Society is facing a great Sustainability Challenge. The designs of our social and economic structures are creating enormous stress in our social, environmental and economic systems and across the world, citizens, businesses and governments have begun to take notice. Adopting more Sustainable Consumption behaviours have been identified as a necessary step in the move towards sustainability. This thesis explores the idea of Collaborative Consumption within the context of Cohousing in cities. Cohousing is defined as housing comprising of individual apartments or homes with shared spaces and facilities designed to create a community, oriented towards collaboration among residents and collective organisation of services. This research sought to identify key barriers and enablers for moving towards Sustainable Lifestyles and study the role of Cohousing as a catalyst for Collaborative Behaviour that triggers Collaborative Consumption leading urban communities towards Sustainable Lifestyles and ultimately towards Sustainable Development. By combining the Strategic Sustainable Development approach and Cohousing, this thesis provides a set of recommendations that could help Cohousing communities move strategically towards sustainability.

The prefabricated apartment buildings are on the west bank of the river and family houses on the east bank of the river. On the east side there are private areas of family houses and on the west side there are prefabricated buildings with poor quality public spaces. There is only the anonymity of the city, isolation and a lack of human dimension. My concept solves the problem of combining two opposing approaches. It emphasizes neighborly relations in the form of community and the development of community thinking. What should urbanism that unites people look like?