Date:

Location:

2640: A Cooperative Events Venue, located at 2640 St. Paul Street, Baltimore, Maryland

Full Description:

The purpose of The City from Below, a four-day conference schedule for late March, in Baltimore, Maryland, is described as follows:

In cities everywhere, new social movements are coming into being, hidden histories and herstories are being uncovered, and unanticipated futures are being imagined and built - but so much of this knowledge remains, so to speak, at street-level. We need a space to gather and share our stories, our ideas and analysis, a space to come together and rethink the city from below.

Leading local democracy advocsates Josh Lerner and Karen Dolan will lead a session at this conference on March 29th at noon:

The struggle for the city is largely a struggle over public money. On one hand, public budgets finance much of the development responsible for gentrification, while community groups are forced to fight for budgetary scraps, be they for social services, housing, schools, health facilities, or public transportation. This is an exhausting and often demoralizing struggle. It encourages competition rather than collaboration, and reliance on politicians rather than democratic community control.

At the same time, grassroots movements outside of the U.S. are increasingly turning this rigged budget game on its head, through participatory budgeting. This is a process in which people who are impacted by a budget directly and democratically decide how it is spent, usually through an annual cycle of neighborhood assemblies and meetings. Since the Brazilian city of Porto Alegre pioneered participatory budgeting in 1989, it has spread to hundreds of cities around the world.

This session will discuss how, in a time of economic crisis, community-based organizations and urban movements can use participatory budgeting to democratize public spending. We will combine short presentations with facilitated discussion and popular education exercises. The presenters will speak about grassroots struggles over budget funds, existing forums for budget participation, international experiences of participatory budgeting, and strategies for increasing democratic participation in budgeting. The session is intended for organizers, activists, and academics concerned with public services, urban infrastructure, or fundraising.

Additional Information:

See http://cityfrombelow.org/content/participatory-budgeting-public-control-over-public-money

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