Budżet obywatelski jako mechanizm społecznego wytwarzania przestrzeni miejskiej

A decade has passed since the introduction of the first participatory budgeting in Poland. During this time, the mechanism involving residents in the process of co-deciding a certain pool of public funds has become widespread in a significant number of Polish cities and towns. Moreover, voivodship, school, academic and green variants of participatory budgeting have been introduced. However, universality is not a guarantee of quality. Polish budgets have one significant disadvantage, they generally lack a discussion component. This makes them a somewhat ostensible tool for participation. Nevertheless, despite the above disadvantage and relatively low financial resources, they have become a rather effective instrument for shaping space in towns and cities. Due to the shortcomings mentioned, I refer to this process as “quasi-participatory space creation.” In this paper, I present data on the results of quasi-participatory space creation in four selected cities. I analyse the first five editions of participatory budgeting carried out in these cities.