Dear Rachel,

I'm not an expert in this subject, however I will try help you! I found some papers which I believe it can help you. 

I hope this helps.

http://ssir.org/articles/entry/co_creation_in_government

http://cele.sog.unc.edu/

Not quite the states:

United Way (Toronto) is a Canadian NGO helping inner city neighbourhoods, social networks and resident associations to create meaningful partnerships in setting local priorities. United Way has made claims of significant outcomes as a result of its community-based approach including a fall in crime of 19% in the neighbourhoods included in the programme. The programme works with people from diverse backgrounds and helps them to build the capacity, skills, knowledge and confidence they need to improve their lives. Action for Neighbourhood Change is the foundation of United Way’s efforts to engage local residents through the ‘building strong neighbourhood’s strategy’. This strategy covers priority neighbourhoods, community groups and residents, helping draw out existing knowledge and expertise. A Resident Action Plan was developed in each neighbourhood to identify local priorities and to guide community action. United Way offers grants directly to priority neighbourhoods to fund initiatives such as playgrounds, community gardens and kitchens to promote healthy living and recreational and cultural activities. Low income neighbourhoods do lack supportive infrastructure, for example, social services such as employment counselling for newly arrived migrants. A supportive infrastructure for health promotion can be found not only in tangible resources and structures, but also through the extent of public and political awareness of health issues, and participation in action to address those issues (WHO, 1998). United Way has worked with other partners to establish ‘community hubs’ to locate several service agencies centrally, to provide easy access for local residents. Another important purpose of the ‘community hub’ has been access to a community space for the use by local resident groups to be able to come together to hold meetings (United Way, 2012).

Dear Rachel,

There is a great exemples in Rennes and Clermont-Ferrand (France) that is called "Université foraine". It works for many years and the topics and socio-spatial experiences change every year. I am not sure that there are so much papers or research on that experience. But it is a really interresting one.

The foundator of these experiences is Patrick Bouchain, who write many books and essays on this topic. unfortunaly, it seems to me that all are only in French language.

Hope, it could help you,

Christophe Gibout

http://www.universiteforaine.fr/

http://universiteforaine.over-blog.com/