Let residents vote directly on how to spend a fixed share of the local budget, and require the government to follow the result
In short
- Residents propose ideas and vote to decide how a fixed share of the local budget is spent.
- The council and city hall cannot change or cancel the ideas that residents choose.
- Residents who are foreign nationals, and teenagers, can also propose ideas and vote.
- Poorer districts are given a larger amount of money to distribute.
If this comes true
A 15-year-old's idea to put lights on a dark pedestrian bridge on the way to school is chosen by a residents' vote, and by autumn it is finished, so kids walking home from club activities now walk a bright path.
Perhaps
Ideas for visible things like plazas and flower beds might win every time, the replacement of old water pipes might be put off, and one winter morning a street might end up flooded.
Water so far 💧 0
The proposal in detail
The plan covers a fixed share of the budget of a local government close to residents, such as a city or town, and only the part that can be spent on new projects and facilities. Parts that cannot be moved, such as salaries, debt payments, and welfare payments required by law, are left out, and a law sets the minimum for that share. First the local government is divided into districts, and the money is assigned according to population and how many hardships people face in daily life, with poorer districts getting more. Any resident can propose an idea, and ideas are developed in district meetings and online. City staff check whether each idea breaks the law, whether the cost estimate is reasonable, and how much it will cost to maintain, and they share the results, but they cannot remove an idea because they think it is a bad one. Then the residents of the district vote, and ideas are adopted in order of votes received until the budget limit is reached. Anyone who lives in the district can vote, regardless of nationality, and voting is open from the middle teens. The chosen ideas are built into the budget. The council approves the budget as a whole, but it cannot replace or cut individual ideas. If carrying out an idea is delayed, city hall is required to tell residents the reason and the outlook. Each year, the district checks whether the same groups are getting their ideas through in the same districts, and if there is a bias, it changes how districts are divided or how voting is done.
BenefitsPeople feel that taking part really can change their town
The strength of this system is that the results of taking part come back in a form people can see. An idea you proposed, or an idea you voted for, shows up in town the next year as a new streetlight, a piece of playground equipment, or a repaired community hall. Residents who see this learn that taking part means something, and they join again the next year. Young people and foreign-national residents who do not come to elections can easily become interested when it is about how nearby money is spent, and people who get a feel for politics here start going to other elections too. Because more money goes to poorer districts, the troubles of districts that have long been put off become the first items in the budget. Also, when residents directly decide part of the budget, there is less room for lawmakers to hand out projects as rewards to supporters, and it becomes clear who got budget money and why. City staff, while explaining the costs of ideas to residents, also build the habit of showing what is in the budget in an easy-to-understand way. And as people develop ideas in district meetings, neighbors meet face to face, and they build up experience in finding a compromise with people who disagree. Holding the power to decide changes residents from people who only make requests into shared builders of the town.
DrawbacksEye-catching projects win while unseen preparation is put off
Residents' votes tend to go to ideas that are easy to see and understand. New plazas, playground equipment, and flower beds gather votes, but plain, long-term work such as replacing underground water pipes, inspecting old bridges, or preparing facilities that will be needed ten years from now rarely gets votes. Even with a rule that requires showing maintenance costs, if new things keep being built every year, money for upkeep will later run short. Also, the voting process is easily swayed by organized groups and loud residents. A group that can send many people to district meetings might get ideas that favor itself passed year after year. Support that only a few people need, such as equipment for people with disabilities, is hard to get chosen by majority vote. Moreover, moving part of the council's power to decide to residents' votes blurs the line of responsibility in which elected lawmakers answer for the budget as a whole, and it becomes unclear who is responsible for a project that goes badly. In a year with low turnout, a very small number of residents decide how the money is spent, and it remains doubtful whether that can be called the will of all residents. Moving the power to decide also means taking on the mistakes made in using that power.
Learn the background
In many societies, residents' participation takes the form of meetings to hear opinions and calls for comments. But if people cannot see what was decided after they were heard, and plans hardly change even when they speak up, residents come to think that taking part is pointless. The people who take part tend to be older people with free time and groups with interests at stake, and the voices of busy young parents, residents from abroad, and children hardly get through. In the end, even if there are places to take part, the real power to decide stays with the council and city hall. For lawmakers and officials, how the budget is spent is a source of power, and it can also be used to reward supporters, so they have no reason to give it up to residents. Residents, for their part, feel resigned, thinking that the others will decide anyway. So people can speak only at election time, and even then only through a rough choice made once every few years. Even for money that directly affects daily life, such as streetlights on nearby roads, playground equipment in parks, and community halls in districts, there are almost no systems in which residents decide directly. To make participation real, we need to move the power to decide itself to residents, instead of adding more ways to hear their opinions.
Choose them ready to accept their drawbacks too (up to 5)
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This proposal was written in Japanese by AI (claude-opus-5-5, policy version 2026-10-23a) and translated by AI (claude-sonnet-5-5). Nobody has checked the facts. Read the original (日本語) How the AI writes