Many cities around the world practice some form of participatory budgeting, but even among those that do, Cascais [Portugal] is an outlier. It spends prodigiously through the system: in Paris, five per cent of the city’s annual investment budget has been allocated to participatory projects in recent years, but in Cascais, more than fifteen per cent of the budget flows through the program, and the percentage can float higher if voter turnout rises. Cascais is surprising in another way: its mayor, Carlos Carreiras, is both a champion of participatory budgeting and a member of a center-right political party. Participatory budgeting is often considered a tool of the left, but its role in Cascais suggests that it could have a broader appeal; part of the theory behind it is that citizens can be better than officials at knowing how money should be spent.
Of course, it won't solve all of our problems:
Even in the best of circumstances, participatory budgeting faces some structural limitations. Citizens can’t use it to raise the minimum wage, for instance, or to reconfigure affordable-housing policy, or to ban single-use plastics. As it stands, the approach “will never change the destiny of a poor neighborhood,” Giovanni Allegretti, a senior researcher at the Centre for Social Studies at the University of Coimbra, told me. Allegretti noted that participatory budgeting is mainly a competitive process involving limited resources with no long-term strategy; it doesn’t eliminate the need for other policy interventions. But when it functions effectively, participatory budgeting can give direct political power to those who might otherwise have very little of it.
There is something very compelling about empowering people to come up with new ideas, compete with others for the best ones, and then participate in public decisions. It also strikes me as a possibly efficient way to force: "We only have this much money to spend. What should we spend it on? Spending on this means not spending on that. Time to make a decision."
And now it has me wondering: If we asked Toronto whether it wanted to spend over $1 billion to rebuild the Gardiner Expressway east or spend it on other things, what do you think it would say?
For the rest of the above article, click here.
On September 2, 2017, a research project by several MIT laboratories – called Gangnam Poop: Underworlds in Seoul – will debut at the Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism.
Here’s an excerpt from the exhibition description:
A vast reservoir of information on human health and behavior lies in our sewage, and this resource is untapped. We imagine a future in which sewage is mined for information that can inform policy makers, health practitioners, designers, and researchers alike. Such is the idea behind Underworlds: a cross-disciplinary data platform for monitoring urban health patterns, shaping more inclusive public health strategies, and pushing the boundaries of urban epidemiology.
For this exhibition and “proof of concept”, they analyzed three distinct neighborhoods in Seoul, using an aptly named sewer robot called Luigi.
Gangnam-gu (shown above) is an upper-class high-rise residential area. Mapo-gu is an emerging artist and designer enclave. And Seongbuk-bu is a hillside village with detached houses and an older demographic.
In each case, they mapped out the bacterial populations found beneath each neighborhood. Interestingly enough, the different areas revealed different bacterial occurrences. You can see those diagrams here.
I often think of healthcare as being very reactive. A future like the one this exhibition is imagining would be far more proactive. And that would be a very good thing.
Image and project by MIT Senseable City Lab. Gangnam Poop: Underworlds in Seoul. Commissioned by Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism
Following the lead of San Francisco, a new non-profit, member-supported organization for New York tech companies has just launched. It’s called Tech:NYC. Here are their goals, taken from this blog post:
Tech:NYC’s primary goals are to support the growth of the technology sector in New York City, to increase civic engagement by leaders of the New York tech community, and advocate for policies that will attract tech talent, jobs, and opportunity to NYC.
Tech:NYC will advocate for policies that: 1) underscore a regulatory environment that supports the growth of technology companies and technology talent in NYC; 2) promote inclusivity; and 3) ensure access for all New Yorkers to connectivity, technology tools, and training.
What makes something like this important is that many public policy issues are now rooted in the tech sector. Think about all the debate regarding ride-sharing, home-sharing, drone regulation, contract employees, and so on.
But what is also clear is that many cities are struggling to deal with these issues. As I’ve argued before, just saying no to innovation that doesn’t fit neatly into our currently regulatory boxes is often shortsighted.
So how do we put in place policies that deliver the right results and that are balanced? How do we grow the tech base while at the same time managing the disruptive fallout? That’s what this group hopes to do.
And it strikes me that every big city could likely benefit from an organization like this.