Participatory Budgeting: Learning Civic Capacities Through Democratic Activity

Abstract

This pilot study presents an ethnographic case study of Chicago’s 49th Ward Participatory Planning Budgeting Process (PPBP). This paper brings together the disciplines of Urban Planning and Learning Sciences, using a range of methodologies to examine the complexity of learning as it occurs in participatory planning. The study focuses specifically on the Latino immigrant community’s participation in the PPBP. This paper presents an analysis of a Spanish-language Assembly in the fall of 2010. Findings show ten emergent civic capacities and how they were learned or activated in the context of the Spanish assembly. Using a Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) framework, the paper explores both the cultural historical milieu of participants’ effects of participating in democratic activity and the mediational means of the civic capacities on participation. The findings raise questions about how Latino immigrant community members engage civically, and how identities of civic participation may form over time. Lastly, how are those in charge of the participatory planning process learning to adapt the environment in order to meet the participation needs of the community?