Belgian housing policy has historically been based on individual ownership, with fragmented responsibility and harmful spatial consequences. An alternative to this is the housing cooperative, which is based on collective cohesion rather than individual optimisation. Housing cooperatives are not a new phenomenon: they have existed since the beginning of the 20th century, including in Belgium. Due to a political choice in favour of individual ownership, the movement lay dormant for a century, but today pioneers are re-emerging. Together, they symbolise a necessary shift: from ownership to use, from profit to value, from individual to collective living.

Housing after the First World War