Living Together

In Oslo, 40% of Housing Is Participatory. This Is Not a Utopia.

Individualism as inevitable, cohousing reserved for idealists? Across Europe, tens of thousands of people prove otherwise — with measured data on loneliness, health and life satisfaction.

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In Oslo, 40% of Housing Is Participatory. This Is Not a Utopia.

TL;DR: In Oslo, 40% of the housing stock is participatory. In Tübingen, that figure reaches 80% for new builds. These are not marginal experiments — this is ordinary urban policy. The data measure real effects on health, loneliness and life satisfaction. The model has serious limitations — and here they are.

The argument will be familiar: modern individualism is inevitable. The era of active neighbourhoods, shared meals and communal spaces is over. Everyone to themselves.

This narrative has a problem: the data contradict it.

A Movement Born from a Newspaper Article

In 1968, Jan Gudmand-Høyer published a piece in a Danish daily. He described what was missing from the modern city: intermediate spaces between the intimacy of the home and the anonymity of the street. More than 100 families responded. From this call emerged, four years later, Sættedammen — 27 independent households around shared spaces, meals shared in the evening, collective celebrations. Founded in 1972 in Nærum, Denmark, the community is today considered the first in the world to meet the definition of modern cohousing.

The principle of cohousing is not total communal living. Each household remains private and autonomous. What is shared: a common space (kitchen, dining room, workshop, garden), collective organisation, and decisions taken together. Neither flatmates nor mere neighbours — something between the two.

Numbers That Shift the Frame

The idea that this model would remain marginal does not survive scrutiny of European data. The French Ministry of Ecology documents it: in Norway, around 15% of the housing stock is participatory. In Switzerland, 5% — that is 130,000 homes. In Oslo, the share reaches 40% of the total stock. In Tübingen, Germany, more than 80% of new housing is built under this model.

These are not utopian communes. This is ordinary urban policy.

France created a legal framework with the ALUR Act of 24 March 2014. Projects such as Brutopia in Brussels — cited by the Ministry as a European example — show that the model works in dense capital cities, not only in rural areas.

Watercolour illustration of a shared cohousing courtyard, neighbours of all ages gardening together

What the Data Actually Say

What concretely happens to people who take the plunge?

In Leeds (UK), the LILAC (Low Impact Living Affordable Community) evaluated its 20 households. Health satisfaction rose from 58% to 76% compared to previous housing, and life satisfaction from 58% to 87%. Satisfaction with the housing itself reached 96% — a score higher than any other tenure type in the UK.

Laura Smith, a LILAC member, puts it this way: “Our members joined LILAC as much for the values of our community as for the affordability of our homes. We meet twice a week to eat together in the Common House: those moments create the space to talk, share, and build the bonds that make our community live.”

On the Dutch side, The Hague has more than 60 cohousing communities — the most of any Dutch city. Researchers from Erasmus University Rotterdam conducted interviews in 8 communities: residents reported little social loneliness, mutual support and a strong sense of solidarity.

These findings are part of a broader body of evidence. Carrere et al. (2020) analysed 10 studies on cohousing and wellbeing: 8 out of 10 found a positive association. The researchers emphasise, however, that these studies are mostly cross-sectional with small samples — the associations are consistent, but causality has not been established. Caution remains warranted.

The Wider Model: Ecovillages and Intentional Networks

Cohousing also has an ecological dimension. Findhorn Ecovillage, in Scotland, has around 300 residents. Its measured ecological footprint is 2.71 hectares per inhabitant — compared to 5.4 hectares for the UK average, roughly half.

At continental scale, GEN Europe (Global Ecovillage Network) federates more than 100 ecovillages and related projects, 18 national networks, across 26 countries. These communities experiment with consent-based governance (sociocracy), local food production, and non-speculative economic models.

The Limits That Need Naming

The picture would be incomplete without the real obstacles.

1 project in 10 succeeds. Monton et al. (2022) measure this: only 1 group in 10 that starts a project manages to see it through. The process takes an average of more than 10 years. This filter naturally selects people with time, capital and professional stability.

Loneliness does not disappear. In a study of 5 senior cohousing communities in the United States, Glass (2020) found that loneliness still affected 24% of residents — a rate lower than the national average, but far from zero. Cohousing reduces loneliness; it does not eliminate it.

The model structurally excludes. Crystal Byrd Farmer documents this in 2018: ownership-based cohousing creates measurable financial and racial barriers. Access to credit, median incomes and systemic biases mean that “only a small fraction of the population ends up living in community.”

Partial responses exist. LILAC developed the Mutual Home Ownership Society: residents pay 35% of their net income, regardless of market prices. New Ground OWCH in London — the UK’s first senior community, founded in 2016 by women aged 51 to 87 — included 8 social housing units thanks to exceptional funding. These solutions exist; they do not replicate themselves without public policy.

What All This Changes

Cohousing does not refute individualism — it contextualises it. European data suggest that millions of people actively choose more collective forms of housing when the legal and financial conditions allow it.

The question is not whether people want to live together. In Oslo and Tübingen, the answer is documented. The question is whether public policy makes this choice accessible beyond the most privileged.

Sættedammen started with a newspaper article and a hundred families. The community still exists today, 54 years on.

Sources

See also: The Village Movement: ageing at home, surrounded by a community that organises itself

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