Following the Money: Participatory Budgeting and the Allocation of Menu Funds in Chicago

Participatory budgeting (PB) is often framed as a mechanism to democratize public spending and advance equity by allowing constituents to directly decide how funds are allocated. However, this promise is complicated by a persistent tension: PB seeks to empower marginalized communities, yet participation is often dominated by the “usual suspects” – white, affluent, and highly educated residents. This tension raises questions about whether biased participation translates into inequitable spending outcomes. The following thesis evaluates PB as a budgeting tool by investigating how it shapes the geographic distribution of infrastructure funding in Chicago. Using three years of Aldermanic Menu Program data from 2023 to 2025, I employ a pooled OLS regression to analyze the relationship between PB, block group income, and menu funding allocation. The results reveal a weakly regressive pattern. Higher-income block groups receive slightly larger shares of menu funding, but PB does not meaningfully alter this income gradient. However, PB is associated with greater geographic dispersion of menu funds. This dispersive effect appears more pronounced in lower-income block groups, raising concerns that PB may dilute investment in high-need communities. At the same time, controlling for ward-level income indicates that underlying ward characteristics partially explain these patterns. Overall, PB reshapes the geography of menu funding without clearly improving equity outcomes.