Promoting neighbourhood sharing: infrastructures of convenience and community

Against the background of high levels of energy and resource demand in the residential sector, this paper investigates one potential way of making housing more sufficient: sharing at the neighbourhood level. Evidence from French and German case studies of ‘collaborative housing’ and ‘developer-driven neighbourhood sharing’ is used to identify two types of popular sharing practices: community-oriented and convenience-oriented. The first group of sharing practices is underpinned by creating, maintaining and experiencing social ties with neighbours. The second group of practices is guided by getting day-to-day tasks done smoothly and efficiently. To support the establishment of such sharing practices, some social and organisational measures are suggested. Thus, convenience-oriented sharing practices may be promoted by infrastructures and associated services that optimise the availability of sharing facilities and minimise temporal stretches and consumption work involved in practice performances. Community-oriented sharing practices may benefit from infrastructural arrangements that enable chance encounters, privilege community spaces over private areas and create welcoming spatial atmospheres.