Shelterforce issue on participatory budgeting in North America

The summer issue of Shelterforce magazine has several articles on participatory budgeting experiences and campaigns in North America, and it's now available online at http://www.nhi.org/ or http://www.nhi.org/online/issues/sf146.html

Budgeting for Democracy
By Alma B. Couverthie and Marianna Leavy-Sperounis
Citizen engagement is changing the way one city develops its budget.

Let The People Decide
By Josh Lerner
Two Canadian cities are trying different approaches to participatory budgeting.

Following the Money Trail
By Jacqueline Leavy
For 18 years, Neighborhood Capital Budget Group has supported Chicago’s grassroots community groups in understanding where and how their public dollars are spent.

Participatory Democracy in Catalunya

Since its transition from Francoism, Spain has been home to a number of experiences in local democracy. Some of the first ones are well-described in the writings of Jordi Borja, Manuel Castells, and others in the late 1970s and early 1980s. But in the last 5 years there has been a real ressurgence of activity, with instances of direct citizen participation such as the forums for the Agenda 21 process, citizen juries, deliberative polls, and of course, at least a dozen cases of Participatory Budgeting.

One of the organizations active in promoting direct democracy in Barcelona, and in the autonomous community of Catalunya, has been the Seigle XXI Foundation. Some of their work is described in the book, Democratizar la Democracia