macro-scale, in future not all businesses will need to be persuaded to shrink no matter what their field of activities or structural organisation. On the contrary, from a post-growth perspective, it may be better to promote businesses that excel in terms of conserving resources or focusing on the common good (Sommer 2018; Wiefek/Heinitz 2018), as far as possible in combination with employee-friendly or even democratically constituted working conditions. In brief: does it make sense to speak of post-growth on the mesolevel of the enterprise or would it be more appropriate to restrict attention to concepts like the 'transformative company' (Pfriem/Antoni-Komar/Lautermann 2015; Antoni-Komar/Kropp/Paech et al. 2019), because this approach is more conceptually open to diverse desirable paths?2

One of those arguing in favour of the latter approach is Bernd Sommer, who wishes to avoid misunderstandings by emphasising that the transition to a society which is not dependent on growth does not require every company to shrink or not to grow: 'On the contrary, in the context of such structural transformation it can be the case that certain industries and enterprises grow or multiply while others disappear. What is crucial is just that in the long-term the continued existence of individual enterprises and the stability of societies overall do not depend on endlessly sustained growth' (Sommer 2018: 20).

Representative of relevant findings are those of a research project on growth-neutral enterprises and post-growth pioneers by Jana Gebauer and Julian Sagebiel, in the course of which a broad survey of about ca. 700 SME in Germany was also carried out. The enterprises were asked about their growth orientation and it emerged that the majority, circa 60 %, had either no (34 %) or only limited (25 %) growth ambitions (Gebauer/Sagebiel 2015; Gebauer 2019). This will not surprise people who are themselves active in or research the world of small and micro enterprises and thereby tend to encounter growth aversion rather than growth ambitions. The criticism of business management principles like maximisation of profits, productivity and turnover is misguided, at least when it is applied generally without taking into consideration the fact that large companies usually (can or must) act quite differently from small ones. On the other hand, just because small

2 With 'impact dimensions' like self-empowerment, collaborative empowerment, self-sufficiency, economicself-limitation, deceleration, regionalisation/localisation, renaturation (Pfriem/Antoni-Komar/Lautermann 2015).

companies are not focused on growth does not mean that it is possible to assume a transformation is at work.

# **Reductions in working hours of one-person enterprises (OPEs) with or without a transformative agenda**

This paper draws on material gathered in qualitative interviews in small and micro enterprises from the creative industry in Vienna, especially from the graphics and internet business. The image of freelancers working long and unlimited hours around the clock automatically springs to mind. However, this notion needs to be overhauled, if only because the lack of supervisory instances means that autonomous working rhythms are more heterogeneous (see Bührmann/Hansen 2012; Muckenhuber 2014). Furthermore, individual strategies can or must be adapted more quickly, e.g. because the self-employed are not subject to working time regulations or because adaptation is necessary when there is a drop in orders. Examples of reduced or shorter working hours (in relation to daily, weekly, seasonal or other rhythms) include part-time self-employment, for instance because of childcare duties;3 a reduction in the time invested due to increases in efficiency (or, on the other hand, a lack of orders); and e.g. the realisation of a long-cherished wish to slow down after many years of professional life. Socio-ecological goals or collectively managed constellations with distinct company democracy also often correspond to preferences for reducing working hours.

Nonetheless, organisations that reduce working hours as the result of an explicitly transformative approach, for instance as part of an overall strategy to conserve resources or a democratic charter, probably remain something of a niche phenomenon. On the other hand, it is argued here that many one-person enterprises or micro enterprises follow a risk-averse 'no growth' path or tend to strive to reduce their own input, e.g. measured in working hours. This occurs, however, in diverse ways, without an ecological imperative of action or the motivation of a post-growth principle. Rather, in the middle of their professional lives (when many career goals and advancement ambitions have been realised or abandoned), actors socialised in micro enterprises rec-

3 20 % of male and 45 % of female OPEs and 8 % of male and 18 % of female 'employers' (i.e. entrepreneurswith employees)work part-time in Austria (Statistik Austria 2016: 91f f.)

ognise that (further) growth would involve a great deal of effort. They therefore focus on stabilising their economic prospects, for instance aiming to work less but without a reduction in income.

The following sections use empirical cases drawn from two research projects as a basis for discussion of working time practices that involve fewer working hours than the full-time jobs of non-self-employed persons. The first section presents no-growth paths that lead to a reduction in working hours where the actors involved do not suggest that their course of action is motivated by socio-ecological or other related factors. The examples are drawn from interview-based research conducted in 2016 with 14 self-employed persons. Working hours were a side issue here and interviewees were therefore not selected according to the number of hours they worked. It is nonetheless interesting that about half of those interviewed categorised themselves as working less than full time (four women, three men; a total of seven men and seven women were interviewed). The subsequent section presents the results of a company case study from 2019 which was conducted in the course of an investigation into alternative business models. This example demonstrates a transformative approach where a group of people with a history of working as OPEs formed an occupational association aimed at professionalising and reducing their hours of paid work.

# **Redcing working hours without a transformative agenda**

Of the 14 self-employed persons from the design and internet verticals who were interviewed in 2016, only two are employers in a literal sense, i.e. they employ staff in their own businesses. The others are legally 'independent self-employed' and most do not define themselves as having an explicit focus on expansion. Becoming an employer is thought to be extremely risky because of the associated costs. Nevertheless, it is usually important for freelancers to avoid a go-it-alone existence, because this means that only a very small range of services can be offered and also, for instance, makes it difficult to bridge long absences resulting from illness or holidays. The *modus operandi* for those who do not work in a joint company with a partner (thus for almost all of those interviewed) is therefore a sustainable network of colleagues active in the same professional field, or at least in complementary lines of business. Little seems to remain of grand artistic ambitions after

a professional career in the project world, or only in the form of subsidiary projects that are not intended for the market. Such ambitions are outweighed by an eye for the necessities: providing professional services, sustaining cost-income ratios, ensuring capacity utilisation and maintaining market reputation – all while preserving a balance between creative work and (the moderately popular) commercial management.

The survey analysis revealed the heterogeneous nature of working time strategies among self-employed individuals from the Viennese creative industry. Looking first at those who estimated that they worked more than an average of 40 hours a week (about half of those interviewed), few proved to be true 'workhorses'. Long working hours were explained by particularly intensive phases of work, e.g. filming sessions for filmmakers which often include idle periods, but also by artistic lifestyles with some of the creatives rejecting the notion of a divide between the spheres of paid and unpaid work. The interviewees who suggested that they did not work more than 40 hours a week on average over the year can be divided into two groups. Firstly, successful and somewhat older self-employed individuals, who are now slowing down and improving their quality of life after a work-intensive past of mixed success. The motto here is that professional success is no longer everything, the next generation should rather be the ones to hold the front line.

For example, after the bankruptcy of his company in the financial crisis of 2008/2009, the owner of an internet agency changed his field of business and today works as a self-employed photographer. The bankruptcy did not leave him untouched: as well as losing his assets he now has a significantly lower income. At the same time, he recognises advantages in his present professional situation as he suffers from much less stress than when he managed his company with 20 employees.

'I: If you now sum up, the years 2005 and 2015: income, working hours and satisfaction with what you do …

M: Less, less, exorbitantly more.

I: So in terms of expenditure of time sort of reasonable?

M: It is reasonable. Naturally, there are phases where a lot is going on.' (Photographer, aged 50)

Somewhat different reasons for restricting working hours to not more than 40 hours are given by the second group of younger self-employed persons who have many years of working life in front of them but nonetheless do not want to dedicate their lives just to paid work. Their argument for working shorter hours is based largely on the fact that they began their working lives as employees and only entered self-employment later. The professional socialisation of this group occurred through providing more or less creative services in the world of advertising agencies. In many sequences of dialogue, such biographies serve as an apparent paradox to desired working hours and practices: several of the interviewees chose to switch to self-employment because they realised that they did not want to end up as workaholics in the agency rat race. They hoped that being self-employed would allow them more sovereignty over daily and weekly working hours. At the same time, starting with a job as an employee provided experience about standard working hours and their meaningfulness. In contrast, limiting working hours is often of minor importance for those who start their working lives in self-employment and do not know anything else.

Rather than unlimited self-exploitation, in the course of gathering professional experience many people become concerned not with maximising output but rather with achieving a sustainable balance between external demands and their own resources. A frequently mentioned objective is to achieve as stable an income as possible while continuing to establish a market position with limited inputs of work(ing time). In some cases, restricting the working hours invested in profane creative services is also intended to free resources for their own artistic interests. It should be noted that those interviewed from the younger group (i.e. aged +/- 40) with shorter working hours tend not to be among the low earners in this sample, on the contrary a number of them are commercially well established.

One example of this is an entrepreneur who for five years has filmed advertising slots for the PR department of a large company, for instance for jubilees or regular quarterly reports. This major customer is profitable enough for the commercial filmmaker to earn a good income – while not working more than an annual average of 15 to 20 hours a week. He seems to spend the time thus gained on his own interests. For instance, in the year before the interview he used the network that he had developed in his previous job with a film production company to gain an assistant's job on the Austrian location of an international blockbuster action film. Being part of this high-end production was a great learning experience for him. He realises that he would have to reorganise his whole strategy if he lost his major customer.

'I: If you average it all out, working very intensively for a few weeks a year and then of ten less: approximately how manyworking hours aweek do you have? L: Well, perhaps 20 hours, if you spread it all out and add everything in.  In the last year I've really worked a lot. If I now look at the hours again… actually, I would rather say 15 hours a week, so on average. If I leave out the last year.' (Commercial filmmaker, aged 42)

In comparison we consider a graphic designer who set up her own company with a colleague about five years before the interview, after working for years in a large advertising agency. The young company was able to quickly gain a good reputation despite the difficult market – in part through ex-colleagues who had moved to the PR departments of advertising purchasers. Now that her partner has left the business, the interviewee works as an OPE and coordinates a considerable network of freelancers with whom she can tackle relatively large projects. As the acquisition and care of customers has become her core competence, she maintains a central position in the network and earns correspondingly well. She has reduced the amount of creative work she undertakes in favour of project management and outsources a great deal to the freelancers.

'I: Do you actually plan to expand?

Z: No, it's better to do less and demand more for it. So generally I always want to do lessthan I'm doing. And Ithink that af terten years you can say, yes, people come to me for a certain reason. Because they think it's good… […]

I: How about your working times, overall, if you count hours in the week: more or less than 40 hours?

Z: Well certainly not more, I can't imagine that. […] No, the aim is simple: better paid hours.

I: Yes, okay. But better paid hours may mean that I work the same amount and earn more or I earn the same amount and then have less work.

Z: No, I work less because I … because it's so well paid, I can much better af ford someone else to do the work … so that I can have it pretty cushy.' (Graphic designer, aged 38)

# **Founding an association and reducing working hours as a transformative approach**

So, what is different about certain organisations that justifies labelling them 'transformative'? I analyse this using the example of a company that is also in the internet industry, which facilitates comparison. This case is part of a series of case studies scrutinising diverse 'alternative' organisational models, ranging from co-operatives to fab labs to the peer-to-peer economy and barter exchanges.

The company in question is a fusion of (so far) five one-person enterprises (three men and two women aged between 35 and 60). The individuals concerned have known each other for a long time through various networks and project constellations but only decided a year ago to legally amalgamate as a joint graphics agency, not in the usual legal form of a limited company but as a co-operative. In addition to fulfilling their desire for greater interaction and community, the decision to form an association was motivated, firstly, by the fact that this allows the entrepreneurs to hold employment contracts (with unemployment insurance benefits). None of the five founding members escapes the need to find customers, but the revenue is now generated in the name of the co-operative, is administered by the co-operative and is then paid to the members according to their employment contracts or working hours. In the initial years, profits are reinvested, e.g. in office infrastructure. It should be mentioned that the five members of this co-operative do not all contribute their entire turnover to the new association, several continue to serve some of their existing customers on a self-employed basis. The association approach is clearly intended to reduce individual business risk. Furthermore, personal liability is limited to a reasonable sum, namely double the amount of the individual investment of circa 2000 euros. As entrepreneurs but simultaneously also neo-employees, there is also the option of drawing unemployment benefit if necessary.

Secondly, the foundation of the co-operative was motivated by a wish for solidarity. For instance, those involved hoped for more democracy than is generally found in a joint-stock company, because in the articles of association it was agreed that each member should have one vote rather than the number of votes being governed by the amount of an individual's investment. There is undoubtedly a transformative aspect to this resolution, which should also help to encourage moderate corporate growth. Contrary to post-

growth or shrinkage paradigms, the co-operative is interested in recruiting new members, up to 10-12 in the medium term, in order to extend and safeguard the portfolio. Self-employed acquaintances with complementary competences are therefore offered an opportunity to join the association and thus a chance of escaping the typical insecurity of freelancers.

'I: Why a co-operative actually?

G: Actually it is, for me at least, the greater amount ofsolidarity. And a dif ferent focus now, notso much profit optimisation, which is ofcourse rather the case in a limited company. […] Till now, we've had a year, it has gone very well. Also we went into this af fair on an equal footing, that's already a dif ferent understanding.' (Graphic designer, aged 49)

Thirdly, during the interviews several members of the co-operative made clear that they were particularly concerned with restricting their working hours, initially through professional cooperation or project organisation. The desire for more (working-time) efficiency in everyday procedures is naturally not in itself a transformative approach, for instance in socio-ecological terms. However, the additional reasons given are of interest. The focus is not primarily on reducing the number of weekly working hours – for instance, by introducing a binding 30-hour week or something similar, like in other enterprises. That would apparently be relatively difficult for those interviewed during this case study. After the years they have spent organising their own working rhythms, it requires a great deal of effort to even discover how many hours a week they work on average (strictly speaking vs. broadly speaking, etc.). The desire to reduce working hours seems more connected to two specific objectives.

Firstly, the aim is to have more time for creative work, volunteering or alternative pursuits other than their primary professional activities. Four of the five interviewees mentioned diverse non-commercial activities that require a relevant amount of time (1x artistic activity, 2x volunteer work, 1x academic thesis). Those involved do not want to give up such pursuits. Indeed, the intention is that the association should facilitate their non-professional interests by stabilising business operations and the understanding that professional commitments should generally not exceed a 40-hour week.

Secondly, the topic of reducing working hours ref lects a desire to take longer breaks but with a right to return to work ensured by membership of the association. As 'habitualised' self-employed service providers, several of the interviewees are all too aware of the problem of being absent for a longer period of time without running the risk of losing customers (e.g. longer holidays abroad), not to mention extended periods of recuperation from illness or burnout conditions. Hence there was a desire to leave the self-employment-past behind and finally enjoy the chance of a break – safeguarded by the vehicle of participation in the co-operative.

'B: And the next thing is that there is also a wish to be replaceable. That it is positive if you are replaceable, because then you get breaks for other business and generally.

I:Have I understood it properly: Ican finally be away forlonger and then have no problem coming back?

B: That is a really strong argument for me, namely also that the culture is that it is not just okay but rather that it is even to a degree welcomed. I know that from other organisations, that it is of ten extremely problematic if people want to back of f even just a bit, take leave or educational leave or do voluntary work or something like that.' (Graphic designer, aged 44)

# **Conclusion**

In discourses on post-growth economies, arguments focus on whether and to what extent entire economies can be brought to pursue a no-growth path, particularly for ecological reasons. Discussion considers the policy agendas that should be established – and why it is difficult to identify significant transformation movements on the enterprise level, apart from pioneers in rather narrowly defined sustainability niches or in diverse non-profit worlds. In contrast, this paper argues that a significant proportion of one-person enterprises already implicitly follow a no-growth path and thus actually want to reduce their input, e.g. measured in working hours, rather than expand. This manifests itself in diverse ways and is likely to be far removed from post-growth imperatives.

Using interviews with self-employed creatives in Vienna, it has been demonstrated that many actors develop aspirations that result in the stabilisation of their own output. Their working hours then vary with peaks and troughs in capacity utilisation but average less than 40 hours a week. Many

actors perceive the limits of their own resources by the time they are in the middle third of their professional biographies. In light of these limits, it is then about achieving a reasonable balance between input and output. In line with this aim, many entrepreneurs tend to proactively restrict and reduce their working hours. And of course, there are numerous pioneering companies from which much can be learnt.

# **Cited literature**

ish households. *Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy, 33*(4), 726–745.

**Lessons from Practice**

# **The emancipatory project of degrowth**

*An interview with Andrea Vetter and Matthias Schmelzer, conducted by Meret Batke, Mai Anh Ha and Bastian Lange*

Andrea Vetter writes, researches, talks and organises for socio-ecological change; primarily for the '*Haus des Wandels*' ('House of Transformation') in eastern Brandenburg, for the '*Konzeptwerk Neue Ökonomie*' ('Laboratory for new economic ideas') in Leipzig and for the journal '*Oya: enkeltauglich leben*' ('Oya: grandchildren-compatible living'). She teaches 'Transformation Design' at University of Fine Arts in Braunschweig.

Matthias Schmelzer works with '*Konzeptwerk Neue Ökonomie*' on social utopias, alternative economics and degrowth and is a research assistant at the University of Jena. He is actively involved in the climate justice movement.

*In debates on post-growth and degrowth, how do you dissociate yourselves from right-wing spatial semantics?*

Matthias Schmelzer: One of the main thrusts of the postgrowth or degrowth discussion – in our German book on this concept we use both terms almost synonymously – is to confront the neoliberal, authoritarian and fossil globalisation with a vision of a more small-scale economic system that focuses on needs and care. This has certain superficial similarities with right-wing spatial semantics or imaginings, so that those on the right have at times taken up 'post-growth' as a keyword. In particular, the far-right faction of the AfD [*Alternative für Deutschland –* Alternative for Germany] expresses views that refer to a small-scale approach, and several years ago they used the term 'post-growth economy'.

From an emancipatory, left-wing perspective, the possibility of appropriation is of course problematic for critical debate and for a vision of a regionalised and de-globalised economy. That's why in our view the basic motivation and focus for emancipatory post-growth and degrowth policies should always be the prospect of global justice, which goes hand in hand with a call for open borders. Open primarily in relation to the free movement of people, not necessarily also of goods, services and capital – it may very well be reasonable to discuss certain restrictions there. For instance, implementing a post-growth economy in a globalised world economy will certainly involve controlling f lows of capital in the transition period.

In discussing alternatives to borders, the degrowth debate uses the term 'open re-localisation' to clearly distinguish this from culturally closed 'bioregions'. A central part of degrowth practices, and one that is still insufficiently implemented, is for instance practical solidarity with refugees who have been deprived of their rights to freedom of movement.

### *Is that a kind of internal decolonisation or de-imperialisation that every individual should practise?*

Matthias Schmelzer: In the degrowth debate the focus is on economic categories such as GDP that we have internalised and on questioning our Western vision of what makes a good life. Serge Latouche, one of the early pioneers of degrowth, proposed terming this a 'decolonisation of the imaginary', but there is also criticism of the use of this notion. In essence this criticism says that 'colonisation' and 'decolonisation' are terms that were coined to apply to very specific historical and social contexts and today their main function is to address racism and the consequences of colonisation. When these terms are transferred to another field such as economics, then their critical potential is taken and appropriated for something else. Nonetheless, the fundamental idea of questioning and freeing ourselves from entrenched imaginaries about hierarchical society and capitalist economies is central to the degrowth discussion.

#### *Are there practical examples for this fundamental idea of degrowth?*

Andrea Vetter: A change of perspective is needed to learn to really see the world in which I live. One example is the omnipresent smartphone. If I look closely at the phone in my pocket, what materials it is made of, which factory it was manufactured in, what infrastructures are necessary for it to work, then I learn to see what relationships are concealed beneath its shiny black

surface – namely exploitative relationships that spread around the whole globe. All the global, growth-driven, exploitative relations are contained in the materiality of the quite everyday things that we surround ourselves with – whether in the concrete of our houses, in the plastic and microelectronics of our devices or in the fossil fuels that transport us and keep us warm. Sharpening this view of the world helps me to discern the world in which I find myself and then to engage collectively with others to change these exploitative relationships.

#### *Do processes like the planned phase-out of coal represent an opportunity?*

Andrea Vetter: Yes, that could really be the case – for instance in the Lausitz region, a big lignite mining area in East Germany, there's a plan to invest 17 billion euros in the so-called structural transformation by the 2030s. This money could be used to initiate a socio-ecological model region, if there was a lot more cooperation with local civil society actors. Instead though, the road network is being upgraded and tax breaks are offered in an attempt to attract industry. I think it's fatal to try to move forward into the next 20 years with yesterday's concepts – with the same imperial ways of life and economic approaches that have led to ecological and social destruction. After 1990 and the end of the GDR, people in the Lausitz region already experienced one structural transformation, a brutal process. Now they deserve better than the foul promises of the same 'blossoming landscapes' that have not come true in the last 30 years.

### *What are the core topics and core processes of an emancipatory degrowth economy, also in relation to spatial references used by the political right?*

Matthias Schmelzer: The right-wing and racist approach to space involves strengthening closed, bio-ethnic regions. Degrowth is about the opposite, namely global justice, for the sake of which globalisation processes must be driven back in several fields – like so-called free trade. This somewhat complicated line of argument means that it is not always easy for the degrowth discussion to gain a foothold in left-wing emancipatory debates. There's a lot of scepticism because historically speaking, most concepts that focused on regionalisation and criticism of industrialism were reactionary or against global justice.

It is especially important to talk about socio-ecological transformation, to stop people being afraid of the future and of changes. This needs to occur on a very concrete basis, which is why socio-political demands play such a great role in the degrowth discussion. Ecological and social issues must be very closely linked together.

In nearly all proposals of the degrowth and post-growth debate, demands for a radical redistribution of income and wealth are central – concepts that focus on a universal basic income or concepts involving radical cuts in average working hours and periods of employment. These are suggestions that could actually be tried out experimentally in model regions like the Lausitz, where transformations to phase out coal dependency are necessary. In these experimental regions, society as a whole must take on responsibility and ensure funding to make this sort of approach possible. Current politics, however, is not moving in the direction of transformations or a fundamental rethinking of economic and social priorities.

### *Is it understandable that people, for instance in the Lausitz region, are afraid of a third – ecological – transformation?*

Matthias Schmelzer: The so-called 'reforms' or 'transformations' of recent decades have not improved the lives of most people. Fears or concerns are therefore understandable, as transformations usually bring something bad for people. But it is difficult to sympathise with an attitude that scapegoats people who are discriminated against, have fewer resources and less access to power. That is what is happening at the moment, because in the widest sense migrants and people of colour are being made the scapegoats. There are numerous investigations that show that there is no obvious rational connection between problems in the rural areas of eastern Germany and the immigration policy of recent decades. Nonetheless, many people believe this is the case and see concepts like homeland (*Heimat*) and right-wing nationalist politics as a solution. It is important to set clear boundaries against such racist attitudes. And it is important to make clear that the economic policy of the AfD is not one that will benefit 'ordinary people' – on the contrary. Nonetheless, in the current political situation it is an important challenge to convincingly convey the message that the pending socio-ecological transformation is one that really does provide a good life for all.

Andrea Vetter: I think it's also important here not to take a universalising approach and pretend all the rural regions of eastern Germany are the same. If you really go to a specific village and talk to the people you see that the conditions are different in each village. One village faces demolition to make way for a lignite mine – of course the residents there are pleased if coal is phased out quickly and their village is saved. In another village nearby some of the men work in mining and are worried about losing their jobs. In a third village the residents are resigned because the solar-panel factory there closed several years ago, due to renewable energy legislation that destroyed large parts of renewables industry in East Germany, which by the way had a similar number of employees to the lignite industry.

The difference is though that one industry has a powerful lobby behind it and the other doesn't.

### *What do manifestations of right-wing spatial semantics look like in transformation regions in East Germany?*

Andrea Vetter: In many East German municipalities a lot of people over the age of 60 actually tend to vote for the left, for historical reasons. In the election in Thuringia for example, it was primarily people between 30 and 45 who voted for right-wing parties like the AfD. This has its roots in the political vacuum of the 1990s when GDR state institutions suddenly disappeared and with them a lot of local cultural institutions where young people were socialised. Right-wing extremists from West Germany deliberately targeted the East at this time, doing 'missionary work' there. So it was not simply the case that 'the people' in the countryside suddenly discovered their racism, but rather that this was targeted and promoted by right-wing extremists and activists.

But it is also important to look specifically at good examples and options. There are many engaged actors locally who have for decades countered right-wing narratives with youth work and education, and especially in the so-called structurally disadvantaged regions there are also many spatial pioneers who are experimenting with creative, emancipatory and ecological lifestyles. I think there are certainly links to post-growth discussions in rural post-socialist areas – with these new actors who enter into abandoned

spaces but also with the experiences and knowledge of the older generations, whose everyday lives still include subsistence production, repairing things and being frugal with resources. It is indeed possible to link this local subsistence orientation with sustainable, feminist and anti-racist contexts instead of letting the right-wing propagandists do their work. But this needs political long-term work on a local level.

Matthias Schmelzer: Realistically speaking, it is also understandable that degrowth concepts strike more of a note in urban contexts, as degrowth is also about the deprivileging of people who profit particularly strongly from the imperial mode of living. Those who live in cities are also those who participate most strongly in the imperial mode of living, who f ly most and who consume more than average, as high incomes strongly correlate with ecological footprints. That is also why it is important to set the discourse straight. The main problems of the imperial mode of living, of externalisation societies and for the climate catastrophe are not the car drivers in rural East Germany, and not the miners, but rather the growth-oriented, profit-driven economic system that primarily benefits an urban, globally oriented elite.

#### *Is it possible to learn to live a post-growth life?*

Matthias Schmelzer: The pending transformation process is an unbelievably multifaceted, complex and long-term project. If we work for an ecological, social and democratic economy, then it's important to understand how various transformation strategies complement each other. We need spaces where alternatives can be tried out on a small scale and new postgrowth practices and imaginaries can be learned. In the same way we also need far-reaching reforms in institutions and infrastructures. And we need strong social movements that fight for counter-hegemony. That is especially important because what the present-day political parties propose in their party programmes is, in our view, completely insufficient for a future-proof society and economy. That's why we start with strengthening social movements, driving civil society discourse and so shifting the space of what is imaginable and possible.

Andrea Vetter: For years, the '*Konzeptwerk Neue Ökonomie*' has been involved in organising many conferences, but we also deliberately take the degrowth summer schools out to places, e.g. as climate camps. Temporary places like climate camps are heterotopias where new routines can be established and counter-hegemonic solidaric modes of living can be tested out. For one week, these heterotopias create a strong resonance between hundreds or thousands of people who practise energy sufficiency and democratic self-organisation – be it in using and caring for compost toilets, building solar turbines or organising shared childcare.

Experiences in workshops, camps, conferences or practical workcamps like this are an important part of transformative learning. Our target groups are often mostly young, highly educated people who haven't decided yet what work they want to do or where they want to live. If, early on in their professional careers, a lot of these people get impulses encouraging them to approach their lifepaths quite differently and not to seek the well-trodden paths, then that makes a big difference. If people decide to work for a socio-ecological transformation there are a lot of jobs to do: establishing new institutions, networks and cooperatives, as well as changing existing institutions from the inside. As a social anthropologist and transformation designer, I've witnessed over and over again the importance of such temporary heterotopias for making a profound change in people's lives.

### *What transformation strategies are required to work towards a post-growth society?*

Andrea Vetter: The 'Laboratory for New Economic Ideas' works together with various social movements that have different target groups, e.g. with the network 'Care Revolution', which includes 80 smaller groups based in German-speaking countries concerned with the topic of care work –both paid and unpaid care-givers like nurses, parents or sex workers, and also care-receivers, who for instance employ assistants.

The idea is to deepen a discourse in wider society around care work. The people who are involved in 'Care Revolution' recognise the need for a society beyond growth but argue from a different perspective than the ecological one. We emphasise the links between the social and ecological crises and believe it is important to tackle both together. This means including the ecological question in the question of care work and the transformation of the economy and also the other way round – if from an ecological perspective we need a very different economy then we must put care work at the heart of

this different economy. We work with actors who are starting from different places and we draw up and support strategies about how the various issues can be more closely interlinked.

#### *What challenges emerge?*

Andrea Vetter: We need institutional, fundamental reforms that extend the scope of action for existing nowtopias and movements. Every time a nowtopia project starts in a concrete location, it becomes obvious that the existing laws, subsidies and legal forms are generally aimed at profit-oriented and large actors and work against socio-ecological pioneers. We need fundamental institutional reforms to change the parameters of the economic system – top-down, if you like – and simultaneously bottom-up strategies to create local ways of living characterised by more solidarity; they inspire and learn from one another. To achieve this, we need a counter-hegemony that involves interventions in the public sphere of the media and education, but also includes practices like civil disobedience and forms of radical protest. This is all happening at once and requires appreciation and respect for one another. No individual can tackle all the fields of social change at the same time, but together we can take further steps.

# **Degrowth** A kind of pragmatic utopian thinking, re-politicising humanistic debates

*An interview with Dr Helen Jarvis, conducted by Christian Schulz*

Helen Jarvis is Professor in Social Geography at Newcastle University, UK. Helen's research focuses, among other things, on the compatibility of family and work, on the significance of publicspaces and on the 'social architecture' of new collaborative living arrangements. She is also concerned with the role of civic engagement in sustainable urban development.

https://www.ncl.ac.uk/gps/staf f/profile/helenjarvis.html#background

#### *What do degrowth approaches mean for your own research?*

Helen Jarvis: I very much embrace degrowth thinking as a social geographer, so for me it is all about the relevance of geography as a scholar-activist. I probably don't think of myself as employing a fully-f ledged participatory action research. My degrowth understanding is closely aligned with a kind of pragmatic utopian thinking. So, my collaboration with external partners and a broad based alliance of community organisations, really of bottom-up civil society is probably messier and more about agitating action than it is participatory action research. Indeed, a lot of what I'm doing is not really research at all, it's more about working within civil society. But going back to what I understand as the relevance of degrowth for geography and myself as a social geographer: for me it's about re-politicising humanistic debates concerning where and how we live with each other on the earth. It starts with questions that geography has always worked with in terms of urban development, urban planning, liveability, but it is saying that the question 'where and how we live' is not adequately managed through the current lens of urban planning. We must completely reimagine those relationships.

#### *What can we contribute to 'spatialise' the degrowth debate?*

Helen Jarvis: For me, the spatial geography of degrowth is about the scale of living and the scale of civil society alliance and activism. So degrowth is not just an economic concept and the counter-hegemonic narrative that degrowth contributes to, it is more about opening a scale of action both in scholarship, a scale of action that is much more about activism and social change and transformation, but also a scale of activism. My focus, geographically, is on that meso-scale, so it's not about the individual consumer citizen, the individual making choices about how and where they live, but rather the meso-scale of thinking and acting differently. I think re-politicising the urban politics and spatial justice debates allows for – it's not really using the language of degrowth, but I see it as entirely compatible – this idea of conviviality, the political sense of conviviality. What is public space for? It's for this renewed idea of a civil society. There's also a sense of a space that's free from private interests and market interests and the state and is reworking conditions of possibility. It's socio-spatial.

### *To what extent are our textbook models and theoretical and conceptual underpinnings challenged by degrowth thinking?*

Helen Jarvis: I think that social geography has a similar problem, perhaps, to economic geography, certainly in the textbooks, in that there is a tendency I think to slip between this preoccupation with identity politics and the individual and a cultural social geography of identity and a sense of 'where is the radical critique?'. Maybe that's not really the way to express it, I suppose I don't see a lot of the degrowth discourse or degrowth as a counter-hegemonic narrative entering social geography. And I also have always been a little bit frustrated by this disconnect between, for instance, issues around the housing crisis and the social justice side of that, and precarious employment and the corrosion of working life and the social justice implications of that, and bigger debates around nature and environmental sustainability. So, degrowth discourse, for me, as many advocates talk about it, this kind of missile concept, this bombshell, a symbolic term, it's an opportunity to say there isn't a kind of meta-theory that's going to make solutions between social and economic justice align together. But this bombshell concept does allow us to recognise the interdependence, the mosaic of things like housing,

employment, and social everyday realities, such as feelings of isolation or inclusion and the conventional hyper-privatised neighbourhood.

This goes back, in terms of my journey, to the work I did years ago now, 2001–2005. I was working closely around work-life balance, I wrote the book *Work/Life City Limits* in 2005, and I didn't use the word degrowth, but looking back it was entirely about engaging with the ideas of degrowth. I talked about practical limits to growth, and it was bound up in this meso-scale of home-work family nexus, and I felt it was critically important to revive this idea of human-environment connections but not in the way that actor-network theory was more than representational: it was instead about everyday pragmatism. Where are the limits to the possibilities for people to act intentionally, to consciously follow the grain of a moral limits to growth, to do what they feel is right for their ethic of care? In current parlance this would be in the context of climate emergency. So, as far as the early inspiration of degrowth, I was motivated by the work of Anders Hayden: he wrote this book called 'Sharing the work, sparing the planet', and he was talking there about working hours reduction – as one part of a virtuous circle of reducing overand excessive consumption and waste. And what was useful about this was that it offered a simple way into degrowth, but what I also liked was that it very easily linked that nexus of 'where and how we live' in relation to housing, transport and commuting, the everyday decisions of getting children to and from school, whether we walk and cycle, whether we can walk or cycle, the relationship of space and time. He conceptualised, in a compelling way, all that most vicious or virtuous connectedness that either locks us into a very unsustainable and exploitative relationship with others and the planet or allows us to step out of that lock-in effect.

#### *So, the notion of scale seems to play a major role in your work?*

Helen Jarvis: I wouldn't want you to take away from this discussion that I privilege the local. Obviously, the work I do around collaborative housing and cohousing is about a scale of belonging and intentional practice. This scale is necessarily limited in size. Cohousing schemes tend to view this optimal scale as around 25 households while the intentional 'we thinking' practised in an eco-village would be around 150 people. Both examples describe an intimate scale of belonging and collaboration. At the same time, it would be wrong to extract these intentional scales from their wider ecology. This

multi-scale thinking resonates with what Ivan Illich conjured up really nicely in the notion of a 'commune of communes' whereby you could say that the scale of belonging is nested within multiple scales that are 'scaled out' rather than 'scaled up': not one large scale of region, but a region made up of scaledout intimate scales of belonging. A good example of that would be the current social movements of lasting change around the school climate change strike (I was at one on Friday), and Extinction Rebellion. These all operate through a process of social affinity groups. The language of an affinity group, or the scale of an affinity group, is aligned with face-to-face alliances whereby people can build relationships of trust and seek common ground. For example, I'm involved with Citizens UK which is broad-based community organising, a bit like the Barrack Obama model of community organising, and this is on a person to person scale of listening to what the problems are and then acting collectively on achievable, meaningful change. This way it's helpful to think of scale rather than territory because these are spatial scales that are necessarily interpersonal and context dependent, so the local isn't just a scale of belonging, it's of the earth, or the terroir. Slow-food and slow-cities movements also show this, as well as Extinction Rebellion. When it works with an indigenous local knowledge, it's about what gives meaning and purpose to environmental action, in and of, a place. So, I don't want to sound like I'm wanting the best of all worlds here, but I don't think it should be a debate of 'is the local or is the region the most relevant geographic spatial lens?'. For me, as a social geographer, it's about the interpersonal and the empowered ability to act as changemaker.

#### *How do you convey the notion of degrowth in your teaching?*

Helen Jarvis: Well, I think there is a problem with language, and in my undergraduate teaching, I tend not to use the term degrowth. It's not very easily understood. It doesn't translate very well; it becomes quite abstract. Again, I tend to draw upon the language of civic activism, and on alliances and co-operation and on the ability to unlock the capacity to act. I draw a distinction between individuals acting on their own lifestyle habits as being quite disadvantaged, and I demonstrate alternative forms of groupwork and group dynamics. To help overcome the language barriers, I introduce scenarios and examples of inspirational degrowth activists and scholars into my teaching. I have a set of cards that tell the stories of urban food growers

and people who have organised local sharing economies. These provide a real name, a face and a story, to offer a joined-up belief in degrowth practice. It is difficult for students to relate to degrowth when it is presented in a theoretical and abstract way and that has caused quite a lot of misunderstanding. Degrowth theory is widely considered either to be very fuzzy or very ideological, so to cut through that I go to the level of introducing my own perspective. I say 'I'm a single parent, it's crazy how I have to manage a house and all aspects of a private life, and working full-time', and all these things 'I'm one person', and then I say 'when I've gone to stay in Christiania, or a cohousing project, it has been possible to live collaboratively, in a more tribal way, with others, to raise children together and to organise our housing solutions and work collectively'. So, I introduce a lot of myself as a practical way of cutting through that fuzzy, ideological understanding of degrowth. And that says that I acknowledge having reached a point in my life as a parent, and I'm thinking here of the climate emergency, where I must act – we must act. In that respect the methods of teaching are about hope and the real potential we must harness to make a difference collectively, rather than as individual consumers.

I'm taking a group of students in the spring to Copenhagen, for an annual field trip. I usually take them to a housing cooperative or cohousing scheme, as well as to the former squatters' settlement of Christiania, where I've done some research before. But I'm also going to be meeting up with some anthropology scholars at Copenhagen University who have been making comparisons between the kind of environmental sensibility and mindset that most Copenhageners are encouraged to practice, recycling in their households, and travelling by bicycle etc., versus more intentional ways of reducing energy use through sharing, in cohousing but also in eco-communities. This is interesting because it shows us what we can achieve collectively that we can't manage individually. And it's not just about the scale, it's about the social learning that takes place, we retain privacy but when we live a little more consciously with others and make decisions that have a bigger impact on others, I think it pushes us to degrow, to step off the treadmill of work and consumption.

### *If you were given an unconditional degrowth research grant allowing you to hire a postdoc for two years, what would be the topical focus of your project?*

Helen Jarvis: I am very interested – and this is going to sound more esoteric, when you are given the opportunity to ref lect and research in more depth, it does come down to more a burning curiosity – I'm very interested in this sense of intentionality: we are all torn between contradictions to do the right thing but also to live in the now, and I think there's something about working in a group, collaboratively, which is incredibly difficult. I know this from all the endless committee meetings I sit on to try and make change happen. So, I am motivated to explore this socio-cultural but also psychological and socio-technical infrastructure of intentionality: what really will facilitate and unlock collaboration? How do we scale out a new 'normal' of being intentional in a way that stimulates this virtuous cycle of being intentional for people and the planet? It could be that I would explore this through a movement such as Extinction Rebellion, because within that movement, there's been a real tension between anarchy, where people pursue their own action, the example here was that there was some direct action of jumping on trains and public transport which seemed to completely contradict the idea that public transport is a good thing for the environment. So, my ideal research would harness the power of groups and collaboration, allowing that to go in myriad different directions. I'm interested in this tension between harnessing the power of collaboration and citizen action, civic action, but also this idea of what soft infrastructure would propel 'we-thinking' and intentional behaviour, intentional practice, to reach beneficial results for the planet, for the people of the planet.

I have a longer-term goal to write a book, and there's a suggested working title: 'Being intentional for people and planet'. It would be an anthology of my work on various apparently quite radical eco-communities in different places. What do we learn from them about different capacities to change and to work collaboratively?

**II. Spaces of Possibility**

'We need places for experimentation where the new options provided by post-growth societies become tangible.'

*Uwe Schneidewind*

# **Growth independence through social innovations?**  An analysis of potential growth effects of social innovations in a Swiss mountain region

*Pascal Tschumi, Andrea Winiger, Samuel Wirth, Heike Mayer, Irmi Seidl*

Social innovations are being increasingly discussed as solutions to the diverse challenges faced by rural, peripheral areas. However, the economic growth effects of social innovations are unclear. One of the open questions is whether social innovations trigger new growth in regions or contribute to growth independence. This paper seeks to fill this research gap. To this end, an inventory of social innovations in the Swiss mountain region of the Bernese Oberland has been compiled and the potential growth effects (economic growth stimulation and economic growth independence) of the social innovations were investigated using specially developed indicators. Ideal types of social innovations with particularly marked potential growth effects are presented as the results of the investigation.

The analysis of social innovations and their growth effects is undertaken in the context of the social, economic and ecological challenges facing Swiss mountain regions. Out-migration is quite high in Swiss Alpine regions, amounting to about 11% of the population between 1981 and 2010 (Bundesamt für Raumentwicklung, 2012). The consequence is an aging population. In the course of the Euro crisis that began in 2010 the Swiss franc increased in value so that revenue from European visitors sank noticeably (Müller-Jentsch, 2017). Furthermore, scarcity of building land for new infrastructure and buildings is increasing (Bundesamt für Raumentwicklung, 2017). In addition, the maintenance of basic services is threatened, especially in the health sector (Cerny/Rosemann/Tandjung et al., 2016). Last but not least, the mountain regions are particularly strongly affected by the numerous consequences of climate change (Schmucki/Marty/Fierz et al., 2017).

Swiss regional policy aims to promote entrepreneurship and innovation with the help of regionally initiated projects and thus to counter the economic challenges (Staatssekretariat für Wirtschaft, 2017). This policy takes an export-based approach, assuming that economic growth in a region is triggered by key sectors that serve external demand. However, this growth-oriented approach has its limitations. Not every region has a leading export sector or the potential to develop one, not least because Swiss mountain regions are socio-economically heterogeneous (Mayer/Rime/Meili et al., 2018). Furthermore, the probability of the revenue generated circulating in these regions sinks as the mobility of people and goods in the Alpine area increases (Segessemann/Crevoisier, 2016). The Swiss regional policy of the late 2010s accordingly lacked 'situationally adaptable (also non-economic) perspectives' (Peter/Rink/Forster et al., 2016: 6, translated from German).

This is the background against which social innovations are recommended as a solution to problems in peripheral and rural areas. Firstly, social innovations are proposed by representatives of EU organisations as a means of increasing economic growth in such areas (European Commission, 2017; Nicholls/Edmiston, 2018). Secondly, researchers like Dax and Fischer (2018: 297) and Dewald and Rother (2019) argue that future regional development approaches should extend beyond strategies that target growth to address local participation and social innovation. Social innovations could help regions to solve their problems (Bock, 2016; Neumeier, 2012), for instance by successfully implementing knowledge from outside the region (Noack/Federwisch, 2019). Post-growth authors emphasis the potential of social innovation initiatives to contribute to a (more) growth-independent society and economy and thus to (more) growth-independent regions (Elsen, 2014; Seidl/ Zahrnt, 2022). Much discussed examples include local currencies, community housing projects or repair initiatives (Burkhart/Schmelzer/Treu, 2020; Habermann, 2009).

This brief insight into the academic discourses shows that social innovations are attributed with various impacts on regional growth. However, research on these impacts is not particularly advanced (Pelka/Terstriep, 2016: 13; Secco/Pisani/Da Re et al., 2019: 10) and the extent to which social innovations can stimulate regional growth or contribute towards growth independence remains unclear. This is the point which this chapter seeks to address. The research question on which it is based is: What are the potential economic growth effects of social innovations in the Bernese Oberland?

The Bernese Oberland is a mountainous area that lies north of the Swiss high Alpine region and has about 200,000 inhabitants in an area of circa 2,900 km2 . With around four million overnight stays a year, the tourism industry accounts for over 35% of gross domestic product (GDP) for many places (Rütter/Rütter-Fischbacher, 2016). International tourism has a long tradition here and has always followed a growth-oriented strategy (Ebneter/ Liechti, 2019; von Rütte, 2007). The economic structure, the culture and public and private stakeholders are correspondingly inf luenced by the dominant role of tourism (Haisch, 2017: 221 f.). Developments within the region are by no means homogeneous. Tourist centres like the Jungfrau region and the municipalities of Grindelwald and Lauterbrunnen and their surroundings are characterised by high and slightly growing volumes of overnight stays (with annual overnight stays amounting to almost one million) (Bundesamt für Statistik, 2018a). In Grindelwald the population is also growing slowly (2010 to 2016). This contrasts with the far east of the region where the number of overnight stays in the municipalities Meiringen and Hasliberg fell from 2013 to 2018 (Bundesamt für Statistik, 2018a). With the exception of the central municipality Meiringen, the population in the far east is declining (Bundesamt für Statistik, 2018b).

# **Social innovations and growth (in)dependence**

Social innovations are the goal of many political programmes (Grimm/Fox/ Baines et al., 2013) and the focus of newly founded research centres (e.g. Stanford Center for Social Innovation or Young Foundation). However, the definitions and understandings of social innovations in the literature are most diverse. This may be because the various disciplines – transformation research, sociology, regional sciences or economics – conduct research on social innovations using their own definitions (Edwards-Schachter/Wallace, 2017). Meta-analyses of social innovations confirm the different research streams (Ayob/Teasdale/Fagan, 2016; Edwards-Schachter/Wallace, 2017; van der Have/Rubalcaba, 2016). One important strand of research expects social innovations to have positive effects on society. In particular authors who focus on local development are well-known for this research, especially Moulaert and Mulgan. They view social innovations as solutions for social problems and as impulses for empowerment and for changes in social relations (Moulaert/MacCallum/Hiller, 2013; Mulgan/Tucker/Ali et al., 2007). Another strand of research revolves around the work of Franz, Hochgerner and Howaldt (2012) and adopts a sociological and more neutral perspective to the effects of social innovations, focusing primarily on changed social practices and relations. Mumford (2002) sees social innovations as providing new ideas about how social relations and social organisation could be structured to achieve a common goal. The creative process of generating and implementing innovation is the focus here, also within businesses. Overall, it can be noted that some definitions focus more on the innovation process while others concentrate on the results or effects of the innovation. This paper uses a definition that integrates the different orientations and draws on the bibliometric analysis by Ayob, Teasdale and Fagan (2016). The definition is as follows:

A social innovation consists of new forms of cooperation of individuals or organisations that lead to new ideas, of which the implementation is at least considered. In regional development, such innovations can have a positive impact on society, improve the quality of life and/or change social or power relations.

This definition allows for a rather broad understanding of social innovations and an open approach to the phenomenon under investigation. It is suitable for application to the Swiss mountain region with its multifaceted socio-economic structures, as social innovations do not only emerge in connection with the problems or challenges of this rural area but are also developed in response to economic growth opportunities.

The basic precondition for our definition of a social innovation – a new form of cooperation – is based on a sociological understanding that conceives of 'new' as extraordinary for the geographical area of investigation. For a social innovation, it is crucial that this new cooperation leads to a new idea, the implementation of which is at least considered (Ayob/Teasdale/ Fagan, 2016). Furthermore, the definition includes two characteristics that describe the effect of a social innovation: first, a positive effect for society; second, the transformation of social relations and power relations.

In order to examine the link between social innovations and growth, relevant concepts of growth are clarified in the following. Enterprise growth refers to both growth in volumes of sales, production and orders and also growth in the financial profitability of an enterprise (turnover, profit, cashf low, return on investment). We understand enterprises as organisations

that pursue business practices, i.e. they create and exploit 'deliverables to cover third-party requirements with due regard to economic efficiency' (Lück, 1990, translated from German). This includes 'classical' companies but also associations, foundations and cooperatives. Regional growth primarily refers to the growth of regional gross domestic product, i.e. the total of regional value added. Growth independence is not understood as the opposite of growth, namely shrinking. We rather adopt the meaning established in the post-growth literature (see Schmelzer/Vetter, 2019: 158 f.; 171): the ability of a society including its economy and its institutions to continue to fulfil its functions but no longer to be existentially dependent on economic growth (Seidl/Zahrnt, 2010; Seidl/Zahrnt, 2022). Basic social and economic functions include safeguarding livelihoods, participation in society for all, basic infrastructure and healthcare.

# **Methodology**

There is currently no comprehensive overview of social innovations in mountain regions and existing inventories (for the Alpine region) are neither systematic nor do they extend beyond case studies (see SIMRA, 2018). Our comprehensive inventory of social innovations in the Bernese Oberland helps to close this gap. It utilises a database of innovative projects, organisations, offerings or initiatives that were planned or carried out in the Bernese Oberland between 1997 and 2018. To compile the inventory1 , various databases from regional development programmes2 and innovation prizes3 were identified and merged. An online survey of the municipal secretaries (the senior administrative officers) of all 76 municipalities of the Bernese Oberland was also conducted in order to identify other local projects and initiatives.4 In addition, a systematic online search and newspaper review5 was conducted

1 The inventory is publicly accessible on the website www.sozinno.unibe.ch

2 New Regional Policy (*Neue Regionalpolitik*, NRP); Innovation, Cooperation and Knowledge Development in Tourism (*Innovation, Zusammenarbeit und Wissensaufbau im Tourismus*, Innotour); Regional Conference East Oberland (*Regionalkonferenz Oberland-Ost*, RKOO); Social Innovation in Marginalised Rural Areas (SIMRA); the association 'vorwärtsbeo'.

3 Milestone, Prix Montagna, Swiss Mountain Award, Bernese Innovation Prize, PrixWINtutti

between January and June 2019. Overall, it was possible to identify 979 potential social innovations.

With the help of an analysis matrix consisting of 23 evaluation criteria6 , we identified the social innovations that corresponded to the definition above. The goal of the social innovation was assessed in order to determine if it fulfilled the two additional characteristics. A total of 68 social innovations were identified, 32 of which aim to achieve positive effects for society and six of which aim to change social relations and/or power relations. To identify the social innovations, all projects and initiatives in the database were independently evaluated by two researchers. The intercoder reliability of the analysis is 90%.

In a subsequent step, the social innovations that had been identified were assessed in terms of their potential growth effects using theory-based indicators. The set of indicators that we developed for this analysis is based on the literature on drivers of enterprise growth (Gebauer/Lange/Posse, 2017; Mewes/Gebauer, 2015; Posse, 2015; Richters/Siemoneit, 2019) and on strategies of non-growing enterprises (Liesen/Dietsche/Gebauer, 2013; Posse, 2015). The aim was to derive indicators from these business strategies that could be applied to the region and to economic actors. This involved identifying the mechanisms of the growth or non-growth strategies of enterprises. From these mechanisms, it was possible to derive 39 indicators which point to growth stimulating or growth independence effects. Hence, the indicators capture two different growth effects: first, the effects that stimulate economic growth in regions or enterprises (henceforth called growth stimulation effects); second, effects that make these regions or enterprises more growth independent (henceforth called growth independence effects). In order to analyse the potential effects of the 68 social innovations in our inventory, we assessed which indicators could potentially apply to which social innovation. To this end we gathered additional information on the emergence, implementation or goal of the social innovations through online research. The evaluation was independently carried out by two researchers with an intercoder reliability of 88%.

6 The analysis was based on criteria for the following categories: Cooperation / Novelty / Idea / Bernese Oberland / Improvementsin quality of life / Changesin social relations/ Changesin power relations.

# **Growth effects**

The following table displays the indicators and their growth effects as developed from the literature analysis.

*Table 1: Indicators of growth independence and growth ef fects / Sources: primarily Gebauer/Lange/Posse, 2017; Paech, 2012a; Posse, 2015*

*Table 2: Indicators of growth stimulation and growth ef fects / Sources: primarily Gebauer/Lange/Posse, 2017; Paech, 2012a; Posse, 2015*

The following section presents by way of example the mechanisms that lead to growth independence and from which – amongst others – the two ideal types of social innovation can be derived. A low level of debt capital (U6) means there is less pressure to make profits in order to pay interest (Binswanger, 2009). An absence of outside investors is thus associated with lower profit expectations, better options for control by the management and greater transparency (Posse, 2015). A short value chain with few actors (U19) means that there are fewer debt financed enterprises involved who need to make profits (Paech, 2012b). Regional value chains have a similar effect (U20) (Gebauer/Lange/Posse, 2017; Gebauer, 2018; Paech, 2012b; Posse, 2015). They make it more likely that a strong bond develops between producers, consumers and investors. Product prices then become less important because consumers have a closer relationship with the producers. The latter therefore experience less pricing pressure (Posse, 2015). The involvement of consumers in production (U14) helps to align the product with consumer needs. This allows production resources to be more efficiently adjusted to actual product needs (Leismann/Schmitt/Rohn et al., 2012). The relations between the actors involved are also strengthened (Bakker/Loske/Sherhorn, 1999; Schor, 2010). Furthermore, guaranteed sales (U17) reduce pricing pressure for producers all along the value chain as a fixed price is agreed in advance (Gebauer, 2018; Gebauer/Lange/Posse, 2017). In addition, low capital intensity of production (U7) reduces dependence on outside investment because less investment in capital (in machinery etc.) is necessary (Paech, 2012b).

The indicators numbered S1 to S19 listed in the Table 2 describe the growth stimulation effects. These effects are, for instance, generated through the creation of consumer needs and emotions in advertising (S16) (Gebauer, 2018; Gebauer/Lange/Posse, 2017). A physically and spatially dispersed value chain (S17) can reduce trust between actors and thus increase the pressure to generate returns (Paech, 2012b). For instance, less trust means that a higher collateral is required for lending transactions; this takes the form of higher interest payments which need to be generated with profits (Paech, 2012b). Furthermore, production innovations are viewed as growth-inducing if the production of ever more new products is linked to capital investments (S7) (Paech, 2012a). Products for status consumption (S6) are primarily developed for saturated markets in order to generate more demand (Paech, 2012b; Posse, 2015).

# **Social innovations and their potential growth effects**

Many different actors participated in the 68 social innovations that were identified. Most frequently involved are enterprises and private individuals (both 20%) and, in addition, state organisations, tourism organisations, associations, research institutes and foundations. One-third of the social innovations are located in the primary and secondary economic sectors, twothirds in the tertiary sector. Social innovations are present in diverse fields like tourism, mobility, agriculture, health and education. They emerged both in remote shrinking areas and in economically growing central municipalities in the Bernese Oberland.

One aim of this paper is to identify those of the 68 social innovations that are characterised by pronounced potential growth effects. By focusing on these 'extreme types' in terms of growth effects we can identify ideal-typical forms of social innovations. A social innovation was only selected as an 'extreme type' if the number of relevant growth stimulation indicators corresponded to a maximum of 25% of the number of relevant growth independence indicators of the same social innovation (and vice versa, i.e. opposing effects are small). This ensured that clear tendencies can be recognised. In total, eight social innovations were classified as these two 'extreme types'. These innovations fulfilled at most 7 of the 19 growth stimulation indicators and at most 12 of the 20 growth independence indicators. The remaining 60 social innovations in the inventory are not further considered in the following discussion: either they display few growth effects or they have many growth effects in both directions.

The four social innovations with the most indicators pointing to growth independence are a cooperatively organised Alpine dairy and cheese company, a community supported agriculture (CSA) project, a cooperatively organised multi-generational house, and a building group within the framework of a solar energy cooperative in which members construct their solar systems together.

These social innovations have in common that they utilise no, little or interest-free external capital. The planned multi-generational house is partially financed by the interest-free capital of members of the housing association (Zukunft Hasliberg, 2019: 12). Interest-free finance is provided for the CSA in advance by purchasers of the products. A donation enabled the dairy and cheese company to be developed with little external investment. The solar energy building group is financed by the group members. Those who install a solar system are supported by other members who already have such a system. The working hours invested by others are then worked off by those who already have the new system when they help construct another member's system.

These four social innovations are also characterised by short and regional value chains and close links between the actors involved. The cooperative dairy and cheese company, for instance, only uses milk from the surrounding farms, which leads to a close relationship between the suppliers and the processors of the milk. The same is true for the CSA where consumers purchase the products directly from the farm without an intermediary. The relationship between the producers (farmers) and the consumers is exceptionally close, in part due to direct cooperation in production.

For three of the four social innovations prosumers play an important role. Prosumers are consumers who are also involved in the production of the product or service that they later consume. The CSA is one such model, and in the solar energy cooperative a significant proportion of the solar systems is also built by those who will later use them. These forms of production represent a de-commercialisation of production. The work that prosumers put into producing the service is not remunerated in monetary terms. This is similarly seen in the concept of the 'caring community' that is pursued by the generational house. It states that the 'need for care should not be fulfilled only by professional institutions' but rather by cooperation between non-professional actors like neighbours or volunteers with state and professional partners (Zukunft Hasliberg, 2019: 7).

Furthermore, three of the four social innovations have guaranteed purchasers. For example, the dairy and cheese company can rely on sales to a major Swiss distributor, while the farmers of the CSA have guaranteed purchasers in the form of the prosumers. Three social innovations also have a low level of capital intensity in their production. In the solar energy cooperative, the solar systems are mostly installed by hand using little machinery. In comparison to industrialised cheese production, a great deal is also done by hand in the cooperative cheese company and there is little mechanisation. The same is true in the agricultural project thanks to the involvement of the prosumers.

The four social innovations with pronounced growth stimulation effects are a bad-weather insurance for holidaymakers; a tour package that combines Alpine bus tours with historical hikes; a specially equipped direct train to a skiing destination; and a partnership between five golfclubs with a dedicated membership card.

All four social innovations are commercial tourist ventures that are actively advertised and are characterised by economic growth goals. The weather insurance is intended to bring new visitors and thus increased revenue to the tourist businesses at the destination where the insurance is available. The same objective is pursued by the direct train connection and the hiking package. The golfclub membership card aims to make paying to become a member of a club more attractive and to increase the golfclubs' revenues.

Another characteristic of all four social innovations is that production and consumption of their offerings occur in a (physically) spatially dispersed value chain. In three of four cases this is linked to the more distanced relations between the stakeholders involved. An illustrative example is provided by the weather insurance. It was developed by an established insurance company in a Swiss city outside the mountain region, is sold by a tourism organisation in an Alpine holiday destination and is purchased by tourists from all over the world. The profits go to the insurance company and the tourism organisation. The relationships between the actors are somewhat distanced, both spatially and socially.

Two of these social innovations are active in highly competitive markets. First, the bus/hiking tour which offers historical hikes combined with postbus trips to distinguish itself from other more unspecific hiking offers. Second, the weather insurance, which covers a very specific risk that is not yet catered for by the insurance market.

Two social innovations involve product innovations that are intended primarily for status consumption or are advertised using emotional brand communication. The genuine characteristics of products intended for status consumption serve the purpose of social display and not the direct satisfaction of needs (Reisch/Raab, 2014: 933). The golfclub membership card is an example of status consumption because the costs amount to several 10,000 Swiss francs, which can hardly be fully justified by the actual benefits – playing golf. It is possible to identify emotional brand communication in the case of the bus tours and historical hikes. Advertising draws on the well-loved Swiss tradition of postbuses and aims to trigger emotions and thus win customers.

# **Discussion and prospects**

This paper ref lects on the various effects of social innovations in growth terms. Based on an inventory of social innovations in a Swiss mountain region, we analysed the potential growth effects with a set of indicators specifically developed for this purpose. Eight of the 68 social innovations of our inventory can be assigned to two extreme types: social innovations with potential growth independence effects and social innovations with potential growth stimulation effects. Based on the characteristics of these extreme types we devised two ideal types of social innovations, as seen in Table 2.

*Table 3: Ideal types / Source: authors*

The growth effects of social innovations presented here are potential effects and have not been measured empirically. To gain more robust results, the indicators and their interactions need to be empirically investigated and, to further improve understanding, research should focus on preconditions for the emergence of social innovations in regional contexts. The motivation of the various actors plays an important role, especially with regard to the growth effects. Innovation biographies would be an appropriate tool (Kleverbeck/Terstriep, 2018). In addition, the set of indicators shows that further investigation must include both quantitative and qualitative dimensions.

In light of the diverse challenges facing mountain regions, this paper demonstrates that it can indeed be appropriate for regional policy to focus on social innovations. If regional policy aims to promote growth independence then it should not promote social innovations per se, but must rather target the characteristics of the social innovation projects and initiatives described above. It may therefore be helpful to promote a combination of characteristics in order to initiate sustainable and growth-independent regional development.

It seems necessary to ask whether such developments can advance the transformation to a post-growth society. Undoubtedly the examples identified here are niche projects of very limited economic significance. Nonetheless, they demonstrate what distinguishes social innovations and enterprises that contribute towards growth independence, and what aspects and factors should, for example, be promoted by regional and economic policy in order to expand growth independence. At the same time, the examples serve as role models and strengthen the economic independence and resilience of a region. They also show that the well-being of the population can benefit from economic activities in a post-growth society, compared to a growth-oriented economy. Impulses from peripheral areas are certainly not sufficient to lead to higher-level structural changes in, for instance, welfare and employment systems, as would be necessary for a post-growth society. However, regional-economic restructuring in such regions can reduce local socio-economic problems and improve quality of life.

# **Cited literature**

# **Criteria for post-growth residential development: The example of the city of Zurich**

*Olivia Wohlgemuth, Marco Pütz*

# **1. Introduction**

In most large cities in Switzerland, population and economic growth combined with changed lifestyle habits and a demand for more living space have led to a shortage of land as a resource. Revised spatial planning legislation, which came into force in 2014, puts an end to continued urban sprawl and requires that future development be located in existing building zones (LaRES 2014). The creation of additional housing presents some difficulties as 95% of the building zones in Zurich have already been developed, which means that the focus is now primarily on densification (Wüest Partner 2018: 73). Numerous innovative housing projects demonstrate how inner urban development can be successfully realised and that densification can create value for the entire population.

Growth independence concepts are attracting increased attention from spatial sciences. The post-growth debate could therefore provide an approach that allows urban development to focus on ensuring future growth is more sustainable, quality-oriented and goes beyond the purely quantitative economic growth paradigm. The strategy for sustainable spatial development in the canton of Zurich (LaRES 2014) and other guiding principles for good building already include requirements for ecological and social housing, so approaches from the post-growth debate are also being addressed. These include, firstly, innovations in building techniques and, secondly, housing concepts that reduce individual land consumption and counter social individualisation through f lexible uses and shared areas.

This paper is based on a Master's thesis that investigated the city of Zurich as a case study, exploring the extent to which post-growth can be a guiding principle for residential development and examining which preconditions are required for post-growth housing (Wohlgemuth 2019). The paper aims to develop criteria for post-growth housing projects. To this end the following sub-questions are analysed:

The paper is structured in five sections. Section 2 presents the theoretical and conceptual framework. Subsequently Section 3 gives an overview of the methodological approach. The findings are presented and discussed in Section 4 and Section 5 provides conclusions.

# **2. Urban development, housing and post-growth**

The topic of urban housing offers much scope for realising post-growth economies or a post-growth society. It is obvious that urban development, urban planning and an appropriately organised housing industry could make postgrowth housing possible. Thanks to cooperatives or other non-profit developers, housing is traditionally a topic that is very close to post-growth ideas. However, even though numerous current housing projects have a great deal to do with post-growth, the theme has been subject to little conceptual research and is comparatively new. In the volume *Housing for degrowth – Principles, models, challenges and opportunities,* Nelson and Schneider (2019) provide one of the few up-to-date overviews of the challenges and unfavourable developments that characterise the property industry and discuss how postgrowth approaches could offer a response. However, the volume primarily presents examples from practice, ranging from squats to collective forms of living to architectural innovations. The focus is not on a theoretical-conceptual categorisation.

In order to demonstrate the conceptual relations between housing and post-growth, in the following we first outline the most important challenges faced by housing in the future and then formulate three central post-growth approaches for housing/residential development.

# 2.1 Challenges for housing in the future

The challenges for housing in the future that are discussed in the scientific and grey literature generally include both ecological and social aspects. To describe the specific situation in Zurich, in this section we draw primarily on planning documents and literature with a clear link to the city of Zurich:

On the basis of the current planning documentation and literature we identified eight challenges for housing in the future:

1. Resource and energy efficiency: Housing projects should be as resource-conserving as possible and consider energies from renewable sources. They should also contribute towards achieving the objectives of a '2000-watt society'. Buildings should retain their value in the long term and have long useful lifetimes, they should thus be as adaptable and f lexible as possible.

### 2.2 Post-growth approaches for housing

In the well-known and seminal works of the post-growth debate, the topics of housing and urban development play a rather minor role. Thus the works of Victor (2008), Latouche (2009) and Jackson (2016), all important in the international debate, focus primarily on critiques of growth and capitalism, providing introductions and overviews. The key publications of the German-language post-growth literature also mainly provide orientation and cover the most important terms, concepts and backgrounds of the interdisciplinary debate (e.g. Seidl/Zahrnt 2010, Paech 2012, Schmelzer/Vetter 2019). These fundamental works and also many other publications, often with an applied approach, mention numerous projects and initiatives that are planned and implemented in cities. However, the link to the city tends to remain implicit. Cities or urban neighbourhoods are usually just locations for, e.g., transition towns or urban gardening initiatives. Urbanity, city milieus and the role of urban development and planning receive very little attention. Xue (2019: 185 f.) clarifies that it is necessary to explicitly view the city and post-growth together:

ʻDegrowth depicts a desirable future society that is ecologically sustainable, enhances quality of life and achieves social justice. This means achieving social welfare and social justice while shrinking our levels of production and consumption due to the existence of ecological limits. Both research and social practices need to bridge the domains of welfare and environmental sustainability. For urban planners, the integration of both domains raises a question: What is required to make a sustainable city socially just, or, to makewelfare societies ecologically sustainable in the urban context?'

Post-growth is not yet used as a guiding principle for urban development. It is equally rare for housing and post-growth to be considered together in the literature. When, however, post-growth is discussed as an approach for housing, it is possible to identify three general thematic fields: sufficiency, the good life and housing justice.

**Sufficiency:** Sufficiency on the individual level means requiring fewer material resources and changing lifestyles and consumption habits. Sufficiency 'aims for people to change their behaviour without compulsion and to limit or replace practices that overuse resources. It strives for the sufficient, environmentally friendly consumption of energy and materials through low demand for resource-intensive goods and services' (Stengel 2011: 140). It is important to note here that a sufficiency strategy does not demand that people do without what is necessary but rather assumes that an understanding of what is necessary will lead people to voluntarily do without (Stengel 2011: 140).

**Good life:** In a broad sense, post-growth is about striving for a good life for all. This is not about understandings of prosperity based on material consumption, but about different understandings that rather 'include the complexity of people as relationship beings, overcome the division between production and reproduction and give more space to needs that are not focused on growth and optimisation – like time prosperity, stable and intensive relationships or meaningfulness' (Schmelzer/Vetter 2019:169).

**Housing justice / a right to housing:** The current debates on rising property prices and housing shortages trigger questions about who owns the land and how cities should develop in the future (Schulz 2017: 13). In particular, population groups with low incomes find it increasingly difficult to rent housing in cities. Post-growth views housing as a human right and a basic need, which means that a dwelling should be neither a financial investment nor a status symbol (Schneider 2019: 16).

In addition to these three topics there are numerous other post-growth oriented approaches that could play a role in urban development (Schulz 2017: 11 ff.): solidarity economies (e.g. neighbourhood shops, swap shops, local currencies), alternative energy concepts (e.g. energy cooperatives operating for the common good), community food production (urban gardening, urban farming), shared offices (e.g. co-working spaces) or shared forms of use (e.g. spaces and infrastructures for the sharing economy). As these approaches are not directly related to housing they are not further pursued here.

# **3. Methodology**

Methodologically speaking, this investigation is based on a qualitative, interpretative research design. The data were gathered for three case studies in a total of 17 guided, semi-standardised expert interviews. The interviews

were transcribed and evaluated using a structured and summarising form of content analysis.

The case studies were selected from housing projects that had won prizes in the 'Competition for good buildings' ('*Wettbewerb für gute Bauten*') of the city of Zurich. Every five years building projects are chosen and presented with awards by an expert jury consisting of architects, town planners, other specialists and representatives of the city council and administration. These projects act as role models for high-quality building and make an important contribution to the quality of the city of Zurich (Amt für Städtebau Zürich, 2016). As the current competition cycle has not yet been finalised, the last prizes awarded for buildings constructed between 2011 and 2015 were considered as possible case studies. Of these, residential buildings were filtered out and three case studies were chosen, all of which were developed by cooperatives. Overall, three or four people from the board of the cooperatives or the team of architects of each project were interviewed. In addition, the interviews covered a fourth group of experts from consultancy, the urban administration and research.

#### 144 Olivia Wohlgemuth, Marco Pütz

*Table 1: Overview of case studies / source: Amt für Städtebau Zürich, 2016 and data from the interviews*

Grünmatt development Zurich-Friesenberg

Hunziker-Areal Zurich-Oerlikon Apartment complex Klee Zurich-Affoltern

#### Developer

Family Home Cooperative Zurich (*Familienheim Genossenschaft Zürich, FGZ*)

#### Developer Building cooperative 'more than

housing' ('*mehr als wohnen*')

#### Developer

Non-profit Building and Rental Cooperative Zurich (*Gemeinnützige Bau- und Mietergenossenschaft Zürich*) and Building Cooperative Hagenbrünneli (*Baugenossenschaft Hagenbrünneli*)

#### Description

The first replacement new build of the FGZ. A contemporary garden city with low rows of buildings and small, private front gardens was created.

#### Special feature

A hybrid type of construction was chosen for the new build. Today 490 people live in Grünmatt, where previously only 200 people lived in single-family homes on the same site (+145%). Land consumption is very low, 33 m2 per person. The previously large private gardens have given way to a shared exterior space.

#### Description

A car-free development with 13 different residential buildings, high density and a mixed community with strong social cohesion.

#### Special feature

The Areal was developed as a jubilee project for the 100th anniversary of the Zurich housing cooperatives and serves as a platform for innovation and learning. The entire Areal is based on a community concept with community rooms and meeting zones. There is a large social mix of inhabitants, reflecting the population of the canton of Zurich.

#### Description

Clover-shaped building with a shared park by two cooperatives with different philosophies.

#### Special feature

The shape of development provides a large interior courtyard, a highquality and exciting outside space. Architectural interest is provided by the two-storey loggias that are staggered across the floors, while the treetops divide up the façade. This avoids the impression of a six-storey building.

# **4. Results**

Based on current planning documents and literature, Section 2.1 identified eight challenges for housing of the future. These challenges were empirically assessed in the interviews, allowing the requirements for future-oriented housing development to be documented. These requirements have been linked to the post-growth debate and further developed to create a catalogue of criteria (Table 2).

*Table 2: Catalogue of criteria for post-growth housing / Source: the authors*

# **5. Inner urban development**

Inner urban development and densification are central elements of spatial development. This enables as many people as possible to live in the city and protects open spaces. The focus here is on building density, i.e. the built fabric, the ratio of the volume of built structures to the surface area of the plot (Wüest Partner 2018: 12). A high building density is equivalent to a high volume of built structures per hectare of the built-up zone.

The dark side of urban sprawl is the loss of natural areas and the increase in traffic. However, densification is also criticised as it is often seen as negative and constricting. Densification therefore needs to always be linked to quality of life − denser is not fundamentally better or worse.

#### Land consumption

In order to realise inner urban development and densification, limiting personal living space is crucial. Equally, it is important that the city is accessible as a place of residence for all. Better exploitation of space means there is room for more people in a building or city. This can, first, be achieved by improving the housing, for instance through well-designed f loorplans that omit as unnecessary additional square metres of living space that do not create higher quality. A second option is to limit individual living space with occupancy regulations. A third possibility is provided by collectively used areas like guest rooms or offices that can be shared by a number of people if required.

'Housing is something very existential, it needs great care. If you say that you must give up a family dwelling because the children have moved out, I think that's right. You have to do it like that, because otherwise the concept doesn't work, that you say that you do without living space but have instead high-quality and low-priced living space and would like to again make that available then perhaps a generation later to new people. The security of housing, that nobody needs to be afraid of ever being without suitable housing, must be there.' (Interview 15)

#### User density

User density refers to the number of people who spend time in a place and is seen as a prerequisite for people meeting one another (Kretz/Kueng 2016: 55). User density can also be understood as population density or social density and should not be seen as equivalent to built density. A high built density does not in itself mean that more people spend time in a place. If space requirements per person increase and built density remains the same, then the user density sinks. With inner urban development it is important to ensure that the use of land is sufficiently great rather than simply building more concrete.

#### High density of interaction

A high user density does not guarantee that people meet and exchange experiences. Loneliness is said to be a problem of modern societies as people feel alone even though urban densities are relatively high. To counter this, housing constructions must allow interaction between residents. Architectural and organisational measures should thus promote rather than hinder community life and exchange between the residents of a building. The design of exterior spaces and the management of semi-public areas has a great inf luence on whether a building can be collectively used or not. In addition to architectural measures, such as the design of stairways and entrances, shared rooms and infrastructures, e.g. workshops, are important for creating a collective living environment. Among the organisational measures are neighbourhood events or the decentralisation of specific administrative tasks and the organisation of leisure commissions, which include cultural and leisure committees.

To protect the private sphere, it is necessary to find a balance between community and options for withdrawing. An additional difficulty is that such measures are strongly dependent on the residents. Nobody can be forced to communicate with other people. Nonetheless, a framework should be created that promotes and supports such exchanges, should they be desired.

#### Mixed land uses

Ground-f loor uses create more lively neighbourhoods with more diverse functions so that the direct surroundings are not just a place of residence but also a place where leisure time can be spent. As well as retail options and leisure facilities in the neighbourhood, co-working spaces can increase the mix of uses. In a 'city of short distances' with a compact structure and mixed land uses, the daily trips to work, the shops and for leisure activities can be undertaken on foot or by bicycle (Beckmann/Gies/Thiemann-Linden et al. 2011: 64). Concentrating retail facilities in shopping centres or pronounced mobility hinder the development of a city of short distances. This leads to an acceptance of longer trips for sport and leisure activities (Beckmann/Gies/ Thiemann-Linden et al. 2011: 61). Nonetheless, mixed uses are necessary to create an attractive residential environment and 'short distances create the possibility of doing without motorised transport so that less resources need to be used. Short distances are also building blocks of a lifestyle and consumption profile that leaves a smaller ecological footprint' (Beckmann/Gies/ Thiemann-Linden et al. 2011: 50).

# Diversity

According to Kretz and Kueng (2016: 50), diversity means 'that different uses, user groups, social milieus and spatial manifestations are present in one space'. In relation to residential development, diversity means that different population groups should be represented in a housing project. A mix of ages, incomes and lifestyles improves the quality of an area and counters segregation. Social mixing of this sort can be achieved in an apartment building by providing different types of dwelling units that attract different people. Such mixing hinders the emergence of disadvantaged neighbourhoods. Furthermore, a high level of diversity can also prevent the development of luxury neighbourhoods for population groups with high incomes. There are, nevertheless, arguments in favour of segregation. The spatial concentration of people in similar situations and with similar interests facilitates the development of specific facilities and infrastructures (Häussermann/Siebel 2001: 73).

# Saving resources and energy sufficiency

The ecological footprint of the building industry is enormous: worldwide, the industry uses 40% of global resources (Emprechtinger 2019). In order not to exceed the ecological viability of the planet and due to increasing shortages of building materials like gravel and sand, future building must be as resource efficient as possible. In addition to an economical use of resources for building construction, renewable energies must be used for power in the finished building. No reliance should be placed on technological advances, as while energy efficiency can be continuously improved, sufficiency strategies are nonetheless required:

'(…) If I want to approach something in a sufficient way then first I ask myself whetherI need it at all. If I just make it more efficientthen I quickly reach the conclusion: nowit's more efficient, nowIcan have more ofit.Which need not lead to using less resources at all, but just that you've optimised something.' (Interview 12)

Furthermore, the height, orientation and colour of façades affect the climate. Varied building heights are better for wind effects, and paler colours ref lect more light so that the buildings heat up less.

# Green spaces

As well as protecting the landscape, the treatment of green spaces inside the city is crucial. A compromise must be found between green space and inner urban development. Green spaces can make a decisive contribution towards adaptation to climate change and provide protection from overheating. In addition, consideration must be given to the greening of facades, species conservation and biodiversity. Thus native plants should be utilised and not all areas be built with basements so that large trees are able to develop deep roots. Green spaces also increase the attractiveness of the residential environment and housing quality.

# Appropriation areas

By appropriating open space around dwellings, it becomes possible for people to inf luence their own living environments. Areas must therefore be planned that have no defined use and that can be managed by the urban residents themselves. Appropriation areas of this sort help a neighbourhood to develop its own distinct character and allow residents to identify with their surroundings. Appropriation is only possible if there is a low level of regulation and a high degree of f lexibility in utilisation so that people are as free to act as possible (Kretz/Kueng 2016: 72).

# Participation

The idea of a participative procedure is that development can occur with the public and their thoughts and ideas can be included in the planning process. Furthermore, pursuing collaboration and co-design with the public means that changes are more readily accepted and the quality of the project benefits.

'There is also a certain capital that is brought in. People invest their time, that is their free time, and there are certainly also good and justified idea.' (Interview 16)

It is, however, always important to define precisely who can participate and what the goal of participation is.

# Price

The provision of affordable housing for all strata of the population enables the foundations for a good life to be laid. Housing is a basic need and is existential, which is why urban housing must be affordable for everyone no matter which income bracket they are in.

'I don't like anything about this profit-oriented housing, which isn't sustainable, because people say that they just want to get money out of it now, with overpriced rents.' (Interview 1)

As there are different income structures there are also different notions of affordability. It is therefore important that in the future all price segments should be represented in the city. This is the only way to enable diversity. Similarly, there should be different price structures on the project level, which can be achieved with different types of dwellings.

# **6. Conclusion**

The paper shows that much of the housing that is described as future-oriented or sustainable is already in the spirit of the post-growth debate. Post-growth can be a future-proof guiding principle for residential development in cities and supplement existing principles (inner urban development, quality of life, '2000-watt society'). Post-growth approaches to urban development have to date seldom been analysed in relation to classical housing projects and estate developments, and instead have usually emerged as alternative approaches parallel to the housing market. Although the link to such projects is important, an approach with majority appeal is required, one that is also supported by developers on the classical housing market. The paper demonstrates that post-growth in housing can indeed be generalisable and need not be limited to alternative concepts like transition towns.

Cooperatives play a key role as their form of organisation gives residents a voice and allows their participation in the design of the residential environment. In addition, cooperatives are well known for their experimentation with new ideas and alternative paths. Non-profit developers remove land and real estate from speculation and provide dwellings according to the costrent principle, the housing is affordable for most population strata and is usually cheaper than on the classical housing market. The goal of non-profit developers is to provide environmentally and socially sustainable housing. They are often also pioneers in the transformation of existing forms of housing. Cooperatives are therefore suitable partners for post-growth housing projects.

As well as the non-profit developers as an innovative, post-growth oriented form of organisation, innovations are needed on the technical side and in infrastructure and architecture. With their manifesto for future-proof architecture and structural engineering, architects, engineers and urban planners have demonstrated that they too can act as pioneers of change and

can assume responsibility for transformation (DAI 2009). Urban development stakeholders involved in housing development have, firstly, responsibility for ensuring that enough dwellings are available for all at a reasonable price. Secondly, housing developers need to ensure that the right housing is planned and built, i.e. dwellings that meet the needs of residents with their different lifestyles and that respond to changes in society.

If post-growth is recognised as a guiding principle for future-oriented housing development, the 'Competition for Good Building' in the city of Zurich could in the future become a competition for post-growth housing. The award-winning projects are already post-growth oriented. A change of terminology for this competition would lead to the post-growth concept becoming better known and could allow the ideas behind it to be more broadly disseminated. Although post-growth is familiar to many academics, a focus on the planning and practice level would further strengthen awareness.

The award-winning projects that were used as a basis for selecting the interview partners, can be viewed as showpieces because they fulfil many of the criteria for post-growth housing. A distinguishing feature of the Hunziker-Areal is that functional neighbourhood infrastructures have been developed in the exterior to create more than just a residential estate. The entire Hunziker-Areal is conceived in terms of community with numerous collective areas and meeting zones. There are over 40 neighbourhood groups active in various fields. Furthermore, the residents of the development ref lect the population mix of the canton of Zurich. The whole development experiments with different forms of dwelling and architectural measures. A post-growth perspective suggests, however, that the Hunziker-Areal requires more green spaces. It would be possible to have less sealed surfaces, even though commerce needs a delivery zone for trucks. Green spaces would ensure that the development remains cooler in the summer and would provide inviting places to spend time in, especially as there are very few green spaces in the surrounding area.

The apartment complex Klee in Zurich-Affoltern is an attractive housing development with 340 dwelling units for just under 1000 residents, located on the edge of the city. The social density is high, but the skilful architecture provides many open spaces that can be used by residents. The fact that two cooperatives with different philosophies collaborated on this project made it possible to attract different people. A stricter implementation of all the post-growth criteria could achieve a better mix of uses. Although Affoltern is somewhat remote, a focus on public uses in additional spaces on the ground f loor would bring life to the area throughout the day.

The Grünmatt project shows how a neighbourhood of single-family homes can be redeveloped to provide attractive dwelling space for more people than before. There are now almost 500 people living in the development where 200 people previously lived. The new build resembles a modern garden city with numerous shared exterior spaces and rooms. Individual consumption of space is thus low, just 33 m2 per person. Another important point is the intelligent heating concept of the Family Home Cooperative (*Familienheim Genossenschaf t*), which recovers waste heat from large companies in the city, stores it in three boreholes and uses it for heating. From a post-growth perspective, efforts should be made to attract a broader mix of residents. The development is very attractive for families and draws many families with small children, but a greater mix of residents would increase quality of life.

In this paper, post-growth has been examined as a guiding principle for housing in the city of Zurich. It would be interesting to apply the same approach to the municipalities of the agglomeration, which is where most land take is currently occurring. This would also allow investigation of whether criteria that are relevant for future-oriented housing projects in the city are also applicable to the municipalities of the agglomeration. As the topic of housing cannot be considered in isolation, future research should also focus on urban development as a whole. This would allow consideration of topics like mobility and the construction of offices and commercial buildings.

# **Cited literature**

# **Makerspaces** Third places for a sustainable (post-growth) society?

*Matti Kurzeja, Katja Thiele, Britta Klagge*

# **1. Introduction**

For several years there has been discussion of the significance of so-called 'third places' for a sustainable and future-oriented society. The currently much-discussed open workshops or makerspaces are third places of this kind (e.g. Lange 2017). Although a theoretical debate on the importance of third spaces and third places has been ongoing for decades in social sciences, makerspaces are a relatively new phenomenon. Such cooperation between people in collectively used places is particularly interesting and is discussed in the post-growth debate as a hopeful symbol of urgently needed social transformation towards sustainability (e.g. Simons/Petschow/Peuckert 2016, Smith/Light 2017).

By questioning the classical relationship between production and consumption, makerspaces provide important stimuli in all three dimensions of sustainable development and are thus considered as a positive vision of a new industrial DIY/DIT revolution (DIY = Do-it-yourself, DIT = Do-it-together) (Gershenfeld 2005). Taking the transformative potentials of third places as a starting point, we argue that makerspaces are catalysts for more sustainability, especially with regard to their social functions. This is because they (can) contribute towards consolidating a culture of making and thus to implementing a post-growth society. We begin the discussion by considering what third places actually are and how they contribute towards a sustainability transformation. Attention then turns to the specific phenomenon of makerspaces, considering their potentials as third places in the post-growth context. The article closes with a conclusion and prospects for further research.

# **2. Third places and sustainable development**

The terms 'third space' and 'third place' can be traced back to debates in and on cultural and social theory. Important authors are Ray Oldenburg (1989), Homi K. Bhabha (1994) and Edward W. Soja ([1996] 2007). Third spaces and places have received much attention within post-colonial studies (Struve 2017: 227) and have also been discussed in geographical research. This article draws on the various concepts and then applies them to makerspaces in the context of post-growth.

#### 2.1 From 'third space' to 'third place' – theoretical approaches

Third space is concerned with the interaction of culture, identity, space and power relations. Drawing on postmodern definitions of space as the articulation of social power relations (Massey 1994: 120), Bhabha proposes reading spatial identities and individuals' movements in space as the result of history, hybridity and hierarchy. Bhabha conceptualizes third space at the interface between the representation of space and representational space, which is where change emerges (Elmborg 2011: 342 ff.). In terms of the transformational power of cultural difference, 'third space is the space of potentially meaningful contact between cultures and people' (ibid.: 344) and thus a kind of space of possibilities that emerge from cultural exchange between people (Struve 2017: 226). Edward W. Soja ([1996] 2007) refers further to the difference between third space as opposed to first space and second space. While first space is understood as a 'real' space, limited by the built environment, and second space is the space that is perceived and negotiated in discourse, third space refers to the combination of the two (Soja [1996] 2007: 56f.). This understanding views third space as being characterised primarily by hybridity and openness (Austen 2014: 49).

The spatial theory conceptions of Bhabha and Soja are characterised by a high degree of abstraction (Struve 2017: 228) and do not provide a tangible basis for the analysis of concrete places and their potentials. However, since the late 1980s numerous authors have tackled the issue of transferring these concepts and applied third place concepts to everyday places like cafes, kiosks, neighbourhood centres or libraries (e.g. Elmborg 2011, Peterson 2019). One of the first who conceived of third place as a public place was the urban sociologist Ray Oldenburg (1989: 20 ff.) . From his perspective, transforma-

tion can only emerge in a public place that is outside the home (first place) and place of work (second place), as encounters between strangers on neutral ground can only occur in a place to which nobody has personal ties (ibid.: 26). There must also be low thresholds for participating in interaction processes. People's social status should not play a role, or at least plays much less of a role than in other places. The precondition for encounters between different people is that the place is open and freely accessible (Sleeman 2012: 37). This includes ensuring that the atmosphere is inviting and fulfils the needs of users, but standards should nonetheless be simple (function before appearance). In addition to openness towards new participants, communication is seen as decisive for setting things in motion and managing change. The design of third places therefore needs to focus on community and enable collaborative work. The conversational atmosphere should not be tense but needs to be playful and conspirative, giving the individual a feeling of warmth and belonging to the group. This can be further underlined by regular joint activities and events (ibid.). Before our attention turns to how these conditions are fulfilled in makerspaces, we discuss the extent to which third places are relevant from the perspective of sustainability.

#### 2.2 Third places and their role in sustainability transition

Since at least the 1970s, critiques of growth have been an established part of scientific debate. At the beginning of the 2020s, these critiques are often thought of under the heading of 'sustainability', a term which is used extremely vaguely and is linked to numerous different concepts (Pufé 2018: 93). Drawing on the concept of the sustainability triangle (ibid.: 112 f.), we do not consider the three dimensions of sustainability (ecological, social and economic dimensions) as pillars standing next to one another but as an integrative 'common whole' (ibid.: 113, translated from German). This approach to sustainable development can also be applied to third places.

If we consider the global sustainability goals (SDGs) developed by the United Nations (UN 2015) and the sustainability principles as summarised by Pufé (2018: 116), it can be seen that third places offer a whole series of starting points for a sustainability transformation. As meeting places they enable encounters and networking between people of different age groups (principle of intergenerational justice) and between those of different origin, gender, religion and social status (principle of intragenerational justice) (ibid.). As they are

generally intended as long-term structures, they support the creation of inclusive and resilient social and cultural infrastructures in towns and cities (SDG 11) – also in line with the sustainability principle 'think global, act local' (Pufé 2018: 116). Thanks to the opening up and pooling of cultural offerings, education and encounters, third places are 'anchor points for cultural diversity and a cultural contribution towards strengthening social cohesion, creating equivalent living conditions and strengthening identity' (MKW NRW 2019, translated from German). In the long run, they contribute to the promotion of psychosocial well-being (SDG 3) and lifelong learning (SDG 4) and support the transformation of processes of production and consumption from a growth-based economy towards a socio-ecological economy focused on the common good (SDG 8).

Third places are primarily relevant for meeting social sustainability goals, although there are complex interactions with other dimensions (Bauriedl 2008: 33). In the following, the example of makerspaces is used to explore how third places function and contribute towards a social transformation to (more) sustainability.

# **3. Makerspaces as third places of the post-growth society**

In order to understand why makerspaces can be understood as third places, they are initially described in brief. Subsequently, their potential as infrastructure for a sustainability transformation is critically discussed in the context of post-growth discourses.

# 3.1 High-tech workshops for everyone: Development, organisation and examples

Debates held in the 1980s and 1990s about the predicted end of mass production and the increasing f lexibilisation of industrial production (Piore/Sabel 1985) have been spurred on since the turn of the millennium by radically new digital and networked production and additive manufacturing technologies. This is the context in which authors like Gershenfeld (2005, 2012) and Anderson (2012) developed a positive vision of a new industrial DIY/DIT revolution, in which the relationship between production and consumption is renegotiated through cooperation between people using shared production facilities.

#### *Figure 1: Map of makerspaces in Germany*

Source: the authors (data research: Matti Kurzeja; graphics: Irene Johannsen)

In the international literature, makerspaces are variously referred to, for instance as 'community-based fabrication workshops' (Hielscher/Smith 2014). In German-speaking countries the term *Makerspace* describes open workshops with digital infrastructure that are dedicated to 'collaborative (digital) production in publicly accessible spaces' (Simons/Petschow/Peuckert 2016: 29, translated from German). It thus acts as an umbrella term for various manifestations of workshops (Smith 2017: 6) that make available tools and technologies which were originally confined to the sphere of industrial production (Gershenfeld 2012: 44). Makerspaces are a global phenomenon and are growing in number: in 2006 there were only a few dozen, by 2016 almost 1400 (Browder/Aldrich/Bradley 2019: 461). In Germany alone there are now over 200 makerspaces spread across the whole country, although primarily in the larger cities (Figure 1).

The origins of today's maker movement (Anderson 2012, Hatch 2013) can be traced back to the hacker community of the late twentieth century, who worked collaboratively on software and hardware in so-called hackerspaces (Cavalcanti 2013a). Indeed, some makerspaces call themselves hackerspaces, drawing on the hacker movement, although this is not an established term, unlike that of fab labs (fabrication laboratories), a concept initiated in 2001 by Neil Gershenfeld from MIT which also had considerable inf luence on the maker movement and serves as a point of reference for many makerspaces (Gershenfeld 2005). The magazine *Make*, in existence since 2005, and 'maker faires', festivals where makers can present their projects and creations, have further encouraged the emergence of places worldwide that are dedicated to collaborative digital production in facilities open to the public (Burke 2014: 11). The maker movement differs from previous open workshop movements, DIY movements and independent work initiatives in two ways. First, the available technologies and open hardware concepts enable participants to develop their own new technologies. Second, social-media platforms allow intensive forms of cooperation over large distances, based on digital collaboration (Smith 2017: 7).

# 'DingFabrik' Cologne

The '*DingFabrik'* ('ThingFactory') founded in 2010 in Cologne describes itself as a 'combination of open workshop, hackerspace and fab lab'. It is organised as a non-profit association and run by about 120 association members (as of mid-2019). The DIY principle characterises its offerings, such as workshops and information sessions, and it is a grassroots democratic organisation with regular plenums where all important decisions are discussed. Both the operations and the premises are largely financed by membership fees. The premises house a store for materials and areas for woodwork, metalworking, screen printing, sewing and bicycle repairs, but also facilities for working with hardware and software and computer-based maker tools like a laser cutter, 3-D printer and a CNC milling machine. There are courses to learn how to use specific tools, lectures, working groups and projects that explicitly focus on the sustainable use of resources and offer corresponding 'help to self-help' (e.g. repair cafes). The weekly crafting afternoon is perfect for getting an idea of the place. What happens in the '*DingFabrik'* is just as diverse as the raw materials and tools used: from bicycle repairs to making furniture and musical instruments to the development and construction of complex technical equipment like CNC-milling machines or laser cutters. The '*DingFabrik'* is thus an example of a makerspace initiated and run by civil-society actors.

Further information at: https://dingfabrik.de/

## A makerspace at the urban district library of Cologne-Kalk

The library of the urban district Kalk is run by the city of Cologne and was comprehensively renovated in 2018. Since then, it has a making room, with finance provided by a fund for neighbourhoods with special development needs. The library was designed with the aim of creating a non-commercial place for cultural interaction, experimentation, tinkering and participation. The design process included the architects and the library team but also involved the active participation of residents of Kalk. Based on the concept of an 'open library', the premises can be used without staff support during the opening hours of the district town hall. Visitors identify themselves with their library cards at the entry panel

and can use the place independently. The makerspace is located on the ground f loor and in close vicinity to the library itself with its communal areas to spend time in and a comprehensive collection of media. It provides a 3-D printer, educational robots, laptops, tablets, soldering equipment and corresponding self-help literature. Every week tools and techniques are explained in workshops to anyone interested. In addition to courses for learning to use 3-D printers, there are courses on programming and building electric circuits, on robot control systems and on single-board computers. It is also possible for individuals to hold their own courses in open hours for 'Kalk's makers'. Another part of the Kalk makerspace concept is the 'Maker Mobil', a cargo bike that can be used f lexibly for events in the city and promotes the makerspace among the general public. Through its integration in the urban district library, the Kalk makerspace illustrates how state actors, especially public libraries and museums, are embracing the DIY movement and the concept of third places, thus finding ways to embrace digitisation and the resulting social change (Rasmussen 2016: 547, Braybrooke 2018: 41).

Further information at: https://www.stadt-koeln.de/artikel/04943/ index.html