A new poll finds 45% of American voters identify as independents, not aligned with either party that dominates politics. That is the highest rate on record for the United States. Voters in the United Kingdom and elsewhere in Europe display a similar neutrality or disinterest. Political polarization, it appears, is contributing to citizens’ party disaffection and thus, potentially, to civic disengagement.
The danger of a public that’s “checked out” of political interchange, observed American Enterprise Institute senior fellow Samuel Abrams, is that “citizens gradually learn the wrong lesson: that withdrawal is safer than participation.”
At the same time, cities around the world – from Mexico City to Montreal, from Boston to Bengaluru, India – are managing to cultivate a feeling of local belonging that fosters civic involvement and trust. They’re doing this by setting aside a portion of city funds and entrusting residents, including children, with proposing and choosing projects to spend on for the good of the community.
This idea of organized “participatory budgeting” emerged in the late 1980s in the Brazilian city of Porto Alegre. Within a decade of the city giving its citizens a say in directing budget resources, the number of schools quadrupled, public housing soared, and sanitation greatly improved.
Today, the city of Paris reportedly allocates the largest annual “participatory budget” in the world – around €100 million ($118 million) a year. Since 2014, residents of the French capital have submitted more than 21,000 ideas to city hall, which assesses feasibility before putting projects to a public vote.
Last fall, presented with 261 options, Parisians chose 104 projects to be implemented in 2026. These include expanding parks, urban gardens, and community kitchens. People in New York City (ages 11 and older) opted for similar priorities in 2025 for a $30 million share of the Big Apple’s budget. They chose upgrades to school libraries and science labs, as well as neighborhood sports and health facilities.
Through often monthslong awareness campaigns and multiple community meetings, the participatory budgeting process sparks grassroots engagement. It also improves transparency and can lessen perceived or actual favoritism or corruption among officials. This, in turn, increases trust in institutions.
“It’s a way for citizens to build relationships with elected officials,” according to governance specialist Hollie Russon Gilman, quoted on the Harvard Kennedy School website. “This process enables people to feel efficacious in their communities … like they’re a part of something,” said Dr. Gilman, admitting that she once was “pretty skeptical of the idea.”
Her conclusion now? “It’s putting democracy back into the hands of the people.”
