Reading Between the Lines of Participation: Tenant Participation and Participatory Budgeting in Toronto Community Housing

Participatory Budgeting (PB) is currently practiced in more than a dozen of American cities. It is indicated by the White House as best practice in civic engagement and by scholars as a new wave of democratic innovation. With the enthusiastic spread of PB in the US, it is imperative to continuously...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Behrang Foroughi
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: University of Westminster Press 2017-11-01
Series:Journal of Deliberative Democracy
Subjects:
Online Access:https://delibdemjournal.org/article/id/559/
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1849393954239283200
author Behrang Foroughi
author_facet Behrang Foroughi
author_sort Behrang Foroughi
collection DOAJ
description Participatory Budgeting (PB) is currently practiced in more than a dozen of American cities. It is indicated by the White House as best practice in civic engagement and by scholars as a new wave of democratic innovation. With the enthusiastic spread of PB in the US, it is imperative to continuously integrate reflective learning to sustain and enhance its impact. In this paper, I share learning drawn form the practice of PB at the Toronto Community Housing (TCH), highlighting a host of communicative and procedural challenges, hindering the growth of collaborative partnerships among the management, staff and the tenants. I demonstrate that the stakeholders have developed differing perspectives and multiple experiences with regard to tenant participation, and in consequence, participation has been molded into a rather confusing format. The weakest link, I argue, has been a lack of deliberation on a participatory vision: what it is that PB and tenant participation must achieve.
format Article
id doaj-art-73879cea2cd340f19abc5d3287757f99
institution Kabale University
issn 2634-0488
language English
publishDate 2017-11-01
publisher University of Westminster Press
record_format Article
series Journal of Deliberative Democracy
spelling doaj-art-73879cea2cd340f19abc5d3287757f992025-08-20T03:40:14ZengUniversity of Westminster PressJournal of Deliberative Democracy2634-04882017-11-0113210.16997/jdd.287Reading Between the Lines of Participation: Tenant Participation and Participatory Budgeting in Toronto Community HousingBehrang Foroughi0 Participatory Budgeting (PB) is currently practiced in more than a dozen of American cities. It is indicated by the White House as best practice in civic engagement and by scholars as a new wave of democratic innovation. With the enthusiastic spread of PB in the US, it is imperative to continuously integrate reflective learning to sustain and enhance its impact. In this paper, I share learning drawn form the practice of PB at the Toronto Community Housing (TCH), highlighting a host of communicative and procedural challenges, hindering the growth of collaborative partnerships among the management, staff and the tenants. I demonstrate that the stakeholders have developed differing perspectives and multiple experiences with regard to tenant participation, and in consequence, participation has been molded into a rather confusing format. The weakest link, I argue, has been a lack of deliberation on a participatory vision: what it is that PB and tenant participation must achieve.https://delibdemjournal.org/article/id/559/Public Housing ManagementToronto Community HousingParticipatory GovernanceDeliberative DemocracyTenant ParticipationParticipatory Budgeting
spellingShingle Behrang Foroughi
Reading Between the Lines of Participation: Tenant Participation and Participatory Budgeting in Toronto Community Housing
Journal of Deliberative Democracy
Public Housing Management
Toronto Community Housing
Participatory Governance
Deliberative Democracy
Tenant Participation
Participatory Budgeting
title Reading Between the Lines of Participation: Tenant Participation and Participatory Budgeting in Toronto Community Housing
title_full Reading Between the Lines of Participation: Tenant Participation and Participatory Budgeting in Toronto Community Housing
title_fullStr Reading Between the Lines of Participation: Tenant Participation and Participatory Budgeting in Toronto Community Housing
title_full_unstemmed Reading Between the Lines of Participation: Tenant Participation and Participatory Budgeting in Toronto Community Housing
title_short Reading Between the Lines of Participation: Tenant Participation and Participatory Budgeting in Toronto Community Housing
title_sort reading between the lines of participation tenant participation and participatory budgeting in toronto community housing
topic Public Housing Management
Toronto Community Housing
Participatory Governance
Deliberative Democracy
Tenant Participation
Participatory Budgeting
url https://delibdemjournal.org/article/id/559/
work_keys_str_mv AT behrangforoughi readingbetweenthelinesofparticipationtenantparticipationandparticipatorybudgetingintorontocommunityhousing