Menno van der Heijden

De Coöperatieve Stad

The Cooperative City 

The potential of cooperative urban planning

The city is in constant motion, continually presenting us with new social and economic challenges. One of the most pressing issues today is the acute shortage of affordable housing, especially for single-person households. Too often, they earn too much for social housing but not enough to buy a home. My graduation project explores how housing cooperatives can offer a powerful and lasting response. 

Housing cooperatives are not just a practical solution, but a social alternative that raises a fundamental question: Who owns the city? Rather than being driven by market logic and individualism, cooperatives focus on collective ownership, democratic governance, and affordable, future-proof forms of living. International examples, such as Zurich, demonstrate that co-living and co-building on a large scale is both possible and successful. Through long-term leaseholds, cost-based rent models, and deep resident involvement, strong and resilient communities emerge. Shared ownership is the norm. 

As the number of single-person households in the Netherlands reaches 3.2 million and continues to rise, there is a growing need to revise current housing policies. The existing housing stock no longer meets their needs, yet this group remains largely overlooked in spatial planning. Housing cooperatives have the potential to change that - not as a niche solution, but as a structural alternative. 

In my project, the city of Breda serves as a model. With its ambitious urban expansion plans and a wide variety of development sites, it offers a unique testing ground for new forms of cooperative living. My design explores how a cooperative neighborhood in Breda could function. This is a spatial and social intervention in the urban fabric. 

This project is a plea for a city where shared ownership, public value and collective living play a central role. It is not a blueprint, but a proposition for a new development strategy. A city we create together.  

 

Graduation date: 18 June 2025 
Graduation committee: Jerryt Krombeen (mentor), Arie Lengkeek, Lisa van der Slot 
Additional members for the exam: Martin Probst, Flora Nycolaas