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

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

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.

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.

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

Free Citywide Cell Service basically. Fuck the telecoms. 😁

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

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

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

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

Plant trees

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.

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

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.

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.

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

10,000 is probably not enough. So:

1. I would invest said money for a few years, in order to make it a lot more money and now:
2. 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.
3. 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.

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

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

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.

fill in some fuckin potholes

I live in New York so practically nothing

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

pay myself 10k to move

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

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

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

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.