Tim White wins ESRC PhD scholarship to research on ‘co-living’

Tim White, a Researcher at LSE Cities, has been awarded an ESRC Scholarship to pursue his PhD project on the Cities Programme at the LSE. The project will examine a pivotal response to the intensifying housing crises facing major global cities: the proliferation of corporatised ‘co-living’ spaces. Rather than supply individualised housing units, co-living companies offer ‘high-quality’ communal spaces, flexible rental contracts, and extensive, all-inclusive services as a trade-off for small, private units. Championing ‘sharing economy’ philosophy, the schemes aim to attract young creative professionals. White’s project will trace the emergence of this rapidly expanding form of co-housing and seek to understand its socioeconomic implications for urban areas. This will involve in-depth research in various case-study cities across Western Europe and North America. White has been exploring how residents experience life in different forms of high-density housing in London as part of the Experiencing Density research project at LSE Cities.