Alive and Kicking? Resident Democracy in Nordic Social Housing: The Cases of Denmark and Finland

Co-creation has become a buzzword in city development (Brandsen et al., 2016). In its purest form it includes a set of participatory methods involving a variety of local stakeholders. Living in social housing in Denmark and Finland, however, offers a longer-standing tradition of participation to influence matters concerning housing in the social housing stock, namely resident democracy. In Finland, resident democracy is based on the law on joint administration of tenement houses. However, it has been termed “quasi-democracy”, as it merely enables residents to organise voluntary work (Huotari et al., 2017). In Denmark, resident democracy in the social housing sector has offered more involvement for residents in neighbourhood development than is generally the norm. However, while co-creation as a means for neighbourhood development has been growing, resident democracy is threatened in the social housing sector. This paper sets out to analyse and discuss the role of resident democracy in Denmark and Finland. While some cross-country comparisons of social housing systems and provision exist, very little is known about how resident democracy plays out in social housing in different countries. This paper compares recent developments and challenges of resident democracy in two social housing sectors as a means of pointing to a paradox: while in general resident involvement through co-creation in neighbourhood development is increasing, it is stagnating (Finland) or decreasing (Denmark) in the social housing sector, particularly for the residents of deprived areas. The possibility to influence the environment one lives in is of crucial importance for residents’ well-being. Alongside concurrent trends of the changing role of social housing, the diminishment of resident democracy can undermine a prior feeling of having some control over housing circumstances amongst the residents of the sector, some of whom are citizens with the least opportunities in the housing market.