How to conceive the future of Budapest? What is the role of citizen participation and civil society in shaping Budapest?

Eutropian’s Levente joined the Future of Budapest Forum to moderate a sessions about public space, community initiatives and participatory mechanisms with Máté Lukács (Járókelő), Judit Schanz (former Participation Officer of the Budapest Municipality), Miklós Tömör (VALYO) and Áron Halász (Sustainable Transport Officer at the Budapest Mayor’s Office).

With insights about the inner workings of the municipality as well as experiences of civil society organisations, participants looked into the role of public spaces in today’s debates, the ways bottom-up initiatives are matched with broader strategies, the various channels of Budapest’s participation ecosystem, the impact of participatory budgeting on public administration and the role of public procurement in implementing bottom-up ideas.

With constructive criticism concerning the bottlenecks of participatory procedures, the speakers came up with a series of recommendations about how to give more visibility to marginal groups and individuals in participatory processes, how to boost the creativity of the proposals and how to allow for more experimentation in project development and implementation.