The Detroit suburb of Royal Oak, Mich., raised $100,000 to create a downtown park on an overlooked space between a parking garage and a railroad track. The bankrupt town of Central Falls, R.I., paid for new artistic recycling bins for a public park with $10,000 in crowdfunded donations. Denver raised $35,000 from crowdfunding for part of the cost of a new bike lane. But others have miscalculated, such as Maryland’s Frederick County, which raised only about $200 of its $120,000 request for a remodeled playground. “Our lesson learned [is] it would be more likely to be successful on smaller projects,” said Paul Dial, Frederick County’s parks director. “The smaller and more personal they are — I think it has to be the right [project] matched to the right community.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/raising-money-for-civic-projects-raises-questions-about-democracy/2016/04/24/9dd7cb0c-058e-11e6-b283-e79d81c63c1b_story.html