Co-housing movements require privilege while claiming community values
Co-housing movements position themselves as authentic alternatives to individualistic housing arrangements, promising genuine community and shared values. This narrative conceals the substantial privilege requirements that make co-housing accessible only to those who already have housing security.
The authenticity performance
Co-housing communities market themselves as escaping commodified housing markets to create “real” community based on mutual aid and shared values rather than economic transactions.
This framing presents co-housing as morally superior to conventional housing arrangements—more authentic, more sustainable, more human-centered. The implicit suggestion is that people choosing conventional housing are settling for inauthentic relationships driven by consumerism.
The moral positioning obscures that co-housing participation requires precisely the economic security that conventional housing markets provide to privileged participants.
Privilege infrastructure requirements
Financial stability prerequisites for co-housing participation are substantial but rarely acknowledged in community-focused marketing.
Co-housing requires upfront capital investment, often $50,000-200,000+ per household for equity shares in collectively owned property. This immediately excludes anyone without significant liquid assets or access to favorable credit terms.
Income security is essential because co-housing communities depend on long-term financial commitments from members. Gig economy workers, people with irregular income, or those experiencing economic instability cannot reliably meet ongoing financial obligations that communities require.
Career flexibility allows participation in extensive community meetings, decision-making processes, and shared labor responsibilities. People working multiple jobs, single parents, or those with inflexible work schedules cannot meaningfully participate in the intensive social processes that co-housing communities require.
Demographic homogeneity through selection
Co-housing communities systematically select for similar demographic profiles despite rhetoric about diversity and inclusion.
Educational similarity emerges because the co-housing model appeals to people comfortable with extensive discussion, consensus-building, and conflict resolution processes. This selects for college-educated, professional-class individuals familiar with these interaction styles.
Cultural capital requirements include familiarity with progressive political discourse, environmental sustainability practices, and alternative community organizing methods. These represent specific class markers that exclude people without exposure to these cultural frameworks.
Social network effects mean that co-housing communities recruit from similar social circles, creating reinforcing demographic patterns that become self-perpetuating over time.
Community as consumer choice
Co-housing transforms community from social necessity into lifestyle consumption option available to those with sufficient resources to purchase it.
Opting into community assumes that authentic social relationships can be consciously chosen and purchased rather than emerging from shared economic circumstances or geographical proximity.
This consumer model of community allows privileged individuals to experience carefully curated versions of mutual aid without the economic vulnerability that makes mutual aid necessary for survival.
Community shopping enables people to select communities that match their existing values and preferences rather than requiring them to negotiate differences with people they cannot avoid.
The sustainability performance
Co-housing communities emphasize environmental sustainability and resource sharing as core values, but their sustainability claims depend on excluding people whose resource needs might compromise community sustainability goals.
Lifestyle sustainability works for people who already have their basic needs secured and can focus on optimizing rather than surviving. People experiencing housing instability cannot prioritize long-term environmental goals over immediate shelter needs.
Resource sharing becomes a pleasant community-building activity for people with resource security rather than a survival necessity for people without individual economic buffers.
The sustainability achieved by co-housing communities is partly an artifact of excluding community members whose economic circumstances would strain shared resources.
Mutual aid simulation
Co-housing communities practice forms of mutual aid that simulate authentic community support while maintaining the individual economic security that makes such support optional rather than necessary.
Voluntary interdependence differs fundamentally from involuntary interdependence. When community members can exit if mutual aid becomes burdensome, the social dynamics differ dramatically from situations where people depend on each other for survival.
Hobby mutual aid includes activities like shared childcare, tool libraries, and community gardens that provide social connection without addressing structural economic vulnerabilities that create genuine mutual aid needs.
This simulated mutual aid allows privileged individuals to experience the psychological benefits of community support without the economic risks that make authentic mutual aid both necessary and meaningful.
Class reproduction through community values
Co-housing communities reproduce class positions while using community values rhetoric to obscure this reproduction process.
Social capital development within co-housing communities provides members with networks, skills, and cultural knowledge that enhance their economic opportunities in conventional markets.
Children’s advantages include exposure to diverse adult mentors, alternative educational approaches, and social networks that provide advantages in higher education and career development.
These benefits concentrate among families who already had sufficient privilege to access co-housing communities, amplifying rather than reducing class inequalities.
Exclusion through inclusion rhetoric
Co-housing communities use inclusion language while maintaining structural barriers that ensure demographic homogeneity.
Diversity statements in co-housing promotional materials express commitment to welcoming people across race, class, and other identity categories while maintaining economic requirements that exclude most people from these categories.
Sliding scale equity programs offer token accommodation for economic diversity while requiring that most community members meet full financial requirements to ensure community economic stability.
The inclusion rhetoric serves to legitimize communities that remain predominantly white, professional-class, and economically secure.
Alternative framing possibilities
Genuine community-oriented housing would prioritize serving people with the greatest housing needs rather than people with the greatest capacity to engage in community-building as lifestyle choice.
Housing-first community would focus on providing stable housing to people experiencing housing insecurity and building community around shared economic circumstances rather than shared values.
Involuntary community models would recognize that authentic community often emerges from people who cannot avoid each other rather than people who choose to associate based on compatibility.
The solidarity question
Real solidarity requires sharing material risks and vulnerabilities rather than sharing lifestyle preferences among people with economic security.
Co-housing movements could serve solidarity goals by focusing on providing housing to people who cannot access it through conventional markets rather than providing enhanced community experiences to people who already have housing options.
This would require abandoning the consumer model of community in favor of models based on material interdependence and shared economic vulnerability.
Conclusion
Co-housing movements represent community as a purchasable lifestyle enhancement for privileged consumers rather than a survival strategy for people with limited individual resources.
The community values rhetoric obscures that these communities systematically exclude the people who most need supportive community arrangements while providing enhanced social experiences for people who already have comprehensive social and economic support systems.
True community-oriented housing would prioritize material solidarity with vulnerable populations over providing lifestyle amenities for privileged populations seeking authentic community experiences.
This analysis examines structural patterns in co-housing movements rather than criticizing individual participants or specific communities. The focus is on understanding how community values function in housing markets shaped by substantial inequality.