Participatory Budgeting in Chicago - Neighborhood Assembly Dates

Alderman Joe Moore, of Chicago's 49th ward, has just announced the initial neighborhood assemblies of the ward's participatory budgeting process. There will be 9 assemblies, starting November 3rd and running till December 3rd. The process will then continue till March or April, when residents will decide which projects to fund.

Dear Neighbor,

Around the United States and here in Chicago, city leaders are increasingly asking residents for suggestions about budget spending. Here in the 49th Ward, we're going one step further. Through a novel experiment in democracy, I'm not just asking for your opinion--I'm asking you to make real decisions about how we spend our money.
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Participatory Budgeting in Germany

Rolf Luehrs has just published an update on some of the more than 115 participatory budgeting processes in Germany. As he notes, the experiences differ in three main ways:

Approach
While participatory budgeting was originally designed as an instrument of direct democracy with a binding decision of the citizenry, most of the European PBs are implemented as consultations: The citizens were given opportunity to have their say but it is up to the elected representatives to finally decide about the proposals.

Scope
In many cases only selected parts of the public budget are under consideration in others the entire budget is subject to citizen participation. Interestingly the scope seems to depend on the chosen approach: When the entire budget is under consideration, the opinions and preferences of the citizens usually are not binding.

Instruments & Channels
Some of the participatory budgeting projects are still implemented using only traditional communication channels. In most cases the Internet is leastwise used to spread information. Quiet a lot of municipalities or cities are providing interactive channels on the Internet to support the offline activities. And in a few cases the Internet is the only channel for the citizens to participate.

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FEAST: PB by and for artists

Since February 2009, a group of artists in New York City has been organizing its own variation on participatory budgeting, called FEAST (Funding Emerging Art with Sustainable Tactics). As the website explains:
FEAST is a recurring public dinner designed to use community-driven financial support to democratically fund new and emerging artmakers. At each FEAST, participants will pay a sliding-scale entrance fee for which they will receive supper and a ballot. Diners will vote on a variety of proposed artist projects. At the end of dinner, the artist whose proposal receives the most votes will be awarded funds collected through the entrance fee to produce the project. The work will then be presented during the next FEAST.

Participants reviewing proposals at the May 2009 FEAST.

Saturday October 3rd is the 5th FEAST event. The previous events have funded 11 diverse arts projects, many of them political or community-oriented. Do FEAST and other similar efforts, such as the UK's "Who Wants to Be?", represent a new form of PB, emerging autonomously from artist communities?