Community Living from an Urban Ecology Perspective: Getting into Cohousing

In recent decades, coinciding with the housing crisis, new ways of living and coexisting around housing as a human dimension have emerged. Among them, collaborative housing or *cohousing*, a practice with a long tradition in other countries, stands out. In this paper, cohousing is understood as a social movement that transforms the traditional ways of living, so we intend to study it as a device for change in the use and consumption of housing.

Our approach links this phenomenon to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Goals such as the promotion of “Sustainable cities and human settlements”, “Responsible production and consumption” or “Gender equality” are key to interpret the role of this emerging social practice. The proposal of cohousing can promote values such as sustainable consumption, collaboration or coexistence and care, which makes communities play a crucial role in environmental sustainability, and can be a key element in combating climate change.

This work is based on several premises: How do communities contribute to the benefit of sustainability and climate change? How can housing become a social agent for the fulfillment of the SDGs?

The methodology used is qualitative and starts with a mapping of initiatives in urban and rural areas that show a special concern for sustainability and climate change. The mapping is complemented by in-depth interviews with key actors in these initiatives, such as public administrations, users and social movements. The first results point to the multiplication and increase of collaborative mechanisms and ecological practices driven by community living. Thus, the co-housing experience is an impulse for new possibilities of meeting and care where consumption follows the logics of sustainability.