IN-PERSON Lisbon Livable Cities. Section A

Abstract

European metropolises are facing a critical problem: the inability to adequately meet the demand for housing. Over the past decades, collaborative housing has emerged as one of the potential solutions to this issue. While relatively developed in Northern European countries such as Denmark or the Netherlands, collaborative housing remains a novel concept in Portugal. The country’s major cities have experienced a brutal surge in housing prices, creating more precarity among their dwellers and pushing part of their population toward peripheral areas. Meanwhile, public institutions and citizen collectives have shown a growing interest in developing collaborative housing initiatives, particularly in the form of housing cooperatives. This paper examines how different stakeholders perceive the alternatives offered by collaborative and cooperative housing. How do actors envision the alternative represented by collaborative and cooperative housing? By analysing the social representations of the housing crisis and cooperative housing projects in Portugal, this study provides insights into how this new paradigm is taking shape. Drawing on semi-structured interviews and participant observation of the creation of a national network of housing cooperatives, the findings show that housing cooperative projects are structured around multifaceted representations of the crisis, extending beyond mere access to affordable housing. They reveal a deteriorated access to dwelling, understood as an active and collective contribution to the definition of the city. Public actors and housing collectives show divergent views on these, leading to tensions in the implementation of the projects. This paper highlights these differences and their implications for the development of collaborative housing in Portugal.