Porto Alegre invented participatory budgeting in 1989, and hundreds of cities copied it — which makes it the rare atlas city best known abroad for something it has spent two decades dismantling at home. Its assemblies stopped taking new demands after 2016 and were revived in 2022 on a reserve the city council sets rather than the citizens.

All 1 project in Porto Alegre

✔ Every published entry is checked against the public sources it cites before publication.

Compare with other cities

• 🇪🇸 Barcelona: Decidim Participation Platform A second-generation European copy, launched after Porto Alegre's own participation had already collapsed.
• 🇨🇴 Medellín: Presupuesto Participativo & Digital Voting (medellindecide.co) Same instrument, opposite trajectory: Medellín's digital voting hit a record 168,156 participants in 2025 while Porto Alegre's shrank.
• 🇮🇸 Reykjavik: Better Reykjavik (Betri Reykjavík) The oldest platform-native descendant (2010/2011) of Porto Alegre's 1989 assembly model.
• 🇩🇪 Gelsenkirchen: GE grünt: Environmental Sensors & Green Citizen Budget Smallest-scale descendant of the same instrument — a single-issue green citizen budget.

Official strategy and sources