ABSTRACT
Chapter 3 explores motivations for shared living. Through exploring pathways into sharing and the various factors that influenced sharers’ housing circumstances we consider the balance between individuals’ housing ideals and the concrete realities of their shared living arrangements. Accordingly, we consider the interaction between individual and collective motivations for sharing and dominant discourses of housing, home and family. We also focus on the often high expectations of shared living arrangements associated with cohousing and shared housing co-operatives, and finish by exploring the nature of the family-like bonds that could develop between co-residents.
