If you have not already heard the term participatory budgeting, or its abbreviation PB, you are likely to come across it with increasing frequency in 2009 and beyond.

In its broadest definition, PB is defined as the participation of citizens in the allocation of public resources. In other words, the public gets to decide, or help decide, how public money is spent, in a more direct way than simply deciding which politicians to elect to make spending decisions on their behalf.