The challenge
Low turnout and little say for residents, especially poorer and younger ones, in city spending.
The case
New York's participatory budgeting began in 2011-12 as a pilot in four City Council districts. Residents proposed projects such as school upgrades and park repairs and then voted on how to spend discretionary capital funds. In the 2014-15 cycle, New Yorkers cast 51,362 ballots to allocate $32 million across 24 council districts. Researchers Carolina Johnson, H. Jacob Carlson and Sonya Reynolds linked PB voters to the state voter file and compared them with similar voters in districts without PB. Taking part raised the chance of voting in regular elections by 8.4 percentage points on average, with larger gains for young, lower-income, less-educated and Black voters.
Why it worked
Giving residents real power over visible local projects drew in people who usually stay home and carried over into wider voting. The evidence is a matched comparison, so some self-selection may remain.
Sources
- Johnson, C., Carlson, H. J., & Reynolds, S. (2023). Testing the participation hypothesis: Evidence from participatory budgeting. Political Behavior 45, 3-32.
- New York City Council (2015). Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito and New York City Council Members announce results of the 2014-2015 participatory budgeting cycle.
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