The contribution of cohousing to urban development: contradictions, challenges and potentialities
This research aims to analyze cohousings, collaborative intentional communities, and seeks to answer the following research questions: is cohousing as a proposal for collective housing production a path to the “decommodification” of housing? To what extent does this housing model materialize in concrete experiences? It is intended to broaden and deepen the academic debate on the theme, to provide relevant contribution to groups in development for the constitution of cohousing, especially in Brazil, as well as to different professional segments. It is also intended to stimulate propositional actions and new arrangements in the face of the housing problem. From a literature review, associated with a document analysis, the emergence of cohousings in the housing panorama of the 60s, in Europe and Latin America, is contextualized. In a second moment, we discuss how communities are inserted in the contemporary housing market, dialogue with the issue of common goods and address the issue of socio-environmental sustainability in the neoliberal scenario. Finally, an overview is presented of how the concept and model have been developing in the last decade in Latin America and, particularly, in Brazil. For the Brazilian cases, empirical research was carried out through semi-structured interviews. Experiences that indicate alternatives in the field of housing are also presented, especially the community of La Borda, in Spain, and Vila ConViver, in Brazil. That said, it is inferred that the decommodification of housing through cohousings is not fully possible. In the Brazilian case, since the legal system is focused on the defense of individual property, the challenge is even greater, which is one of the main obstacles to the transformation of the housing culture. However, even with the contradictions and challenges presented, the social architecture of a cohousing is its greatest asset and, therefore, its potential lies in the practices of doing-common as a collective work and in the rescue of principles and values constantly destroyed by the commodification practiced by neoliberalism.