The place and the role of housing cooperatives in urban governance: Lessons from France and Poland

International audienceThe financial, economical and social crisis at the end of the 2000s have given more credit to the idea of cooperatism, because it appears as a more resilient model of doing something together in society (a more resilient way of doing business, of farming the land, of building and living a house). It is coming back not just as an ideal, but as an addition of practices and experiences in different countries and in different fields. There are more and more housing, consuming, agricultural, credit, industrial cooperatives which account for a “third sector”, between the public and the private one, and which account for a citizen participation, for what is called empowerment. Cooperatives are one aspect of the so called “third sector”of housing between public and private.The “third sector” of housing recovers social realities that are close together but under different names. Housing is in many countries in Europe a local issue: the municipality is responsible for town planning, that is the allocation of plots for residential use, and for social housing. The cooperative in its new forms puts in question these functions in many countries. The renewal of housing coopeoratives (or the attempt for) addresses new challenges to urban governance in France and in Poland