Mastodawn

@britter I’m not sure I have anything to add but I would be interested in seeing your bibliography.

Speaking of which, my town has a charette session in an hour to talk about a big project to redevelop some land adjacent to downtown.

Have you looked at the New England town governance model? I would consider that collaborative governance.

@rhappe Happy to share. I haven't looked at NE. I probably should have added that my context is natural resources/water. But now you've got me wondering what similarities the models might share.

@britter ah - that might change things but I think some of the lessons might be applicable. Basically every resident gets the entire budget every year a few weeks before town meeting and anyone can suggest a amendment. At town meeting citizens vote to approve / reject the budget and any amendments.

The town is run by a professional town manager but they report to a town council, the participants of which are elected and have terms.

@rhappe That stirs a memory from neighboring NH and a vote to cut the school budget. Residents organized a campaign to reverse the cuts. I wish I could remember the podcast that introduced me to the story because it included some fantastic interviews with local folks: https://www.nhpr.org/nh-news/2022-05-08/croydon-voters-overturn-school-budget-cut

Croydon voters restore school budget in a landslide

Over half of Croydon’s registered voters attended a redo vote on Saturday to restore the town’s school budget

NHPR

@britter oh yeh - I read that story too. People had gotten complacent about going to town meeting so it was easy to get enough people there to vote on something crazy.

It’s a really interesting model and it has broken down a bit as towns get larger but I still think it’s the best practice of democracy we get here.

https://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1129&context=polsci_facpubs

@rhappe One of my professors (Brian Wampler) did his dissertation on and spent multiple years studying participatory budgeting. His focus was Brazil, but the principles seem to align with the township model you've described to me. I think you might enjoy his work. Here's an example:

@britter cool - thank you!

Also, I guess maybe random, but Morroco is doing a lot with participatory government and I was interviewed a view years ago about it. Water management is likely a topic there. If your interested, I can pull up the report later.