The Trade-Off Between Capital and Community: The Conditions for Successful Co-production in Housing

Abstract

Housing is an area in which the active involvement of citizens in the provision of services has the potential to enrich individual lifestyles, local communities and the organisations providing housing, regardless of whether public, private for-profit or non-profit. Yet in current housing markets, housing tends to be purely individual, in the form of home ownership, or collectively managed through social rented housing. The article explores the conditions under which co-production in this field could be successful, as an alternative model. The analysis, which draws upon the work of Ostrom, is based on empirical fieldwork carried out among German housing cooperatives. As it turns out, successful co-production depends primarily on the long-term maintenance of group boundaries and specific trajectories of organisational development. This can make co-production an attractive model for specific social groups, but there are drawbacks: it also tends to lead to limited use of the invested capital and an inward orientation.Résumé Logement est une zone dans laquelle la participation active des citoyens dans la prestation de services a le potentiel d'enrichir les modes de vie individuels, collectivités locales et les organismes de fourniture de logements, peu importe si le public, privé à but lucratif ou à but non lucratif. Encore dans les marchés du logement, logement tend à être purement individuelle, sous la forme d'accession à la propriété ou gérés collectivement par l'entremise de logement locatif social. Cet article explore les conditions en vertu de laquelle coproduction dans ce domaine pourrait être couronnée de succès, comme un modèle alternatif. L'analyse, qui s'inspire des travaux de Ostrom, repose sur empirique sur le terrain réalisé auprès de coopératives de logement allemand. Il s'avère que, coproduction réussie repose principalement sur le maintien à long terme de limites de groupe et des trajectoires Resumen La vivienda es un área en la cual la participación activa de los ciudadanos en la prestación de servicios tiene el potencial para enriquecer los estilos de vida individuales, las comunidades locales y las organizaciones proporcionar alojamiento, independientemente de si es público, privado con fines de lucro o sin fines de lucro. Aún en los actuales mercados de la vivienda, vivienda tiende a ser puramente individual, en forma de propiedad de la vivienda, o colectivamente gestionada a través de viviendas sociales de alquiler. El artículo explora las condiciones bajo las cual coproducción en este campo podrían tener éxito, como un modelo alternativo. El análisis, que se basa en el trabajo de Ostrom, se basa en campo empírica llevada a cabo entre las cooperativas de vivienda alemán. Como resulta, coproducción exitoso depende principalmente en el mantenimiento a largo plazo de las fronteras del grupo y trayectorias específicas de desarrollo organizacional. Esto puede hacer coproducción un modelo atractivo para determinados grupos sociales, pero hay desventajas: también tiende a conducir a un uso lim...

User co-production of public service delivery: Effects on trust

“…Citizens can be motivated by individual and collective benefits simultaneously too. For example, tenants of social housing cooperatives co-produce because they enjoy the social contacts, but also because they are able to rent at advantageous prices (Brandsen and Helderman, 2012). Comparative research across different sectors is needed to gain more insight into the process of motivating people to co-produce.…”

“…Although there are no visible boundaries in terms of rules of participation, parents in these cooperatives are generally higher educated, have better salaries, and are more often living in two-parent families. In Germany, housing cooperatives exist, which are able to actively engage their residents in and around their near living environment (Brandsen and Helderman, 2012). They could be described as integrated communities where, particularly in the older cooperatives, social bonds and family ties still play a role.…”

“…Often, within networks, participation is motivated by the access to a common-pool resource, such as affordable housing or high quality child care (Brandsen and Helderman, 2012). A risk exists that some members would like to benefit from this access without putting any effort in.…”

“…For instance, parental cooperatives in Sweden attract mainly highly educated parents with a concern about the quality of child care . Although such a selection might have positive outcomes for the people involved in co-production, it could also lead to rather closed communities and the exclusion of other citizens (Brandsen and Helderman, 2012).…”

“…At the heart of these discussions, there is a notion that citizens should no longer be treated as passive clients or consumers, but as (potentially) active co-producers of the services they receive. Examples of co-production can be found in diverse sectors: residents unite with the police in neighbourhood watch schemes to combat crime and tackle antisocial behaviour (Fleming, 2005); tenants plan and manage social housing through housing cooperatives (Brandsen and Helderman, 2012); volunteers in care services supplement the resources of professional staff, such as parents in child care; patients actively engage in making decisions about their preferred lifestyles and medical treatment (Hyde and Davies, 2004).…”