Students who want to get involved in the local community often find themselves in a dilemma: Does student participation actually intrude upon the objectives of community development in Morningside Heights and Harlem? Given Columbia's contentious relationship with Manhattanville, that was certainly my concern when I attended a participatory budgeting meeting in the fall.
Participatory budgeting, or PB, is a process that directly engages the public in allocating a segment of the municipal budget. Last year, City Council member Mark Levine piloted PB for District 7, which stretches through the Upper West Side into Washington Heights. From September to November, public assemblies were organized to discuss community needs and propose solutions that could be funded by one million dollars of Levine's discretionary budget. At these meetings, PB was described as an opportunity to reflect upon and address the challenges facing our district. I discovered that New York City's PB process, through public proposals and open-vote budget decisions, has provided over $25 million to 24 districts since 2011. The more I heard, the more I wanted to join local residents in District 7's PB efforts.
Yet at the same time, I worried that my presence would be perceived as the University imposing itself on the broader community. While Columbia is located in the heart of District 7, PB aims to reach less civically engaged groups, such as youth, the formerly incarcerated, and Spanish-speaking community members. In fact, Levine's office expressly encouraged traditionally underserved residents to step up beyond idea formulating and into the formal planning stages as budget delegates.
At a recent event about PB, held by Mark Levine's office and the Roosevelt Institute, of which I am a member, this tension resurfaced. Columbia students wondered if it would be inappropriate for someone from the University—as a temporary resident—to attend an assembly, become a budget delegate, or even cast a vote for the winning proposals.
After seeing the progress of PB in our district, I've come to understand that PB, above all else, is a collaborative framework. It represents people-powered governance, designed to foster a more democratic, inclusive political atmosphere. Residents at the public assemblies welcomed my opinions and project ideas. I wasn't devalued for being a Columbia student; they thought my voice had as much merit as any other district member's.
We ought to embrace PB as a viable means of immersing ourselves into the fabric of our community. That means rejecting the assumption that PB could become a mechanism to further privilege our institutional status.
Presently, PB in New York City deals solely with "brick and mortar" projects. That means Levine's office and District 7 community members can only fund projects that materially benefit transportation, education, sustainability, safety, housing, and other public or community spaces. Some funded projects are conventional across city districts: bathroom maintenance for underfunded schools (District 33), improvements to parks (District 19), countdown clocks for dangerous intersections (District 44). Others are more atypical, like solar-powered greenhouses (District 8), and library book "vending machines" (District 32).
Not only do PB projects address wider civic demands, so does the process itself. For historically underrepresented groups, PB is a tangible way to increase political efficacy, and PB in New York City's winning projects often reflect diverse neighborhood priorities. It's true that Columbia students, as members of the council district, have a right to suggest proposals that would benefit the nuclear Columbia community. Yet, the multiplicity of players in PB motivates a more wide-ranging scrutiny of proposals, thereby reducing the chance that proposals favored by some unfairly influential group are pushed through. During PB meetings, I witnessed firsthand PB tackling inequality and supplanting the power of special interest stakeholders.
Offering a perspective on changes that can benefit District 7 is not commensurate to prioritizing Columbia over the community at large. Broadway is not a boundary, but an artery of our neighborhood; we share these streets and these paths and these various municipal amenities with millions of others. Through PB, we can collectively support the mobilization of District 7's long-term residents without eclipsing their needs.
The author is a Columbia College sophomore studying political science, history, and statistics. She is the Equal Justice Center director for the Roosevelt Institute, an organizer for Fight for $15, and an executive board member of DeltaGDP.
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