Urban activism and co-housing

This chapter looks at the interrelations and dynamics between urban activism and the politics of co-housing. Drawing on empirical material from Hamburg and Barcelona, it explores the socio-political context of co-housing in the interplay of bottom-up organizing and top-down governance. With particular attention to squatting and related questions of post-autonomous urban activism, this investigation is structured according to three issues: relations to the state; horizontal organizing; and direct actions. This includes questions around the legalization of squatted houses, and intersections with broader movements. On this basis, the chapter discusses what is termed the dialectics of the politics of co-housing. This dynamic relation between grassroots organizing and top-down governance intersects in different political aspirations for co-housing – and eventually in what is understood as sustainable urban development. On the one hand, squatting and urban activism follow a political logic of empowerment, self-management, mutual self-help and solidarity. On the other hand, local city governments impose a political logic of urban governance, often with the aim of regulation, control, marketization and co-optation. This dialectic plays out differently in Hamburg and Barcelona, but the underlying contradictory political logics remain similar