Housing Cooperatives: The Better Abundance Agenda

I’m still working my way through Ezra Klein’s and Derek Thompson’s book Abundance, which urges liberals to embrace doing “big things” again. If we want more housing, for example, we need to combine government money pouring into housing with regulatory reforms that speed up the projects. Their principal villains are NIMBY-minded activists who use a zillion environmental and other regulatory rules to delay, thwart, and defeat progressive projects. They argue for streamlining regulations and empowering a technocratic elite to squash local opposition.

While I’m sympathetic to regulatory reforms, especially when it comes to securities regulations, I’m doubtful that “big things” are always the best solutions to big problems. Sometimes it’s better to unleash many small things, in many places, led by many different groups, each sensitive to the needs of the affected communities.

A case in point is housing. Yes, we have a huge national housing shortage, with some estimates suggesting we need five to six million more housing units. The proof of the problem is over three-quarters of a million homeless people, unaffordable rents for millions more, and the inability of young people to build wealth through housing. And yet, must the solution be to give developers and landlords a “go wild” card to build anything they want, anywhere they want, local planning be damned?

We have written about many other kinds of creative solutions to the housing crisis in previous issues: Nonprofit land trusts, for example, can begin to put together unused or underused parcels of land for housing development, build smaller units, and provide ownership opportunities with lower down payments and lower monthly mortgage fees. Local governments can support these innovative structures with more capital and land. And local investors can provide substantial additional capital that can accelerate the acquisition.

Anyone who thinks local land trusts are not “big things” has never been to Burlington, Vermont. Founded in 1984, the Champlain Housing Trust now manages over 3,000 affordable homes across northwest Vermont. Along with shopping centers and other commercial properties in its portfolio, the nonprofit has assets probably worth more than $200 million. The key to making this happen was not to crush local planning but to empower it through a small, well-targeted infusion of municipal money.

Our first article, from The New York Times, provides another interesting nonprofit model of housing from Switzerland. Residents buy into a cooperative (with a fee significantly lower than a down payment for a private house), and then obtain far more affordable housing in long-term contracts. About eight percent of residents of the city of Lausanne live in these co-ops. One in five apartments in Zurich is part of a nonprofit co-op. One result: The total number of homeless Swiss is about 2,000.

Paying subscribers will find other articles on this theme and other themes of community empowerment:

• The Ujima Project has just approved a $300,000 loan to finance construction for the Boston Neighborhood Community Land Trust.

• The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics recently reviewed data on firms with employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs) and found that, compared to similar companies without ESOPs, employees had a median job tenure three years longer, median income 23% higher, and median net household wealth 45% higher.

• Worker co-ops are fast spreading in the United States, and a hundred of their leaders recently came together in Baltimore to strategize on how to strengthen their sector.

• Investors appear to be ignoring the Trump Administration’s efforts to kill the U.S. renewable energy industry. Between January and August, investment in oil and gas exchange traded funds (ETFs) generated a -2% return, while investment in clean energy ETFs generated a 19% return. Funding at the top six banks for oil, gas, and coal projects over this period was 25% lower than the same period in 2024.

• Finally, Jesse Simmons provides principles for foundations to move their assets into place-based investments.

All these stories show that big things can and should happen locally, with local concerns honored, and local investment providing the rocket fuel to propel them forward.

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