Cohousing

Abstract: Does design influence social interaction in cohousing? How crucial is it? What other factors are involved? Can the impact of design be enhanced by the personal characteristics of residents or the formal social structures operating in a cohousing community? How can we design communities to increase social interaction in the future? Cohousing provides a useful case study because it uses design and formal social structures to encourage social interaction in neighbourhoods. In addition, informal social factors and personal characteristics of those living in cohousing communities predispose them to social interaction. Thus, cohousing is a housing form with optimal conditions for social interaction. Cohousing also provides a unique opportunity to study these variables in one setting to determine the relative importance of each and how social and personal factors may help to enhance the outcomes of design.

Abstract: This article explores an agenda towards post-carbon cities, extending and deepening established debates around low-carbon, sustainable cities in the process. The label post-carbon builds upon issues beyond those of greenhouse gas ( GHG) emissions, energy conservation and climate change, adding a broader set of concerns, including economic justice, behaviour change, wellbeing, land ownership, the role of capital and the state, and community self-management. The article draws upon a case study of an embryonic post-carbon initiative completed in early 2013 called Lilac. Based in Leeds, Lilac stands for Low Impact Living Affordable Community and is the first attempt to build an affordable, ecological cohousing project in the UK. Its three aspects each respond to significant challenges: low-impact living and the challenge of post-carbon value change; affordability and the challenge of mutualism and equality; and community and the challenge of self-governance. I conclude the article by exploring six lessons from Lilac that tentatively outline a roadmap towards post-carbon cities: the need for holistic approaches that deal with complex challenges, prioritizing self-determination rather than just participation, engaging with productive political tensions, adopting a process rather than an outcomes-based approach, developing strategy for replicability, and finally, embracing a non-parochial approach to localities.

Abstract: This paper opens up a novel geographical research agenda on building transitions beyond the capitalist present. It brings into conversation two previously disconnected areas of academic debate: socio-technical transition studies and more radical work on post-capitalism. The paper offers empirical evidence of real-life socio-spatial practices that build postcapitalist socio-technical transitions through a case study of the daily experiences, motives and values of residents in a community-led cohousing project in the UK. I begin by exploring definitions around post-capitalism and transition thinking, and then introduce the notion of the urban commons to point towards the geographies of post-capitalist transitions and illustrate the kinds of social and spatial relations that underpin them. The paper then provides empirical substance for a geographical agenda around post-capitalist transitions through the case study, highlighting themes of experimentation, transformation and direct democracy. The paper concludes with some strategic future reflections and makes a claim for a geographical research agenda that elaborates the possible radical geographies and place imaginaries of post-capitalist transitions in our teaching, research and policy work. Unless geographers forge direct and necessary links between transitioning and moving beyond capitalism, our ability to take decisive and meaningful action on the challenges that lie ahead will be limited.