2025/06/18 by Leonie Laug, Corinna Hölzl
Economics, Econometrics and Finance · Social Sciences · #Collaborative and Sustainable Housing Initiatives #Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism #Urbanization and City Planning
paper · pdf · doi:10.1080/02673037.2025.2517079
openalex publication_date 2025/06/18 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/15
While existing literature on housing cooperatives has predominantly examined institutional contexts of housing cooperatives, this paper focuses on the internal factors that explain the expansion of large cooperatives. The study is based on a qualitative comparative analysis and interviews with experts and board members of mature housing cooperatives in Berlin. The findings demonstrate that whether and to what extent cooperatives expand depends on four factors: 1) size and geographical dispersion, 2) commitment to material expansion, 3) cohesion of the boards, 4) previous paths of expansion. The results further reveal that powerful, committed boards push expansion projects while resident members are more concerned with the maintenance of their stock. Moreover, the findings suggest that expansion comes at the expense of affordability due to high costs for land, buildings, and construction. Thus, beyond confirming that upscaling limits the possibilities of self-organisation the paper argues that it is the weakened democratic structures that allow for external solidarity in the form of expansion.