Commentary: Chicago and other cities are turning budgets into tools for democracy

It's budget season, and advocates are once again mobilizing to steer public funds toward communities with the greatest needs - even as budgets are rushed through the process with little analysis of who benefits and who bears the cost.

But across the country, leading cities are transforming budgeting into something far different: They are treating it as a year-round process that makes equity a core component of good government, ensuring underserved communities gain access to the resources they need to thrive and a say in the decisions that shape their lives. Despite political backlash against equity efforts, the cities that have stayed the course are showing that more equitable budgets are not just fairer - they are more effective.

Chicago offers one of the clearest examples. In 2020, community groups and residents in historically underinvested neighborhoods put forth the " People's Budget Chicago" - articulating a clear demand for more public investment in health, education and housing and less in policing. While the people didn't win their budget, the city did start bringing equity considerations into budgeting. In 2021, the Office of Equity and Racial Justice began implementing a " Budget Equity Tool" requiring departments to track progress toward their racial equity goals as they submit budget requests. The process was codified into law in 2022, making it a permanent part of how the city does business.

The result is not just better alignment with community priorities, but also better outcomes. When the city realized that relying on 311 requests for tree trimming was skewing services toward predominantly white North Side neighborhoods where residents were more likely to file complaints, it shifted to a data-driven approach that prioritizes need. Capacity tripled- and a once-unimaginable goal of trimming every tree in the city in six years is now within reach.

Mayor Brandon Johnson's administration is also putting his campaign promise of co-governance, shared decision-making between government and community, into practice. Across three initiatives - urban agriculture, equitable electrification and services for residents returning from incarceration - city agencies and community organizations are working side by side to navigate complex design and implementation challenges. This is not symbolic engagement. It begins with an honest reckoning of why the communities most affected by inequities distrust government and what it takes to meaningfully share power in shaping outcomes.

As Lyric Griffin, deputy chief equity officer, put it, "Equity is a muscle to be built."

New York City, while earlier in its budget equity journey, is taking concrete steps. After more than a year's delay under the previous administration, Mayor Zohran Mamdani recently released the preliminary Racial Equity Action Plan required by the city's 2022 charter amendments. Both the City Council and the public advocate released budget transparency tools this year, including a dashboard with seven years of spending and revenue data and an interactive"Build-A-Budget" tool that helps residents understand and weigh in on the $125 billion budget for 2027.

New York's People's Money Initiative is in its fourth year of engaging underserved residents, particularly youth and immigrants, in deciding how to allocate millions in public funds. The next step is to build equity analysis into the budget process. That work is getting underway: City Council Deputy Speaker Nantasha Williams is collaborating with People's Plan NYC to formally link budgeting with racial equity commitments.

Minneapolis offers a proven model for allocating public funds based on need rather than distributing them evenly (yet inequitably) across political districts. In 2016, the independent Park & Recreation Board adopted an equity-based framework to guide its 20-year $11 million park revitalization plan. Every year, the city's parks are scored on a set of indicators - from neighborhood income levels to maintenance conditions - with the greatest weight given to parks in low-income communities of color and those with the highest needs. The results are tangible: 46 parks and 28 recreation centers have already been renovated, with all 180 parks on track for improvement by 2036.

These efforts point to what it takes to make equity in budgeting stick: genuine collaboration with organizers and community-led participatory budget efforts, codification into law, new equity-focused methodologies and a long-term commitment to institutional change. They also highlight the next frontier: evaluating equity across entire public budgets, not just within individual departments.

Budgets reveal what government truly values. At a moment of federal retrenchment and fraying civic trust, these cities are demonstrating that budgeting can become a practice of democratic renewal - where trust is built by finally delivering on long-unmet needs.

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Sarah Treuhaft is director of policy and partnerships at The New School's Institute on Race, Power and Political Economy.

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This story was originally published July 8, 2026 at 4:13 AM.