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Good practice Imported

Stadtidee Aarau — Switzerland's First City-Wide Participatory Budget Using the Method of Equal Shares

Switzerland · Aarau · See the Switzerland profile

Evidence: Quasi-experimental Top 1% 93/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

Aarau's first city-wide participatory budget (2023-24) used the Method of Equal Shares to allocate CHF 50,000, funding 17 of 33 shortlisted projects across every district — versus roughly 7 costlier projects under plurality voting — per a peer-reviewed AAAI/AIES evaluation and th

161
Proposals submitted
33
Projects shortlisted for public vote
CHF 50,000
Budget allocated
~22,000
Residents eligible to vote
1,700-1,800
Residents who voted
17
Projects funded under the Method of Equal Shares
7
Projects an estimated plurality vote would have funded
9 of 17
Funded projects realised by end of 2024
5 of 17
Funded projects extended into 2025
3 of 17
Funded projects that could not be completed
Stadtidee Aarau — Switzerland's First City-Wide Participatory Budget Using the Method of Equal Shares

Details

Maturity
Pilot
Promoter
City of Aarau (Stadt Aarau), with ETH Zurich-affiliated researchers
Period
2023–2024 (first edition); recurring every 4 years from 2027
Keywords
participatory budgeting, civic tech, computational social choice, digital democracy

Context

Between 2023 and 2024, the Swiss city of Aarau ran Stadtidee, its first city-wide participatory budget, inviting residents to submit neighbourhood improvement ideas and vote on a CHF 50,000 budget, with 161 proposals submitted and 33 shortlisted for a public vote among roughly 22,000 eligible residents.

Objectives

Rather than using a simple plurality count, the city set out to test the Method of Equal Shares (MES), the same proportional budget-allocation algorithm already piloted in Wieliczka, Poland, to see whether it would spread funding more evenly across the city's districts.

Activities

Around 1,700-1,800 residents voted, each distributing 10 points across their preferred ideas, and MES was used to select the winning projects instead of the town's previous plurality rule.

Results

MES funded 17 projects spread across all city districts, compared with an estimated 7 larger, costlier projects that plurality voting would have selected from the same votes; by the end of 2024, 9 of the 17 funded projects had been realised, 5 were being extended into 2025, and 3 could not be completed.

Conclusions

The trial was documented in a peer-reviewed AAAI/AIES paper and the city's own closing report, and Aarau's authorities have committed to repeating Stadtidee every four years from 2027, though only one full cycle has been completed to date.

Implementation
Indicative cost
Low (< €50k)
Time to results
Short (< 1 year)
Staffing & skills
Run jointly by the City of Aarau (Stadt Aarau) and ETH Zurich-affiliated researchers.

Conditions for success

  • Use of the peer-reviewed Method of Equal Shares algorithm, already tested in Wieliczka, Poland.
  • Joint delivery between municipal administration and an academic research team.
  • Publication of a formal closing report (Abschlussbericht) for transparency.
  • A fixed four-year recurrence commitment, with the next edition due in 2027.

Where it fits

Governance type
municipal
Scale
city
Income level
high

Commonly funded by

Own resources / municipal budget

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Data sources

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