Introduction and Problem Statement

Citizens, the experts of their own community, are assumed to provide the answers and solutions to societal issues more easily, e.g. health inequality, social exclusion and the rise of a fragmented, individualised society (Brandsen et al. 2014; Durose 2011). It is assumed that citizen engagement leads to empowerment, increasing the legitimacy of decisions (Buckwalter 2014; de Graaf et al. 2015; Fung 2004; Halvorsen 2003), inclusion in the process (Agger and Larsen 2009; Lombard 2013; Michels 2011; Young 2000) and equity in the results (Cuthill 2010; Fung 2004; Herian et al. 2012; Jakobsen and Andersen 2013; Webler and Tuler 2000).

Moreover, as governments are increasingly being questioned and face difficulties to respond to complex social and societal issues alone, citizen participation projects have steadily grown (Blakeley and Evans 2009; Halvorsen 2003; Wagenaar 2007). Pressurised by the global financial crisis and austerity policies, governments also ‘rediscovered’ citizen engagement. As a result, governments increasingly try to engage citizens in service delivery initiatives, providing professional support for them through paid employees (=professionals). Such initiatives, commonly referred to as co-production, are, however, understudied with regard to their impact and functioning (Brandsen and Honingh 2015).

We are particularly interested in the largely unexplored case of co-production in community development. Community development aims to reduce societal and social issues that have an impact on most (or even all) residents of a community, like poor housing conditions, high unemployment levels, poverty and high crime rates. This is principally done by implementing solutions, via tangible actions, in a collective manner with necessary input from the residents themselves (Verschuere and Hermans Verschuere and Hermans 2016a, b). This makes community development inherently co-productive in nature, defining it as the collective and joint action of professionals and people in communities, in the fight for the betterment of their environment. This community-based ‘movement for social change’ can be considered co-production, as professional community workers and the residents of the neighbourhood (in which the community development projects are implemented) work together to improve the community’s liveability (Batten 1974; Craig et al. 2008; Gilchrist and Taylor 2016; SCDC 2011). This fits the co-production definition presented by Brandsen and Honingh (2015) when they define this as: the relationship between (groups of) individual citizens and paid employees of a (public or non-profit) organisation that requires direct and active contribution from these citizens in the design and/or implementation of core services on a local level.

This research focuses on two research questions: (1) Is co-productive community development inclusive, empowering and equitable? (2) Do professionals influence the levels of inclusion, empowerment and equity in co-productive community development, and if yes, how?

Is Co-productive Community Development Inclusive, Empowering and Equitable?

In this article, we want to know how and whether co-production in community development manages to forgo certain classic issues that occur in citizen participation and co-production: can it include more co-producers than the ‘usual suspects’ (=inclusion), empower these co-producers (=empowerment), and ensure that the benefits are equitably distributed (=equity)?

Inclusion

Previous research claims that citizens with a low socio-economic status (SES) are most often forgotten in typical participation projects (Goodlad et al. 2005; Jakobsen 2013; Sidney Verba et al. 1995). Literature has provided many reasons why citizens in deprived neighbourhoods are less likely to engage in co-production projects or citizen participation projects in general. Fung (2004) lists five reasons, which have since been corroborated by others. There is the lack of incentive (Pestoff 2006), the lack of knowledge and skill (Jakobsen and Andersen 2013), the lack of personal resources (Jakobsen 2013), a lack of social capital and the presence of a dominant political culture (Weinberger and Jutting 2001).

And yet, community development most often takes place in derelict neighbourhoods with hard-to-reach populations. In these challenging environments, one often finds a diverse community and people who are feeling excluded, powerless and demoralised. The citizens face problems and the question then is whether their engagement in the community helps to tackle them. This implies that in community development we will find a population often discussed in literature as ‘hard-to-reach’, and that this type of co-production is aiming at inclusiveness. In this article, inclusion is defined as the degree to which those who are affected by the decisions are also included in the process (Agger and Larsen 2009; Lombard 2013; Michels 2011; Putnam 2001; Young 2000).

Equity

Secondly, it is assumed that participation will only help those who already hold a strong position in the community to gain even more, also called the Matthew Effect (Michels 2011; Van Dooren and Thijssen 2015; Weinberger and Jutting 2001). As community development most often takes place in derelict neighbourhoods which, as stated above, implies a population with low SES, it could be supposed that community development can counteract this imbalance and generate more equitable benefits for the entire community, rather than the eloquent few.

And yet, there remains the assumption that people will most commonly act out of self-interest. These community development projects can also present situations where the individual’s self-interest can supersede the group’s long-term interests, resulting in failure of the project (Verba et al. 2000). For example, in the tragedy of commons, where a common good becomes overused as each individual aims for maximal profit while the costs are distributed equally. Similarly, applying the prisoner’s dilemma to a co-productive community development case, could suggest that working together, for example, by keeping chickens in a community garden, the community achieves long-term success for the entire neighbourhood, e.g. free eggs. However, if one would be disinterested in the long term and prefers the choice for quick profit, eating or selling the chickens, the investment in the greater good again could be sacrificed to the benefit of self-interest. Some of these issues have already been refuted; Ostrom’s research proved that this tragedy of overuse could be handled by criteria determined by the group, without the need for privatisation or top-down regulation (Ostrom 1990; Wilson et al. 2013). Yet the inequity between participants, and the presence of free riders, remains favourite objections by critics. This is why we will also research the equity of co-productive community development. Here equity is defined as: the co-producers are equally free of risks and dangers and have equal access to the resulting benefits of the project (Fung 2004; Herian et al. 2012; Webler and Tuler 2000).

Empowerment

Lastly, it is often assumed that disadvantaged residents and minorities are more wary and have a higher sense of powerlessness (Ross et al. 2001). This brings us to the third dimension with which we measure the co-production effort in community development. The citizens’ sense of empowerment implies that they feel able to express their viewpoint, that they can influence the discussion and that their input is treated with respect by a transparent and trustworthy government (Herian et al. 2012; Webler and Tuler 2000). Buckwalter (2014) notes that direct and frequent interactions with professionals could lead to a sense of empowerment for the citizens. However, having the option or venue to participate does not guarantee an actual voice. Therefore, as de Graaf et al. (2015) state, citizens also need to be informed and made aware of their impact on the project. Disregarding the citizens’ input, the effects could be worse than when there is no option for participation at all (Halvorsen 2003). We define empowerment as the dimension where the co-producers perceive they have an actual voice in the process as well as actual influence on the outcome (Buckwalter 2014; de Graaf et al. 2015; Halvorsen 2003; Webler and Tuler 2000).

Do Professionals Influence the Levels of Inclusion, Empowerment and Equity in Co-productive Community Development?

This article also focuses on the professional counterpart in co-productive community development, because it is assumed that citizens also need professional support.

In community development, the presence of the professional is even more prevalent. The professionals here are an important link between the vulnerable citizens and the local government, and they are the ones who encourage citizens and facilitate the co-production process (Tuurnas 2016). They also fulfil different roles in that regard (De Graaf et al. 2011). However, within the co-productive community development it remains unclear what roles these community development workers allocate to themselves and how these roles specifically influence the democratic quality of the project. After all, if the role of the professional is as significant as literature claims, it could be supposed that without professional support, the co-production effort will not obtain its democratic aims.

Professional support, here, means that the paid professionals supply the knowledge and resources needed (Jakobsen 2013; Jakobsen and Andersen 2013; Wagenaar 2007) and mobilise hard-to-reach citizens via direct invitation (Denters and Klok 2010; Herian et al. 2012; Simmons and Birchall 2005). These professionals identify the target groups, specifically encourage participation of groups that are often excluded from society and respond to the needs and wishes of their target group. They are thus directly and indirectly dedicated to achieving inclusion, empowerment and equity. According to de Graaf et al. (2015), professionals may take up three roles: to ask, to enable and to respond in that sequential order.

Ask

The first role, to ask, is making information about the project easily available to citizens, both physically as well as mentally (Verschuere et al. 2012). According to Jakobsen and Andersen (2013) lack of information is one of the main reasons behind exclusion in co-production, and even more so when the project relies heavily on the input of the service user. The presence of professionals is particularly important as they inform and directly invite citizens to the co-production projects (de Graaf et al. 2015; Marschall 2004). This indicates that these professionals could increase the citizens’ competence, meaning their access to resources and knowledge, which is considered an important requirement for successful co-production (Denters and Klok 2010; van Eijk and Steen 2014; Verba et al. 2000).

Enable

Once the professionals inform their neighbourhood, they also need to enable. They do this by enhancing citizens’ competence, e.g. by teaching them or providing the correct knowledge and resources (Durose 2011; Jakobsen 2013). These findings correspond with what Buckwalter (2014) noted on professional support and empowerment: when professionals inform citizens on the project, and particularly the process that has been made, this generates more positive evaluations concerning the citizens’ own impact and thus increase their sense of empowerment (Buckwalter 2014; Frieling et al. 2014; Halvorsen 2003; Herian et al. 2012). A lack of professional support could lead to less empowered co-producers which, according to Halvorsen (2003), could lead to disheartened citizens who eventually lose interest in the project.

Respond

Thirdly, professionals constantly need to consider the salience of the project to attract co-producers (Pestoff 2012). Moreover, previous research has shown that when citizens’ competence is low, as is often assumed of lower SES citizens, professionals should focus on the salience of the project as the driving force for people to co-produce (Denters and Klok 2010; Fung 2004).

However, research has also proven that professionals can affect co-production negatively as well. Following the concept of discursive exclusion (Agger and Larsen 2009), professionals could (sometimes subconsciously) be paving the easiest road to success, thereby avoiding difficult participants and issues they are inexperienced in. This was found in the case study by Lombard (2013) who studied the democratic aspects of participatory practices in low-income neighbourhoods in Mexico. She discovered that these practices not always lead to empowerment and could instead reinforce existing social segregation and inequalities. Other research has proven that citizen participation projects are not immune to the condition of self-serving bias, as the participant has a tendency to take more credit than a partner for the success of a co-produced service while blaming the partner more when there is failure of the service (Bendapudi and Leone 2003; Fledderus 2015).

In Sum

The professionals’ input can therefore be vital for the success or failure of co-production in community development: they ensure that the target group is reached, that they can easily participate and that issues or questions from citizens can be heard and responded to. Furthermore, it is crucial that these professionals consider the delicate balance between taking on a facilitating role rather than a determining role (Van Meerkerk et al. 2013). In this article, we aim to discover how professionals influence the levels of inclusion, empowerment and equity in co-productive community development (Blakeley and Evans 2009; de Graaf et al. 2015; Michels 2015).

Case Study and Methodology

The Rabot Neighbourhood in Ghent

The Rabot neighbourhood is a district with a variety of co-production projects organised by the city as well as non-profit organisations that work with the diverse group of citizens residing in that area. The city delegates most of the day-to-day and fieldwork to several local NPOs, like Community Development Ghent (Samenlevingsopbouw Gent). This non-profit organisation employs field workers to engage with and encourage citizens to co-produce. Within Community Development Ghent, four field workers are assigned to this neighbourhood, and they are aided in their task by a policy worker and several citizens in a work program. These community development workers are paid through a covenant with the City and are the local government’s direct connection with citizens in the field.

In the neighbourhood different co-production projects can be found. If we apply the definition by Brandsen and Honingh (2015), these community development projects are co-productive because community development workers, the professionals, and citizens act together in producing and implementing public services, for example, the upkeep of the neighbourhood’s streets and parks. The projects all aim at reversing neighbourhood decline, counteracting crime rates and/or social exclusion and (in general) increasing liveability. The largest, and first project, is known as the “Site”, an old concrete factory floor that was turned into a sustainable green project for the locals to work and socialise on. Subsequently, a “social Grocer”, run by co-producers, offers residents affordable foodstuff such as diapers, eggs, bread and locally grown (at the Site) fruit and vegetables. Next, “Rabot on Your Plate” was formed, where citizen co-producers create new products such as jam, soups and hummus from the unsold fruit or vegetables. The local social restaurant “Toreke” also uses the locally grown crops and offers citizens healthy meals at affordable prices. Moreover, several citizen groups have now claimed public land and are carving out green spaces of their own (e.g. The Farmstead, Maria Goretti Church,…) with the same goal: to create communal green inner areas, allow social interaction between previously anonymous neighbours, and eventually, make the neighbourhood a better place to live.

In 2011, the city of Ghent activated an overarching project in the neighbourhood. A complementary currency was introduced as an incentive to entice even more residents to co-produce (e.g. working in the city gardens, keep flowers on their windowsill, or clean the street). Called the “Torekes”, this coin is an attempt to specifically attract impoverished minority groups. On specific days, organised by the professionals, Torekes can be earned by working in the neighbourhood in exchange for a small compensation, 25 Torekes/hour (which equals 2.5 euros).

From the plethora of neighbourhood projects, we selected two projects, similar in nature but different in origin and participants: The Site and The Farmstead (see Table 1). These projects are selected as they are ideal–typical examples of co-production in community development. We stayed in the same neighbourhood, and within the same institutional context: Both projects entail co-production that is focused on creating a green space in the dense neighbourhood where local residents can participate in the upkeep of gardens and can socialise on workdays and co-produced happenings, both are funded and supported by the city and a local non-profit. However, the two projects also differ in some significant ways. Firstly, their origins vary: one project was created by professionals, local non-profit organisations, and one by residents. These projects thus differ at the initial levels of professional support. Secondly, the socio-economic profile of the co-producers in these projects is different: at the Farmstead the initiators, and current co-producers, are all middle-class citizens of Belgian origin, whereas the Site harbours a diverse public including, but not limited to, citizens of Belgian, Turkish, Bulgarian and Slavic origin as well as citizens of different age groups and most often of low SES.

Table 1 Main characteristics of the two projects
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The Site

This originally old concrete, city-owned, factory floor was claimed by a group of non-profits in 2007. These professionals had realised they were not getting anywhere using the typical citizen participation method. Listening to the citizens, and considering their background (a majority of Turkish residents originate from a farming region in Turkey), the non-profits decided on a green, sustainable project. The project is temporary, ending in 2017, as the lot is being redeveloped into a new residential area the next few years. However, because of the success of the co-production project, the redevelopment plans now include a new space for city gardens and the professionals have successfully convinced the city government to allow a local park to be redesigned as a co-productive urban garden. At the height of its success the temporary project included a 3000 m2 city field, 160 mini-gardens, a multipurpose sports field, a playground, two conservatories, storage containers and even a citizen-initiated sharing shop (here, based upon the sharing economy, customers can both contribute to or take the items for sale, free of charge).

The Farmstead

Only a short distance away from The Site, in an inner area encircled by houses, a second urban garden has appeared: the Farmstead. Until recently, the Farmstead looked like any other inner area in the neighbourhood with walled-in, small gardens that looked out onto some 80 dilapidated garages. When the city bought the ground, planning to create new public parking, the residents petitioned against the decision and earned the chance to design their ideal green space. As spring 2016 arrived, the Farmstead was built into a green space for its residents. Under the guidance of Community Development Ghent, the space was redesigned to comprise amongst other things: city gardens for the neighbours to rent, a play and rest area, and a composting facility. This partnership with professionals is new, as this citizens’ initiative only recently became the responsibility of Community Development Ghent (Table 2).

Table 2 Comparison of projects
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Data Collection

It is in this context that we study the extent to which citizens are involved: the inclusion and, empowerment of citizen co-producers, and the equity in the benefits the citizens receive of the projects. As a second research aim, we study the professional’s role in encouraging citizens to engage.

In order to be able to answer our research questions, we collected data via document analysis, observation, focus groups and interviews, assuming that the collection of diverse types of data, as stated by Creswell (2009), will allow us to provide a solid and thorough answer to the research questions.

First, all relevant written documents, from primary and secondary sources, were collected and analysed. These included official documents (26%), webpages (45%), magazine (17%) and newspaper articles (2%), research papers (6%) and theses (4%). The documents were collected from an online web search using words like “De Rabot Site”, “Het Boerenhof Gent’(Farmstead) in different combinations. The webpages of the professional partners were studied and added when they seemed relevant for the research. Additionally, internal documents shared by professionals or mentioned in interviews were added during the data collection process. The documents were then uploaded onto Nvivo, for qualitative data analysis. Next, using a code book (see “Appendix 1”), elements of co-production and the dimensions of citizens’ engagement of this specific project were identified (see “Appendix 6”) (Table 3).

Table 3 Comparison of the roles
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In the second stage, the document analysis was supplemented with in-depth interviews with the professionals. Two field workers and two administrators gave their perception on the current issues and the research questions. As, Yin (2009) explains, these in-depth interviews can provide specific information and the professional’s perspective on the implementation and goals of the co-production project that the document analysis could not procure. Each interview was done separately and took at least 1 h. The transcripts of these interviews were uploaded to Nvivo and coded following the specific categories in our code book (“Appendix 1”). These categories were helpful to create context-related themes, but as the analysis continued, we noticed a lack in specificity, and added several sub-categories to facilitate a more comprehensive synthesis of the data (see “Appendix 6”).

Thirdly, these in-depth interviews were followed up by standardised interviews with groups of citizens/co-producers, representative for the population participating at the projects. For a duration of 3 months, we were present at the Site and the Farmstead to observe, connect and win the trust of the residents as well as select focus group participants. Though several workdays were cancelled, due to bad weather, and there was a noticeable drop in participation during the summer months, as attested by the professionals, we were able to hold two focus groups with ten Turkish participants at the Site, where the conversation was led and translated by a local, and we organised one Dutch-speaking focus group with five participants of the Farmstead (“Appendix 4”). The Site focus groups were selected through snowball sampling, where a local resident contacted and encouraged co-producers to join in. Thus the focus groups participants were associated with each other, often working together on The Site, which could lead to a more homogenous response. The focus groups on the Site consisted of one group of Turkish men and one of Turkish women. Conversely, the Farmstead focus group was of mixed gender but here four of the five participants had been essential in the creation and the running of the Farmstead and the group was also homogeneous in its socio-economic compatibility (Stewart et al. 2007). The focus group conversations were also transcribed and coded according to the code book. We constantly compared the citizen conversations and the expert interviews to assess previously identified patterns and accurately consolidate and differentiate categories resulting from the professional and citizen responses (Strauss and Corbin 1990) (see “Appendix 6”). We use the same program (Nvivo) and the same manner of working as in the document analysis in order to ensure a thorough and transparent analysis process.

Finally, we held a “member check” where we fed the preliminary results back to the professionals, to have an extra validity check from the experts in the field (Creswell 2009).

Findings

This section will discuss the findings from our case study. First, the effects of co-productive community development are discussed, in respect of inclusion, empowerment and equity. Secondly, the roles of the professionals in these projects are described and compared as well as their impact on the effects.

The Effects of Co-productive Community Development

Inclusion

The Rabot neighbourhood is one of the poorest neighbourhoods in Ghent, as it has more people receiving benefits, more low incomes, more unemployment and more single-parent families compared to the rest of the city (Staes 2012; district monitor, 2012). In this diverse neighbourhood, 29.6% of residents are foreign nationals (District monitor, 2015) and 68.5% of residents are of foreign origin (District monitor, 2013). Furthermore, as the Rabot neighbourhood is known as an arrival district, which means there’s a general rotation of 10% of the residents every year, this community does not only include permanent residents, but also renters living in poor housing conditions, asylum seekers passing through and a number of homeless with a network of friends in the neighbourhood. Therefore, in these projects, the focus is broader, as it also includes the hard-to-reach people who do or will not permanently live in the neighbourhood. Professionals do not only target citizens who live and will live in the neighbourhood for years to come, whereby one would assume that these citizens have more reason to engage in the upkeep of their neighbourhood, here the professionals engage with minorities of all shapes and sizes.

At the Site, from the ±8334 residents in the neighbourhood, about 300–350 people are participating (figures from district monitor, 2014). As this is an arrival district and the co-producers include not only residents but also other vulnerable groups, the city’s demographics cannot give a clear idea of the inclusion of neighbourhood residents. However, keeping in mind that the main target audience here are the vulnerable groups, the document analysis and expert interviews indicate that the Site achieves that goal and includes not only residents but also non-resident vulnerable groups.

Meanwhile, as the Farmstead is a young project, the professionals have no demographics on the citizen co-producers yet. However, common perception from both field workers and co-producers is that inclusion is still low. Though the Farmstead is located in the same district as the Site, the co-producers are noticeably different. Here, the initiators are middle-class citizens whose goal is a green space behind their house and closer connections with their neighbours. This might be one of the reasons for exclusion as there is no distinct aim towards inclusion, though the focus group reiterates that everyone is welcome, people who are not in their direct (physical and personal) neighbourhood, might be hindered to participate.

Empowerment

In the Site, the professionals offered several examples of instances where citizens could suggest changes to the design (e.g. when citizens noticed the need for a pharmacy to join in the complementary currency exchange system, they went to ask the pharmacist themselves). However, where the female focus group preferred to follow the field workers’ instructions with little or no input required from them, the male respondents were vocal and irate about the lack of autonomy, responsibility and influence: “We propose things, but we never get permission. We have lots of propositions, we want to do lots of things, but because we aren’t allowed, we don’t.” (FG3.2).

Surprisingly, this sensed lack of autonomy was also reflected in the Farmstead. Because it is citizen-initiated, it would be expected that these citizens felt empowered, as they had begun the project on their own. Yet in practice this group too experiences a lack of empowerment, noting that they are not being heard, and cannot make decisions on their own. “Well, I think it’s being monitored, they have the leading role, and I think that’s weird, because we decide, right we’ll do this here at the Farmstead… and I think it’s weird that they have the final say on it. I think that it’s weird we have to ask her, because…” (FG2.1). “It undermines us, and the integrity, the autonomy…”(FG2.5).

Equity

In the projects of the Site and the Farmstead, equity in outcome of both projects can be found in a diverse range of results. The social contact these co-producers now enjoy, the green space that is available even for non-co-producing citizens, the appearance of a clean and liveable neighbourhood, the sense of community through numerous social events on the sites and so on, could all imply that the equity levels within both projects are high, as the barriers to these commons and their benefits are low. “It’s fantastic that we have this opportunity. It really changes, for me, it [The Farmstead] really changed living here.” (FG2.2) “We can keep busy, instead of sitting at home with stressed or bored. We live close by in apartment buildings, it can get hot in there and now we can come here [at The Site] to garden.” (FG1).

In the process of co-production, however, the complementary currency (cf. supra) complicates things. As field workers explain, anyone should be able to participate in co-production. They even adjust the work to what each citizen can handle, hoping to achieve equal access to the benefits of the project regardless of one’s abilities. However, this tactic can also be abused by free riders, an issue that was mentioned by both professionals and co-producers. After all, those citizens who work less during the workday, who take cigarette breaks, hide behind the shed or talk longer, are awarded as much as those who work hard, or are even awarded more than those who work on the days that no complementary coin can be earned. At the Farmstead, the citizens seem less troubled. They experience the benefits from this newly opened space behind their houses. For them, it is a space they created together, for their children and neighbours with whom the social bonds have strengthened. Their experience of equity in this regard is positive. That not everyone can work equally hard in a certain number of hours, seems no issue for this group and that there is a currency attached to that work is simply a pleasurable extra, the main benefit still being the project itself. “It is a means to bring people together and giving responsibility back to the neighbourhood and you have to keep in mind and that it is not necessarily the amount of work that has been done, it is that work is being done” (FG2.1). A caveat should be added here, for the Farmstead is still a young and growing project. When presenting these results 3 months later, the experts indicated that equity issues were already on the rise. They believe that now that citizens are becoming aware of the work that this communal space demands, the significance of the monetary reward, and the apparent presence of free riders, is causing discord amongst neighbours.

Summary

It could thus be concluded that both projects attain a sufficient number of citizens’ engagement to keep the co-production project going, yet certain issues in the projects still lead to a lack in inclusion, empowerment and/or equity. In the Site, this is predominately an issue with equity and empowerment, while the Farmstead has issues with inclusion as well as empowerment.

The Roles of the Professionals

We also assessed how professionals influence citizens’ involvement in community development projects. As passionate and engaged professionals, they position themselves differently compared to the three roles of professionals in co-production we found in previous research (de Graaf et al. 2015; Durose 2011). As these professionals’ roles are not always sequential, as de Graaf et al. (2015) suggest, and though they do ‘ask’, ‘enable’ and ‘respond’, these concepts seem insufficient do describe the influential role the professionals, as community development workers, have in the success or failure of the project. Through conversation with the professionals and as transpired from the citizens’ evaluations of the projects’ inclusion, empowerment and equity rate, we found four roles: the friend, the representative, the leader and the mediator. To achieve successful co-production, the professionals believe the community development worker needs to be physically present in the neighbourhood, witnessing the neighbourhood’s issues and understanding the citizens’ needs and characteristics, to represent the neighbourhood and its residents to the outside world, to assist (e.g. by offering one of The Site’s containers to enthusiastic residents who want to start a sharing shop, where citizens can offer or buy second hand items free of charge) or lead the co-productive effort and to mediate when citizens cannot agree between themselves.

Professionals’ Impact on Inclusion

Regarding the impact on inclusion, we found that the professional plays two significant roles. First, there is the professional as the friend who can aid in the competence of the co-producers and thus influence the inclusion of the target audience. In the case of the Farmstead, where the relationship between citizens and professionals is still young, we see that the inclusion rate is still low. The citizen co-producers admit the need for professionals to lower the threshold, inform and engage others citizens who were not included from the start. The Site’s reputation as a project already achieves most of this on its own. This project is easy to access, clearly visible and without boundaries. However, the field workers’ continuing presence at this location highlights their influence. They are the ones who lead, explain the intention, welcome newcomers and guide the co-producers into cooperation. Therefore, the professionals are also the leaders. As respondents stated: “That’s why a partner, like Community development Ghent, might be good. They can broaden it, not just a meeting at his or her house, instead a general assembly will be held and everyone’s welcome.” (FG2.1).

Professionals’ Impact on Empowerment

However, when there is a lack or surplus in one or both of these two roles of leader and/or friend, this is experienced negatively by citizens, resulting in a lack of empowerment. Similar to inclusion, within the dimension of empowerment, the professional holds two influential roles as friend or leader. We found that in the case of the Site, it could be that, by adopting the role of the leader too strongly, the professionals are underestimating their participants, believing them to be less competent. From the citizens, we learned that the high level of professional support, which makes the professionals the decision maker in all things, impedes co-producers to become more empowered (FG3). “we get tasks, and once it’s done we try to do things ourselves but then [one of the field workers] comes and says, you have to do this, and that and this, constantly giving us new assignments.” (FG3.2). As stated before, the relationship between the citizens at the Farmstead and professionals seems the biggest hurdle, which also pertains to a sense of more empowerment. The citizens seem to look for a partner (a friend?), who will still allow them the appropriate amount of autonomy. This remark was also made by the professionals themselves. When they allow the citizens more independence, disagreement amongst neighbours grows, whereas when professionals are present, they bear the brunt of the co-producers’ displeasure.

Professionals’ Impact on Equity

From the situation described above, we can derive another role, that of the mediator, which leads us to the dimension of equity. It could be assumed that these professionals, who listen to and resolve issues between neighbours, can thus influence these residents’ sense of equity. This influence can extend towards the salience of these co-production projects. After all, as found in the projects under study, salience could be an influence on the equity experienced in co-production. More explicitly, the tangible reward offered by the city, a complementary currency, seems to influence the co-producers’ sense of inequity. When co-producers consider the complementary currency as the key incentive to participate, and not the gardening or the hobby as such, there is a rise in their sense of inequity. This results in complaints made by co-producers to the professionals concerning the input of other co-producers. One professional explains these complaints as follows: “It becomes so equal that people themselves start to discriminate” (Int2). The conclusion therefore seems to be that, when the salience of the project is linked to a tangible reward such as a complementary currency, more free riders will appear. However, this finding leads to another question: how problematic is this appearance of free riders? After all, if the Site’s aim is to reach all citizens, including vulnerable groups, their input might not be as important as their presence is. Here, it appears that this one specific benefit results in disgruntled co-producers because citizens in both projects start to compare their efforts with that of neighbours. The presence of a mediator who can resolve these issues by explaining certain situations and by connecting neighbours could be of vital importance to attain a sense of equity.

Moreover, the professional’s final role, the representative, could also influence this equity. After all, it is the professional who created the project, and who, as a representative of the neighbourhood, continually reconsiders the salience for his/her citizens and subsequently defends the significance of the project to decision makers higher up. Following this and assuming, as stated above, that the salience of the project influences the sense of equity, the representative could have an influence on the equity as well. Interestingly, the manifestation of this fourth role, the representative, is not mentioned by the citizens. However, when considering the presence and success of these projects—the reputation of the Site, and the appearance of more citizen initiatives that closely resemble the green space—it seems clear that these professionals forcefully and successfully present their neighbourhood to the outside world. Conversely, we can observe that they lead by example, as more residents are taking up the proverbial shovel to start their own community development initiative. The role of representative could thus be a third influential factor when considering the citizens’ empowerment.

Conclusion

In the final analysis, we conclude that co-production could be one of the answers to the various problems our society is plagued with (Brandsen et al. 2014; Durose 2011). In this article we studied one case with two sub-projects in Ghent, Belgium, to find out whether co-productive community development can include more co-producers than the usual suspects and whether these projects empower the co-producers and ensure that the benefits are equitably divided. This study also allows for some preliminary conclusions to be drawn concerning the ways in which professionals could influence the citizens’ engagement with co-productive community development projects. With regard to the second research question—how do professionals affect the levels of inclusion, equity and empowerment in co-productive community development projects—we find that these professionals adopt a variety of roles which can influence these outcomes. According to the literature, professionals need to ask, enable and respond (de Graaf et al. 2015; Durose 2011). However, our research has shown that both concepts of asking and enabling can be specified further, as the professionals consider themselves friend, representative, leader and mediator for their citizen counterparts.

Limitations

As our case study took place in a derelict neighbourhood with hard-to-reach populations, the main limitation is the difficulty of reaching and conversing with these minority groups. After all, many of the neighbourhood’s co-producers are hard to identify and get in touch with. Moreover, at the Site most co-producers were non-native Dutch speakers, which broadened the gap with the researchers. Even so, with the special help of the community development workers and a local resident, we succeeded in contacting motivated and vocal co-producers. From conversations with the community workers, we can deduce that these focus groups and the participants are representative for the regular co-producers in each project.

Secondly, there are the issues of discursive exclusion and the self-serving bias, which could both influence the results of this case study. It could therefore be posited that in both cases, the perception of the citizens is skewed by a self-serving bias, which is why they blame the community development workers for what they perceive as failures in the project, while claiming the successes as their own (Fledderus 2015). Are these professionals guilty of subconsciously avoiding certain participants and/or issues? Or do citizen co-producers, influenced by the self-serving bias, tend to be more judgemental of their professional counterparts? A combination of the two, would probably be the most realistic to consider. We have attempted to defuse these issues of bias by triangulating data from different sources in our data analysis.

Discussion

A More Inclusive Co-production

As Goodlad et al. (2005) explain, participation can be challenging in certain areas or neighbourhoods. In our case, however, we found high numbers of engaged citizens. Moreover, the diversity of the citizen co-producers in our projects suggests that the claim that participation is a combination of the ‘usual suspects’ and high SES-status citizens only should be handled with caution. This finding is in accordance with previous research done by Strokosch and Osborne (2016), Aigner et al. (2001) and Wagenaar (2007), who all found that citizens with low SES can indeed be reached through co-production and co-creation projects, if there is sufficient professional support (which in turn implies investment by government).

A More Equitable Division of Benefits

Our research also shows certain pitfalls of co-productive community development. The presence of free riders at the Site leads to questions concerning social dilemmas such as “the tragedy of commons” in local co-production projects with both individual (the currency) and collective (a ‘better neighbourhood’) benefits. The presence of free riders presents a problem for the professionals, who aim to include everyone, irrespective of their input, and it also appears to be an issue for the citizens as their sense of equity diminishes. Perhaps, as seen in this case study, the citizens’ experienced lack of equity could be linked to their dependency on these professionals as the decision makers. This would imply that too much of a certain role, e.g. leader and/or representative, could be what caused this feeling of inequity to emerge.

Furthermore, though the presence of a currency is regarded as an incentive to co-produce, we learned it can also be a negative influence in the long run. More specifically, the citizens’ experienced equity in the co-production case could diminish as they see free riders who earn the same as themselves, while doing less or nothing. This could result in disappointed co-producers who quit or become less engaged in the project. This sense of inequity caused by the currency was often mentioned at the Site, whereas the Farmstead, new to the exchange system, has had less time to adjust and learn about the benefits of the currency. As previous studies have already highlighted the importance of salience to keep co-producers engaged (Pestoff 2012; Vanleene et al. 2017), we could posit that in these projects the presence of tangible benefits could influence citizens’ involvement. As we notice a difference between the projects concerning the importance of this tangible benefit, further research as to whether and how much this influences the citizens’ sense of equity could be an interesting question to consider.

An Empowered Citizen

It is further assumed that participation will only help those who already hold a strong position in the community to gain an even stronger one (Michels 2011; Van Dooren and Thijssen 2015; Weinberger and Jutting 2001). In a comparison of the two chosen projects, one where the majority of co-producers are part of a minority group and one with largely middle-class co-producers, we had assumed we would have witnessed this effect as well. With respect to both projects, however, we have to acknowledge a lack of the citizens’ sense of empowerment, meaning they feel unable to express their viewpoint and influence the discussion and their input is not treated with respect by a transparent and trustworthy government. More surprisingly, the Site had more examples of citizen empowerment than the Farmstead. Perhaps this can be linked to the professional’s impact for, as Buckwalter (2014) noted, there needs to be direct and frequent interactions with professionals in order to achieve a sense of empowerment for the citizens. The presence of the professionals in the Site is an established fact, while their absence in the Farmstead is noticed as well. It would therefore seem Buckwalter (2014)’s claim is confirmed. In order to achieve empowerment, these professionals need to be both friends, who inform co-producers of their impact, and leaders, who lead and strengthen them in their co-production effort. It could be stated that these professionals need to be aware of their influence and have to consciously juggle this delicate balance between these facilitating and determining roles if they want to empower their co-producers.

An Influential Professional

In line with previous literature, our research highlighted the relevance of present and engaged professionals, and subsequently the need for sufficient investment in these professionals. In particular, as their different roles can have a great influence when considering the continuation, inclusiveness, empowerment and equitability of the projects. Different from previous research, we categorised these assigned roles more in-depth, creating a categorisation that originated from the professionals themselves.

We saw that the existence of different roles, and the lack of structure surrounding these facilitating and determining roles (Van Meerkerk et al. 2013), leads to a certain degree of vulnerability of the professionals and by the same token for the projects. For “when to take on which role?” becomes a serious question to ask. As we see in the Farmstead but in some respects also on the Site, these impactful role-fulfilments can be the deciding factor for a community development project to be successful or not. With respect to future research, this article can be considered a conceptual basis with which to study and explore these professional roles and their interplay further.