Old and new housing cooperatives in France and in Poland : a comparative approach
Résumé
The presentation provides current reflexions about the past and the future of housing cooperatives in two countries which reflect the very opposite evolutions of this form of housing going on throughout Europe. It begins with an overview of the definition of cooperatives in housing, and a panorama of the development of the terminology which is now very diversified, even confusing. Then, it presents the history of housing cooperatives in Western and Eastern Europe, with the examples of France and Poland. This leads to this paradox: in France, a new law is going to institutionalize housing cooperatives, whereas there are threatened by a project of law in Poland. But besides from these very opposite attitudes coming from the states, transnational networks try to encourage citizens to engage themselves in the cooperative movement. This opens the question of the Europeanization of housing issues.