Prefiguring redistributive housing commons: public–cooperative experiments in Berlin, Rome and Barcelona

Abstract

This paper examines how movement-led practices are translated into redistributive housing commons through hybrid forms of public–community governance, both existing and potential, in Berlin, Rome, and Barcelona. It situates housing decommodification within post-austerity urban housing crises shaped by rent inflation, touristification, and the financialisation of private rental markets. In these contexts, tenants’ and housing-rights mobilisations have expanded, contributing to more assertive policy repertoires while also consolidating alternatives to market provision, notably right-of-use cooperatives and other collective forms of tenure that are increasingly supported by local institutions. Yet decommodification does not in itself secure redistribution: community-led housing remains niche and often economically inaccessible amid shrinking public assets, rising land and construction costs, financial thresholds linked to debt and entry contributions, as well as complex technical procedures. Drawing on a comparative analysis of three “test sites” — Bethanien, Porto Fluviale, and Casa Orsola — the paper argues that access to vacant or underutilised public assets, adaptive reuse, self-rehabilitation schemes, and municipal acquisition can function as socio-institutional forms of “in-kind support”. By enabling movement-led practices to experiment with prefigurative politics and redistribute agency, these arrangements offer transferable insights for developing housing commons that are more accessible, potentially redistributive, and scalable alongside public housing.