What is coliving?
Between May 2017 and January 2019, Google shows a rise in interest for the term coliving of more than 400% - and the trend seems to only have started (yes, kind of looks like Bitcoin in early days).
At this point, the term hasn’t established itself even linguistically - between “co-living” (current major adoption) to “coliving” (most probably future adoption, such as coworking) to CoLiving.
The downside of popularisation is that terms can mean nothing and everything at the same time. Especially at the early stage of an industry - in which some players are trying to define the term by creating meaningful services around it while others are taking the name as a trendy label - one must rethink what coliving truly means before getting into the game of words.
Is coliving truly nothing new?
The Short Answer
The short answer is - no, it isn’t new. Coliving has existed for decades, and we’ll take a look at a few examples of coliving forms in the past and present in the next part of this article.
The Long Answer
The long answer is: as a wider, more mature and established audience starts to desire forms of communal living, coliving is growing into a movement and industry of its own.
We’re witnessing a shift in the number of people who are ready to live in coliving spaces - not by necessity, but by choice.
The rise of remote work, collective intelligence, and a global collaborative mindset are making coliving a viable alternative of living for many, including established families and individuals. When looking at the lower price spectrum of coliving spaces, it is also a solution to the rising rental price epidemic, and satisfies many people’s need for flexible and short-term housing desires.
Hence, we’re seeing coliving rise for the first time in history as an industry that satisfies a new lifestyle outside of traditional cohabitation spaces (such as student housing).
Myth #1: Coliving means people share common spaces
The most basic definition of coliving has been given by Bothell and Tummers:
“Coliving: a residential structure that accommodates three or more biologically unrelated people”
As George Green points out in “The Logistics of Harmonious Co-living”, “the “co” has been proposed to mean ‘Collaborative’, ‘Communal’ and ‘Collective’, and thus includes a wide variety of practices” (Vestbro, 2010).
What it excludes: family-centered living, compounds, cohousing facilities, and apartment complexes.
Adding different layers to it:
- For-profit: differentiating “coliving companies” and “self-organized communes”
- Freely chosen: removing prisons, military, hospitals
- Primary residence: removes short-term campings, festivals (Burning Man), retreats, summer camps, hotels/hostels, and guest houses
Which gives us:
“Coliving = is a freely chosen form of primary residence living offered as a service by for-profit companies that accommodates three or more biologically unrelated people and improves the quality-of-life for its residents among others through the presence of a strong community.”
Myth #2: Coliving was born in Denmark in the 70s
Where this myth comes from: the IMAGINE podcast and popularization since 2017.
Historical forms of coliving that always existed:
- Housesharing, flatsharing and communes (Mark Zuckerberg’s Palo Alto residence in 2014)
- Non-commercial intentional communities (Jesus People of USA)
- Squatting (and guardianship)
- Student housing and boarding schools
- Senior housing
- Boarding homes: in this example again, the concept is not new. Stated in CityLab’s 2016 article “A Brief History of Co-Living Spaces”, professor Wendy Gamber explains how in the 19th and 20th century “between one third and one half of nineteenth-century urban residents either took in boarders or were boarders themselves”. Also, boarding homes were often targeting new city arrivers. For example, Jeanne D’Arc Residence in Chelsea offered a home for “friendless French girls” who immigrated for work as seamstresses or caregivers. Moreover, during World War 2, boarding houses also offered shelter for men stationed in foreign places.
- Adult-oriented coliving: putting it into a historical context, Matthew Steward has pointed out how large coliving facilities existed already in the early 20th century. For example, North London’s “Isokon” project in the 1930’s offered individual rent, communal spaces, and services around the coliving space. Nevertheless, the project failed and similar concepts were started again in the late 2000’s, such as The Collective in London.
Myth #3: Coliving is only for millennials
No. In fact, the rise of coliving will be about CASIAGO ;-)