Some of this is already happening, especially at the city level. Participatory budgeting is an idea that started decades ago in the Brazilian city of Porto Alegre but is now spreading throughout the world and merging with internet crowdsourcing culture. Paris’s ambitious participatory budgeting program, led by Mayor Anne Hidalgo, has led to hundreds of thousands of Parisians passionately debating and voting on projects close to their daily lives, everything from greening public space to aiding the homeless.
