Property relations between state and market: a history of housing cooperatives in Denmark
Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: Housing cooperatives are frequently evoked as models for affordable housing pursuable by civil society actors. But this housing form typically assumes intermediate and historically unstable positions in housing systems. The empirical aim of this article is to analyse the history of Danish housing cooperativism in the interplay between state and market, while the theoretical aim is to elucidate how property relations enable and constrain housing cooperatives as accessible and affordable alternatives. It is argued that housing cooperatives are civil-society alternatives with relative autonomy from state and market. The involved property relations allow members significant scope to collectively produce and manage their own housing, but this also makes housing cooperatives relatively exclusive, and use rights are prone to become income rights. In Denmark, the state has played a key role in facilitating housing cooperativism and controlling affordability. But history also points to federal modes of organising property relations to maintain affordability and the relative autonomy of housing cooperatives.
Source: Housing Studies
Author: Henrik Gutzon Larsen
Institution: Lund University
Language: English
Subfield: Urban Studies
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Funder: Svenska Forskningsrådet Formas
OpenAlex ID: W4400868514