The City of Boston’s Mayor’s Office of New Urban Mechanics (MONUM) “serves as the 
City’s innovation incubator, building partnerships between City agencies and outside institutions and entrepreneurs to pilot projects in Boston that address resident and business needs.” [5]
MONUM “focuses on a broad range of areas from increasing civic participation, to improving City streets, to boosting educational outcomes.”
Ideas for projects are submitted to MONUM and the office decides which ideas to pursue. Typically, the projects are small with most costing $10,000. [6] This approach was lauded by Governing magazine which described the office as showing that “investing in small, calculated risks can have a major impact.” [7]
[5]New Urban Mechanics, “About,” accessed February 27, 2013,, http://www.newurbanmechanics.org/about/.
[6]Tina Trenkner, “2011 Public Officials of the Year: The Mechanics,” Governing, accessed February 27, 2013,, http://www.governing.com/poy/nigel-jacob-chris-osgood.html.
[7]Tina Trenkner, “2011 Public Officials of the Year: The Mechanics,” Governing, accessed February 27, 2013,, http://www.governing.com/poy/nigel-jacob-chris-osgood.html.
The initiative highlighted on this page was identified and researched by a student from Northwestern University as part of a course that was a collaboration between Northwestern University School of Continuing Studies and the OIG. This research was done by Nicole Bronnimann, Winter Quarter 2013. For a full transcript of this research please contact instructor Donald Gordon at donald-gordon@northwestern.edu.