Event Notice
What is community-led housing, how does it work, and is it a useful response to the housing crisis?
Dr Jim Hudson, who’s been studying community-led housing projects both in the UK and Germany for the past decade or so, will first of all try to define the term (it’s a slippery one!) and then talk about his own experiences with different cohousing groups, housing co-operatives and community land trusts. Along the way he’ll touch on the demand for such schemes, why they make good communities, but also why it’s (often) so difficult to get them off the ground.
Jim is based at the School for Policy Studies, University of Bristol, and has recently completed a three-year study called CHIC (Collaborative Housing and Innovation in Care), that looked at how six community-led housing projects for/by older people in England actually work out in practice. Jim’s first career was as a chartered building surveyor, but he gave that up to live in Berlin for several years, where, apart from setting up an English bakery with his wife, he started writing about architecture and urban planning, becoming increasingly focussed on the city’s legacy of collaborative and self-managed housing projects. He returned to Berlin more recently to do a PhD that explored the benefits of living in cohousing groups there, especially for older members.
Members will be invited by email to book a place for this event.