You have $10,000 to make your town/city a better place to live. What do you do with the money?

Man 10k..... Can't even afford to pave 1000ft of single lane road..... ummmm

I dunno, maybe like pay to install 2 ADA crossing ramps? Can 10k get me 2? I think it might....

Move out

I live in New York so practically nothing

Bike lanes and clearing brush around the dirt paths where sidewalks should be.

Spend 500 on a magician tutor(teacher? Master? Sensei?) and another 500 on advertising for a new show at the local park on Thursday October 30th where I will spontaneously burst into oodles of various coins and bills in the middle of a word in the beginning half of my initial hype speech.

I'd rather allocate that $10k to some kind of feasibility study, to see what really should be prioritized when a much bigger budget is made available, since I don't really trust myself to know what an entire town really needs urgently

But if I had to be selfish, maybe we could fund an OpenStreetMap mapathon to help improve the online map of the town

Could not only improve ease of navigation of the town, but also get a clearer idea of how the space is used, which may give better insight on what might be worth redesigning in a larger project

but the salary of one guy running the feasibility study alone is $15k. guess he will take your $10k and wait for you to pay for the rest of study instruments, PC laps, travel and accomodation reservations, hall rents, their time-off pay, and payments for the rest of $15k-salary team, then they will conduct a study that conclude things that everyone has known for decades but their decisions are beyond your and their control, and that water has been wet all along.

pay myself 10k to move

Donate it to the library or a local food bank. Simple community building.

I'll echo food banks. $10,000 isn't much money for a municipality of more than 100 people, but a food bank might be where that money goes the furthest.
Knowing from my local outfit, while they would of course accept a donation of actual food bought with that money, they can do much more with the money than the food it buys in the grocery shops.
They do that by reaching out to vendors themselves and getting discounts that would put Costco out of business. I once heard that monetary donations being stretched 5x is typical, oftentimes going 10x or more.
- From some unrelated nonprofit experience, companies seem way more cool with discounting goods and services than donating money. Probably something to do with contribution profit margin, where selling some more at a loss is still better as it covers some costs you have anyway. That plus creative tax write offs, and they probably earn money from giving you a huge discount AND feel good about it / get free PR

Can’t fence in my backyard for 10k. And it’s not big. But giving it to the food banks would be my plan.

Scatter random tire spikes on the roads. 10k would probably get you quite a few

Wow that would kill a lot of people where I grew up. Very efficient.
- You are overestimating the danger of a punctured tire. It is easy to notice, usually gives you plenty of time (on the order of minutes) to come to a complete stop before the tire is deflated, and even after the tire is fully deflated it still allows you to stop relatively safely for a short while (until it is cut through completely). It would probably result in a few crashes (because in carbrained places many drivers don't know how to operate a vehicle at all), but the worst outcome from this is ambulances/firetrucks being stuck in traffic jams.

For that kind of money you're really only talking about minor maintenance or beautification projects. Maybe funding the cleanup of a local area or two. Fresh coat of paint on a couple buildings. Maybe a mural. We're talking small scale here. Which of course isn't nothing. Small steps are what lead to bigger steps.

So personally I would probably spend it on a local park near me that needs heavy updating. Maybe redo the walking trail and if there's enough money left over plant some more trees.

Plant trees

I keep toying with the idea of gorilla planting trees in the neighborhood. Make them look like they were installed by the county, complete with mulch and a small fence.
- Me too. We should just do it. The biggest issue is making sure landscaping doesn't mow them down imo
- If you're in the US, you'll probably get away with it. In the last two neighborhoods I've lived in we had people who planted trees of their own accord and no one lifted a finger to stop them. (Which I'm happy about.)

This amount is peanuts compared to the operating budget of the city I live in...

Realistically? I was pleasantly surprised by someone trying to make little tree pit gardens on the street where I live. $10,000 might be enough to make some of those on a few residential streets and kickstart a local initiative for the community to keep maintaining them. There may be some leftover money for acquiring a few communal trash bins to help with trash issues around the neighborhood as well

My city is fairly large and their recreational projects usually have budgets in the 10s of millions. I don't think there is much I can do on that front. That being said, I think this question could be better framed as "to make your community a better place to live". From that angle, I would have to get in touch with my HOA (I know) and see about opening a community garden with that initial investment.

That's likely the best anyone can do with that amount of money.

Buy everyone tickets for our local independent cinema, and feed some unhoused souls.

Funds match. Get every large company that does business in your city to match it.

Success! Now You have $170,000 to make your town/city a better place to live. What do you do with the money?

Drop a bunch of solar meshtashtic nodes on roofs in waterproof casings.

Free Citywide Cell Service basically. Fuck the telecoms. 😁

$10k isn't a lot for city improvement, but it'd pay for an art installation or two.

See if I can bribe enough local officials to pass an amendment making bike lanes mandatory on all new road construction projects. Sadly, even at the local level I don't think $10,000 would be enough.

Our town has a simple little amphitheater in a park, and it NEVER gets used.

For $10,000, you could set up and locally advertise a couple of fun movie nights, or music festivals with local bands, or a battle of the bands, etc. Sell refreshments and snacks, and use the money to generate the next one, etc.

Local entertainment, local participation, great for the community.

Very little you could do to a city with 10k. Probably feed a bunch of people for a little while.

Or plant a food forest with fruit trees, berry bushes etc. good for the environment, for recreation and for teaching kids about where food comes from while supplying some free food for whoever wants to do some picking.

fill in some fuckin potholes

On a similar energy, I'd remove speed humps. They're worse by design.
- I mean, the design is to force drivers to slow down. Looks like they fulfilled their requirements.

I'd give out vouchers for getting stray cats fixed. We have a huge problem with feral cat colonies.

I like your idea. Though I think I would personally team up with a doctor who does human vasectomies and give out vouchers. Indoor cats have a life expectancy of 15-17 years, and feral cats have much less. Human males in the US however, have an average of 77 years of life expectancy. I personally believe we have a greater problem with the human population numbers than we do with cats or any other animal on this planet.
- Human population numbers are fine. There are more than enough resources to sustainably support us, but distributing those resources isn't profitable so it isn't done.

A common eagle scout project where I grew up was surrounding vulnerable trees with beaver wire.

I've run a lot of art workshops for mixed age groups and adults. No one is ever unhappy after making art together, it's a wholesome way to get out with friends or meet new people, or just learn a new skill.

Paid workshops charge $20-100, which is an unnecessary expense for people these days.

The initial investment in supplies can be as low as $5/person depending on the type of art, locations can be cheap to free (libraries, community centers, quiet nights at bars and restaurants,) and if you can't run the workshop yourself, many artists would be happy to do it for a small honorarium.

For 10K, you could run dozens of free art workshops for a year or two.

If I also had a fair bit of time, community micro-grants are my favorite. Solicit ideas for improvements, offering 100-1000 bucks each. Select several, widely publicize what will be done.

Next favored, run a citizen assembly on a community issue (if you can do it cheap, have some money to allocate as an agenda item).

Finally, if the point is to ask what I want done... Right now it is probably homeless shelters and food pantries in the US. Lots of grants drying up.

10,000 is probably not enough. So:

I would invest said money for a few years, in order to make it a lot more money and now:
fund a trust for our local public library to become 100% independent from any power grab/censoring/book banning temptation. And, nope, it wouldn't matter the slightest from what political side or from what moral ground said attempt would originate from.
Promote reading among the general population. Focusing on the younger generations, because they're our future and, even though it's starting to fade away, they're supposed to be the ones willing to make the effort of learning and be educated, but I would also not exclusively cater to younger people. I mean, unlike with kids, I tend to think that given a chance a vast majority of adults would hardly change their behavior/opinions, as they're already set in their path and most of them are way too proud to ever admit they could have been wrong, but I would still want to give them the opportunity.

Edit: typos.

I can't imagine what investments you think would be able to fund any of that off of $10,000. Invest for a few years you said, so what at best you might have $12,000?
- I can’t imagine what investments you think would be able to fund any of that off of $10,000. Invest for a few years you said, so what at best you might have $12,000?
  Not sure what I can answer to your remark. I mean, you realize it's a very theoretical question that was asked by the op, as none of us is about to invest 10k or even 1 million to help our city, right?
  So, why do you think it was useful to point out what I already mentioned to begin with (the amount is too small to do what I would love to do)? Was it to show you can do math? Congrats, I do Origami quite nicely myself. Or was it something meaner? In which case I don't think this deserves much congrats.
  That being said, without being an expert in investing myself allow me to point out that 'a few years' does not mean a couple of years which, after a quick check, is the time it would take to earn a little over your 2K by investing 10k in the S&P and not doing much. That is on average, it has been more in recent years and it could easily be much more depending one's expertise and willingness to take risks. And that is also not considering other types and modes of investments than just buying good old stocks. I don’t think a 10% yearly return is something our crypto friends would be satisfied with but I may be wrong: I don't do much crypto (I do Origami).
  So, even if it's hard to conceive, in that imaginary world where I would have 10k at my disposal to do some good in my community I would do exactly as I said and would invest that money. Long term if needed. Patience is key, in investing like in everything else, even if that goes against the immediate gratification that seems to have become our new religion.
  And only after it has made enough money, I would use it. Also, since you want to turn that little fantasy of mine, into something more realistic, I did not exclude the possibility to regularly invest more money to add to my initial capital. Neither did I mention the possibility that people good at math, maybe even you, could notice my endeavor and, despite its naivety, realize my objective is a decent one and they may then feel motivated enough to contribute (al lot more, since you and they are much better at math). And voilà, problem solved. We now are sitting on so many cash that we won’t be able to spend it. Amazing.
  Edit: typos & clarifications.

Set up a stand and give away as much ice cream as I can get for 10K

Honestly right now food is at an all time high, finding local food banks would be top of the list.

Can't do much with 10k... invest in an initiative to make the city more bicycle friendly.

My town has $20 million of debt in our education department alone that we didn't know about until this year after a board of education administration change 😭 so I think 10,000 might not make too much of a difference to them. That being said I'd probably donate to a local foodbank

Make it $500,000. That makes more sense.

bike lanes and concrete instead of ugly asphalt and pedestrian crossing signals

With 10K? Are you going to do five feet of lane?
- Doesn't have to be protected we barely have any pedestrian crossing signals, and non-protected is better than none if drivers can avoid hitting pedestrians without pedestrian crossing signals they can probably avoid hitting bikes too

Cant really do much. Besides create jobs but for that 10k is also too little

Skate park.
We had one when I was young but it got demolished to build a supermarket. It was devastating.

That's vastly insufficient even to begin planning any significant improvement, so... spend it on local businesses, I suppose. 🤷‍♂️

In a similar vein, fund a few events for local groups for the less well-to-do to go see a local band. Just get the money in circulation in a way that keeps it local, and does some good (for myself or others) without consuming too many natural respurces.

Leave. Fuck this city. That 10 grand would be better put to use relocating me to somewhere better.

Pocket it. Won't make it any better to live in, but neither will a pitiful investment that's enough to host one event that's forgotten in a few days

Buying books for public schools directly, specifically for regular and SPED classes because our Department of Education is corrupt.

I remember being in the regular class of public highschool and seeing that there's only one highly used book per 10 people. Sure the sections "for smart kids" were complete in books, often updated, but regular and special ed students were often lacking resources, and the Department Head of SPED even told me that the higher ups of the school were prejudiced against SPED students, and they couldn't get funding for those students even for talent show events because a higher up said, "they have no future, so why bother?", the specific reason I was contacted because I was identified as a Special Needs learner who had a bright (conventional) academic future as well as achievements, so I was encouraged to help the Department in proving prejudice otherwise.

I felt it was unfair that all the investments of education were to be given to already highly performing children. The reason why I wasn't even in those sections for smart kids is because I was 1 or 2 points below the required report card grade in elementary, and that was when my mental health barely recovered from bullying. The reason I was bullied was due to classist bullshit (was relatively poor in a private school) and being neurodivergent.

keep it.

Pay 0.000001% of debt.

Try to get the bike route blocked off for through vehicle traffic around the area where I was disabled.

I wasn't on the actual bike route. I had detoured to stop by a bank on my way to work, but the way I chose to get back to the bike route was to just take the highway because the traffic on the bike route is not a significant safety improvement worth an extra quarter mile of additional distance. If the route had no vehicle through traffic, I would have gone out of my way. There are several points where blocking traffic makes no difference. The only people driving that way are fools following nav systems, people that are lost, and asshats that have no spacial logic skills.

Other than that, probably give the money to the thrift store charity men's shelter here in town.

That money would be gone for all the bureaucracy around whatever you're planning.

IDK how much one of those billboards with the rotating ad strips that come together to make up and ad would cost to rent out ad space on, but maybe advertising positive affirmations would probably be the best I can do with that amount. At least from what comes to mind right away. I live close enough to one at a busy intersection that I could watch people and see how they react to them.

As much as I hate ads and billboards, I will admit they can be effective considering I always watched that specific billboard growing up whenever I passed by it.

Trees.

$100 grocery gift cards for the most struggling.

Id contact those people who make those speed panels. If you don't know what that is, its a panel showing your speed, in green up to 30, then red, then like "Warning" if faster. People are supposed to be sensitivised to the fact they are driving over the speed limit.

I'd pay them to add a flash that triggers every time someone goes over 35. Just a flash, like the real radars have.

Build a mini prison.

Free, while supplies last.