Coproduction in the Context of Neighborhood Development

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Abstract
Coproduction involving neighborhood citizen organizations has several important characteristics that differentiate it from individual volunteer-governmental interac tion. One is that the citizen group has a collective identity and goals of its own apart from those of the governmental agencies with which it has cojoint relations. Further, the neighborhood development and enhancement projects of interest to the citizen group often do not fit into established service delivery programs. These distinctions suggest that for coproduction involving neighborhood organizations to be successful certain requirements must be met. These include: citizen participation through independent and free standing organizations; recognition of the legitimacy of citizen groups as full participants; mutually agreed to and explicit roles and respon sibilities ; the organizational capacity and commitment of all coproducers to carry out their parts: and joint implementation as well as planning and design of a project. To achieve these, however, the tendency of public agencies to treat "public participation" as a superior-subordinate relationship must be overcome.