Establishing new housing commons in Vienna in the context of translocal networks

Abstract

We are currently observing an international trend towards the establishment of nonprofit-oriented, collaborative and self-managed housing models. In this respect, ideas have been circulating globally and initiatives mutually interacting. The SchloR and Bikes and Rails syndicate projects in Vienna, the focus of this paper, bear witness to this development. They belong to the Austrian umbrella association habiTAT, founded in 2014 along the lines of the German Mietshäuser Syndikat. Against this background, the present paper explores the ways in which mobilized housing commons are implemented in new locations and the role that translocal networks play in this context. The results of our analysis, which is based on 30, partly network-graph assisted, problem-centered interviews, reveal that the housing projects have made explicit use of translocal networks at national and international scale and that vertical linking is a key condition for those projects today. Moreover, way beyond their own needs, they contribute to set up a translocal European knowledge and expert network.