000s of youth have voted on proposals. The winning projects have been implemented in the city.
How participatory was it?
Involve
The young citizens of Boston are involved in various stages of the process. Still, their participation is limited to certain stages such as submitting ideas, voting, or working as change agents. They have limited overall control of the participatory budgeting process, which is managed by the city. Such a process is definitely a step in the right direction towards participatory budgeting but does not entirely shift power towards the empowered scale of the spectrum.