Property relations between state and market: a history of housing cooperatives in Denmark

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.

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