Participatory budgeting is not a suggestion box. When Columbus residents vote on projects in 2026, those votes carry binding authority over $9 million in city capital funds — the largest PB allocation in Ohio history. The model traces a 37-year arc from Porto Alegre, Brazil, where the Workers Party government designed it specifically to route resources toward neighborhoods that power had always bypassed. Research published in the American Political Science Review confirms the approach consistently raises civic engagement in lower-income areas. Whether Columbus scales the program will hinge on a simpler question: do the projects residents pick actually get built?