NETCO, as presented on https://netcoproject.org, is the European Network of Cities for Collaborative Housing. Founded through an initiative led by the City of Barcelona with support from the European Commission’s Citizen, Equality, Rights and Values Programme (CERV), this organization emerged in late 2022 to facilitate knowledge exchange among municipal public servants, practitioners, and representatives of civil society in the field of collaborative housing across Europe.
NETCO’s core purpose is to aid local and regional governments in sharing practical expertise about collaborative housing, an approach that emphasizes community, affordability, and participatory governance in urban housing policy. The network functions as a connector between cities with established collaborative housing practices and those in the initial stages of developing such policies.
Founding partners in NETCO’s first phase (from November 2022 to April 2024) included cities and regions such as Amsterdam, Barcelona, Bologna, Brussels, Cluj-Napoca, Dresden, Dumfries (South of Scotland), Eindhoven, Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg (Berlin), Ljubljana, Lyon, Navarra, Oslo, Strasbourg, Thessaloniki, and Zagreb. Current activities include study visits, peer learning sessions, and field research to analyze and document a spectrum of collaborative housing projects. For example, NETCO facilitated site visits to understand the management of community spaces in affordable housing developments and partnered with local associations in Brussels to co-manage communal facilities.
NETCO also invites new members from local governments, civil society, and research organizations, with a focus on expanding the network’s reach and evidence base on collaborative housing models in Europe.