Description

Offers an investigative, behind-the-scenes look at New York City's participatory budgeting (PB) process, which takes readers through an entire annual cycle

Provides a clear account of issues related primarily to transparency, manipulation, and favoritism that are not commonly acknowledged in the PB literature

Provides a critical review of the experience of the asserted beneficiaries of participatory budgeting and reveals a variety of barriers to actually achieving those benefits

Recommends substantial reform, specifically as it pertains to a lack of transparency, manipulation by city agencies, favorable treatment of insider proposed projects, and a failure to reveal the basis of project costs