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Cooperatives have long been recognized as a means of providing affordable housing. Since they are owned by their residents, cooperatives offer continuing economic incentives and social opportunities for residents interested in controlling their social environment and improving the quality of their lives.

Provide these examples one by one verbally and have people discuss and decide as a group what type of co-op each is, both in ownership structure and economic sphere.

Individual ownership of “stories" of property probably developed further in Europe during the early housing shortages, which resulted as populations grew in cities confined within walls. In medieval times, many towns that later developed into some of Europe's largest cities were surrounded by walls tO protect them from marauders; Paris, for example, was once a tiny town of about 675 acres situated within high walls, the first of which was erected between 1180 and the early 1200s.

The first housing co-operatives were organized in New York City in the late 1800s. Historically, the development of housing cooperatives in the US followed two paths: limited equity and market rate. Significant co-op housing development happened after World War I in New York and San Francisco. And Chicago. They mainly involved people with higher incomes. More than 10.000 dwelling units of limited equity co-operatives were sponsored by unions and built in New York City during the 1920s. Most of the union-sponsored cooperatives survived the Great Depression of the 1930s, while most of the market-rate housing co-operatives did not.