Governance of collaborative housing commons: A Berlin case study

In the face of skyrocketing rent prices threatening to exclude (especially low income) residents’ from Berlin’s (and many other) inner-city neighbourhoods, the housing commons have been increasingly perceived as a source of hope for urban citizens and movements concerned with guaranteeing residents’ right to housing and more broadly to a resident-oriented city. Parallelly, citizens and local authorities’ interest in collaborative housing has seen a resurgence in the past two decades. but scholars have attracted attention to their tendency to be exclusive. This thesis examines the impact of state governance on the development of CH as a housing commons. It finds that state resource provision can support the production of CH that is more inclusive and contributes to commoning the city, the increasing requirements upon which access to resources are made conditional, which stems from the Senate’s focus on professional actors, heightens the barriers for small groups to participate in the creation of the CH commons. This is problematic for the self-governance and inclusivity of the CH commons. Moreover, the increasingly tight austerity politics in which CH is embedded diminishes its chances of upscaling.