In Planning Theory & Practice

This issue of Interface, on community housing models, speaks directly to the contrast of increasing luxury and corresponding prices on one hand, and displacement on the other. Taking up the question of what is needed to support, sustain, and expand the non-market-driven housing sector, the papers provide insight into housing provided through community leadership and cooperative ownership models. Each author in this Interface is an experienced practitioner and researcher. They are writing from the Anglo-American perspective – England, the UK, Canada, and the US – facing housing systems that are inadequate to the level of need for secure and affordable housing access.

The reflections in this Interface seek to define the core elements of community housing and to illustrate the diversity of its forms and its aims. The papers suggest that rationales for community-led housing are found in a wide range of ideological positions – from revolutionary and anti-colonial, to seeking equitable participation in democracy, to mainstream cost-benefit analyses of the benefits of this form of affordable housing provision. All, however, agree that at the core is the leadership and enfranchisement of the people living in the community, in housing that is not buffeted by market forces.