ABSTRACT
The revival of co-operative housing in the early 1960s in East and Central Europe was a step towards recommodification; the charge for a flat in a cooperative approximated more closely to the costs of construction and maintenance. The role and significance of housing co-operatives in the former socialist countries has varied between the individual states and over time. Sweden’s comparatively strong co-operative housing tradition is in a mutually reinforcing relationship with the co-operative movement more generally. Privatising council housing and changing the statutes governing co-operative housing transforms accommodation from a use value into an exchange value and ensures that each household possesses a measure of wealth. The co-operative tenant has an interest in the cooperative’s financial probity and in its maintaining a high level of professional and prudent management. Like the notion of co-operatives, community architecture is more of a movement of ideas and social forces, rather than a tight definable set of practices.
