The role of economic growth for urban development has become a contested question among transformation and transition scholars (Feola 2020; Döring/Zimmermann 2025). This disagreement stems from both analytical differences regarding the role of existing institutional arrangements – such as capitalist markets and states – and strategic considerations about which changes are feasible and where incremental efforts may inadvertently deepen rather than resolve socio-ecological crises (Eckersley 2021). Empirical evidence increasingly suggests that growth-based development cannot be reconciled with a ‘good life for all’ within planetary boundaries in the long term (Haberl/Wiedenhofer/Virág et al. 2020; Fanning/Raworth 2025). Despite inevitable uncertainty about the potential of future technological advances, the imperative of a precautionary decoupling of public provisioning from economic growth thus emerges as common ground among growth-critical scholars (Petschow/aus dem Moore/Hofmann et al. 2022). This raises the question of how overcoming growth dependencies would translate into practical measures – both in general and for local authorities specifically.

This question can be approached through different conceptual entry avenues. While some scholars take a structural perspective to explore the underlying dynamics and broader contours of social transformations (Kallis/Hickel/O’Neill et al. 2025), others pursue more fine-grained, context-specific perspectives on how societal change unfolds in everyday practice (Beveridge/Naumann 2023). The latter approaches focus on how incumbent relations are reproduced, challenged, and reshaped – within and outside of formal institutions. Both structural and practice-oriented perspectives are valuable for understanding municipal growth dependencies: the ways in which local authorities’ proper functioning is linked to economic performance.

Structural approaches identify several systemic pressures, ‘drivers’ or ‘imperatives’ that describe how economic growth becomes inscribed into institutional arrangements. These include: (1) monetary systems, credit and interest; (2) competition and capital; (3) property relations; (4) technological progress and productivity increases; (5) state institutions and systems of taxation; (6) globalisation and international value chains; as well as (7) individual aspirations, corporate objectives and social pressure (Binswanger 2019; Richters/Siemoneit 2019; Petschow/aus dem Moore/Hofmann et al. 2022). When applied to local authorities, this structural perspective helps explain their reliance on cyclically sensitive taxes, such as business tax and municipal shares of income tax that constitute crucial income sources for German municipalities (Bogumil/Holtkamp 2023: 31).

A practice-oriented perspective examines how growth dependencies are actualised, reproduced and negotiated on the ground – for instance through economic promotion programmes, struggles over privatisation, or land use planning processes. Such a perspective helps to highlight diversity and hybridity. That is, how economic growth informs or compels decisions and practices differently, indirectly and partially. This perspective is also attuned to the diverse but often minor ways in which growth dependencies can potentially be reduced through incremental shifts in local policy and everyday practice.

This paper follows a practice-oriented approach for three reasons. First, by allowing for more nuanced analysis, an orientation toward practices captures the ambiguous and even contradictory nature of real-world examples such as the case explored in this paper. Second, since the primary focus is on the municipal level of governance – where many structural changes lie beyond local authority powers – the emphasis is on identifying smaller, more feasible shifts in practice. Third, a practice-oriented perspective reveals how institutional boundaries become blurred through everyday activities, transcending simple inside/outside distinctions. In the following, I outline a practice-oriented perspective on municipal growth dependencies by proposing three principles that translate growth dependencies into practice: (1) monetary calculations and profitability, (2) market mechanisms and competitiveness, and (3) private economic interests and appropriation. How practices embody and reproduce these principles ultimately shapes the extent to which municipalities are bound to economic performance.

First, monetary calculations and profitability emphasise immediate returns on investment in terms of financial gains. This means prioritising short-term savings and profits over longer-term benefits associated with preventative actions, such as social and environmental health, mitigation and adaptation measures, and infrastructure maintenance. A focus on monetary calculations and immediate profitability drives growth in two ways: first, growth potential becomes a pivotal consideration in negotiations and decision-making; second, neglecting long-term effects requires disproportionately more resources to address the resulting costs in the long run. Under the current logic, obtaining these primarily financial means would require further economic growth to generate municipal revenues, deepening the cycle of growth dependency.

For instance, local authorities often prioritise high-end residential projects because they promise immediate increases in property tax revenue and attract affluent residents (Götze/Hartmann 2021). This monetary calculation focuses on short-term financial gains while neglecting the longer-term social costs such as the displacement of existing residents, increased housing inequality and infrastructure strain (Dewilde 2018). The social problems created – such as housing affordability crises and community displacement – require expensive public interventions and services. Addressing these accumulated social costs necessitates even more revenue, which – within a growth mindset – pushes local authorities to pursue additional growth.

Secondly, market mechanisms and competitiveness are key principles in organising urban systems, including access to housing and commercial spaces, services and the awarding of public contracts. Financial resources and the ability to compete – enhanced through cost externalisation and reduced expenses (Patel/Moore 2018) – are critical determinants of opportunities within urban environments. This dynamic perpetuates growth dependencies, as entities that focus on lucrative aspects are prioritised for providing services and shaping urban spaces. Operating under a profit motive also means that costs and issues not immediately necessary for service delivery are often curtailed or neglected, necessitating public financial support and leading to long-term costs (Paul/Cumbers 2023).

For instance, when addressing housing shortages, local authorities often partner with private developers rather than strengthening municipal housing companies or turning to housing cooperatives. This choice reflects a market logic: private developers appear more financially viable and able to provide (social) housing more cost-efficiently. However, after the mandated affordability period expires – typically after 10 to 30 years – privately developed flats revert to market-rate housing, whereas municipal or cooperative housing generally retains its affordability mandate permanently. As the affordable stock shrinks, public institutions must continuously offer new financial incentives to attract private developers to build replacement units.

Thirdly, private economic interests exert significant control over and appropriate the value generated in urban environments (Farmer/Poulos 2019). For instance, when private investors pursue developments that significantly affect the layout and use of entire districts, or when urban spaces – ranging from parking areas to restaurants – are designed primarily for visitors rather than residents. Although this creates short-term monetary returns through property sales and business taxes, it undermines local participation and the deterioration of resident-focused infrastructure, such as public transport, affordable food options and spaces for encounter and community. The social and environmental costs, such as high rents, displacement, community disruption and increased living costs, further require funding borne by public institutions, likely resulting from the same cycle of growth-oriented development perpetuated by urban growth coalitions (Harding 1991; Boeth/Kühn 2022).

Tracing how municipal growth dependencies might be reduced requires a positive counter-orientation to financialisation and marketisation. This paper takes the notion of the common good – understood as practices, decisions, and instruments that aim to benefit collective welfare rather than serving primarily private or particular interests – as a starting point. The common good is a notoriously difficult term, diverse in meaning and subject to contestation, as well as to both historical and contemporary populist misuse (Blum 2015). At the same time, its openness can be understood as a profoundly democratic function, where collective negotiation produces a shared understanding of what serves more than specific individual interests alone (Schuppert 2002). To open up such spaces for negotiation about urban coexistence, the constraints of municipal growth dependencies must be addressed. This section begins to explore how practices oriented towards the common good might decentre – or even begin to tackle – municipal growth dependencies. I outline three practice-based dynamics that contrast with those discussed in the previous section: (1) foregrounding non-monetary and longer-term costs and minimising negative externalities; (2) establishing needs-based and equitable provisioning systems; and (3) enhancing democratic steering and the collective generation and retention of surplus value. How practices embody and advance these principles shapes the extent to which municipalities can loosen, redirect, or transform their growth dependencies.

First, focusing on non-monetary and longer-term costs, as well as negative externalities, circumvents the logic of narrow monetary calculus. Acknowledging non-monetary and long-term values fosters a preventative approach that prioritises healthy urban environments, stable communities and resilient provisioning. For instance, while withdrawing land from market-rate development might reduce the immediate revenue from land sales, non-profit-oriented and collaborative housing projects can simultaneously decrease future costs stemming from social isolation or displacement by fostering mutual support networks and community ties (Dang/Seemann 2021).

Similarly, focusing on needs-based and equitable provisioning systems rather than market competitiveness decentres the role of profit-oriented actors by directly supporting organisations and enhancing arrangements that address social needs (Guinan/O’Neill 2020). For instance, instead of relying on market-rate housing development, local authorities can support non-profit housing providers and community land trusts (Meehan 2014; Jeske/Hagbert/Engström 2024) that ensure long-term affordability and stability. While the effort, expenditure and risk might be higher, this shift reduces the need to cover costs for emergency housing, social services for displaced populations, and infrastructure for peripheral developments that result from gentrification and housing shortages in central areas.

Third, enhancing democratic steering and the collective generation and retention of surplus value shifts the focus away from profit-driven motives towards community-oriented governance and participatory decision-making. This approach ensures that the benefits generated within cities are retained for wider social use rather than appropriated by private actors. It follows a preventative and direct logic, mitigating the pressure to constantly pursue growth for revenue generation. For example, when collaborative housing groups have a say in designing their neighbourhoods – determining shared spaces, services and communal approaches – they can ensure these assets remain accessible and beneficial to all residents, meeting their actual needs rather than succumbing to the profit-maximisation interests of private developers.

Moving away from market- and growth-centred practices thus entails a shift towards different alliances, metrics and forms of valuation on the part of local authorities. While most initiatives in this direction remain nascent, partial and fragile, two tentative shifts are becoming visible in some municipalities. First, some local authorities are adopting economic and political frameworks that turn away from market- and growth-centred development, such as Doughnut Economics (Schmid 2025), the Economy for the Common Good (Weck/Ritzinger 2021) and new municipalism (Thompson 2021). These are accompanied by policy instruments including the remunicipalisation of infrastructures (Paul/Cumbers 2023) or community land trusts (Meehan 2014). Yet in all of this, community-led initiatives – ‘emancipatory movements working towards and through socially, economically, and environmentally just relations’ (Schmid/Smith/Aiken 2021: 155) – play a central role. Second, local authorities are thus forging new alliances with actor groups that pursue non-monetary values, focus on needs-based provisioning and practise collective decision-making and surplus retention, for instance through public-commons partnerships (Bianchi 2023).

Municipal initiatives on both fronts, often going hand-in-hand, are inevitably ambiguous. They take place in real-world contexts where growth-based development remains a crucial force – ideologically, institutionally and with respect to resources and interests. With this in mind, the next sections turn to the case of Kleineschholz – a district development project purportedly oriented ‘towards the common good’. After outlining the study’s methodology, I present its findings and discuss my research questions: How are different elements assembled to centre ‘the common good’ in the Kleineschholz development? Whose notion of common good is implemented? And what are the potential implications of the Kleineschholz development for countering municipal growth dependencies?

Kleineschholz is a 77,500 m² site close to Freiburg’s centre that is being prepared for development, with construction of the first residential buildings planned to commence in early 2026. In the summer of 2025, the last two plots were allocated, bringing the total to 13 organisations that the local authority classifies as oriented towards the common good, all holding plot reservations at the time of writing (see Figure 1). This decision by the city of Freiburg to develop the district without profit-oriented investors must be understood against the background of the local housing market, Freiburg’s municipal housing strategy and its collaborative housing landscape.

Figure 1  Overview of housing projects with confirmed plots reserved for them, including four small cooperatives (1, 3, 29, 33), three projects associated with the Mietshäuser Syndikat (6, 12, 22), one larger cooperative (7), two foundations (10, 17), one association (25), one church-affiliated organisation (21) and one investor-driven project (30). Source: Stadt Freiburg

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Similar to other urban centres, Freiburg’s housing market has experienced a steep increase in property prices and rents. As a liveable “Green City” (Fastenrath/Preller 2018), with a high proportion of jobs in higher education and research, the city has seen significant population growth. At the same time, the general perception of housing as an investment and a growth market (Aalbers 2017) has also affected Freiburg. Yet, an important turn against the financialisation and neoliberalisation of housing was marked in 2006 when a public vote decided that the city of Freiburg would remain the sole owner of Freiburg Stadtbau GmbH (FSB) and the municipal apartments (Stadt Freiburg 2006). By this time, Freiburg already had an active community-led housing landscape. Most famously, the Mietshäuser Syndikat which emerged in the 1980s at a brownfield site near Freiburg’s city centre, has become an internationally renowned organisation for decommodifying housing.¹ Locally, the Mietshäuser Syndikat is a key part of Freiburg’s lively collaborative housing landscape that encompasses a range of larger and smaller cooperatives alongside ‘infrastructural’ housing organisations such as the Mietshäuser Syndikat and the Dachgenossenschaft (umbrella cooperative).

In 2013, Freiburg adopted a housing programme that gradually shifted the emphasis towards new housing developments, the promotion of affordable housing, land allocation through concept-based tendering and active property management (Stadt Freiburg 2013). Although the relationship between public and civil society actors in housing is not without its tensions, this strategy testifies to emerging convergences (Schmid/Fricke/Zengerling 2024). The Kleineschholz development emerged within this context of institutional opening towards non-market housing provision. Freiburg’s revised housing strategy in 2020 (Stadt Freiburg 2020) reinforced this direction, demonstrating a growing appreciation for collaborative housing organisations.

In 2018, the newly elected Mayor Martin Horn made a significant announcement about Kleineschholz during his inaugural address: To address the issue of affordable housing, the district would be developed without profit-oriented investors. This exclusion was later reframed as development solely focused on the common good. However, the specific meaning of the common good and its translation into practice remain contested. This section explores how different elements are assembled to foreground ‘the common good’ in the Kleineschholz development, and whose notion of the common good is ultimately realised. To examine this, it traces two related dynamics: a low-threshold, open process of concept-based tendering, and a trans-stakeholder culture of communication.

A more complex picture emerges when looking beyond the housing itself. While only a few projects have detailed requirements on architecture and use written into the contractually binding reservation agreements (see Table 1), two key dynamics stand out: First, active coordination among collaborative housing groups – particularly through the delegate meetings and events organised by the Pavilion, as outlined in Section 4.2 – has significantly shaped their individual approaches. Second, the collaborative housing groups engage in extensive collaboration with other civil society actors in Freiburg (see Table 1).

As part of coordinating plot applications, the delegates’ meeting provided an opportunity to discuss the complementarity of use concepts. This coordination was important for two reasons: First, the binding land use plan mandates commercial use in the urban district category. Second, groups needed to sharpen their profiles in the competitive tendering process – in particular against the background of the open, comparative assessment of concepts.

The projects aligned their efforts around various focus areas, including mobility, food, local production and repair workshops, culture and events, education, and inclusion. Most resident-driven projects incorporate one or more of these themes as central components of their vision and identity. Corresponding physical spaces – such as workshop facilities, flexible areas dedicated to cultural events, educational purposes or community meetings, distribution points for food and goods (e.g., ‘Fairteiler’), and bike repair stations – are integrated into the architectural designs. Furthermore, most housing groups have partnered with one or several organizations working in these respective fields (see Table 1).

However, collaborative housing groups face two challenges in this process. First, aligning with both the district’s overall common-good orientation and their own pro-social and pro-environmental values, they predominantly partner with non-profit organizations who cannot contribute to the construction costs. This requires substantial upfront financing on the part of housing groups, further straining their financial calculations. Second, negotiations over the distribution of these focus areas among the different groups – essentially ‘who does what’ – were not always conflict-free, resulting in ongoing tensions between groups (Schröer 2024). A major factor fuelling these conflicts was the competitive environment created by the limited availability of plots, which inevitably pitted organisations against each other. Consequently, collaborative housing groups were pressured to develop a distinct profile, anticipating what resonates with the evaluation committee’s vision for the district. Ultimately, strong networking among the groups enabled them to navigate the tension between cooperation and competition.

Designing and implementing a concept-based tendering process to allocate plots to organisations that explicitly do not follow profit motives is a sharp turn away from the market primacy of neoliberal urbanism (Peck/Theodore/Brenner 2013). Such a turn to stronger involvement of the local state, however, does not automatically mean that the social harms of neoliberal and austerity urbanism are reversed. While the common good is mobilised in contrast to a free-market housing policy – which is recognised as having failed by the local authority – the notion remains contested. For the local authority, the common good is largely viewed as a binary decision required as a prerequisite for participating in the tender process. Once the boxes of pre-established organisational categories are ticked, further enquiries regarding an organisation’s general suitability are waived.

However, some of the addressees of Kleineschholz’s orientation towards ‘the common good’ adopt the principle more profoundly than others, as a guiding force for their organisational and economic efforts. Although collaborative housing groups do not necessarily use the term ‘common good’, their practices, decisions and instruments largely align with collective welfare rather than individual interests. This can be seen in the fact that they exceed the local authority’s standards for qualifying as common good-oriented, for instance by developing voluntary measures to limit per capita living space. Beyond a focus on housing affordability and sufficiency, these groups demonstrate a tapestry of collaborations with external partners – largely from the non-profit sector (see Table 1).

While these efforts are strongly motivated, they align with the first evaluation criterion established by the local authority, which assesses projects’ contribution to the neighbourhood, the district and/or the entire city (Stadt Freiburg 2024). However, due to constraints such as financial insecurity and the instability of (some) civil society partners, many of these collaborations have not been formalised as binding commitments and thus were not included in the evaluation. Once the box for qualifying as oriented towards the common good is ticked, established developers such as foundations, public companies or larger cooperatives were likely to fare better on the second and third evaluation criteria: the quality of the proposals, which must include a realistic financing plan, and their reliability as projects that will ultimately bear the promised fruit. All in all, this has resulted in a greater number of non-resident-driven projects than many participants had anticipated. Despite the local authority’s significant opening up towards collaborative housing actors (Czischke/Carriou/Lang 2020), the organisational alignment with established partners continues to play a significant role. Especially in times of strained municipal budgets, predictability and solvency are crucial. Delays and inter-stakeholder disagreements – especially major conflicts which may arise through different world views (Torfing/Payandeh/Jalili et al. 2025) – can have severe consequences. While the local authority has tried to mitigate this issue by maintaining a close dialogue with the participants, it has also partially succumbed to institutional pressure by preferring solvent players over resident-driven projects.

Beyond institutional pressures, the plot allocation outcomes also reflect existing power relations and potential lobbying influence. Research on urban growth coalitions has extensively documented how established developers and influential investors shape urban development processes, often gaining preferential treatment through informal networks and political connections (Harding 1991; Götze/Hartmann 2021). In Kleineschholz, the inclusion of a project clearly associated with an influential investor raises questions about the consistency of the common good framework. Despite the lack of clear empirical evidence of direct interference, this decision highlights two key aspects. First, the local authority itself is composed of heterogeneous actors with varying priorities and perspectives. Kleineschholz is thus not a homogeneous, fully harmonised effort towards a singular vision of the common good, but an ambiguous process shaped by competing interests and constraints. Second, rather than reflecting a purely idealistic motivation to reorient urban development, Kleineschholz, for some, represents a flagship project aligning with Freiburg’s ‘green city’ branding (Fastenrath/Preller 2018). While this does not diminish Kleineschholz’s potential effects on housing affordability, it simultaneously fits within the logics of inter-urban competition.

Despite these challenges, the Kleineschholz development marks a potential shift away from growth-based development. In terms of housing, this is reflected in a long-term strategy to create and secure affordable living spaces, rather than a focus on short-term profitability (see Section 2). Located in a prime area of Freiburg, the valuable plots in Kleineschholz are withdrawn from property speculation instead of being marketed to the highest bidder. By excluding profit-oriented investors from most plots, rents can be expected to remain considerably below the local reference rent even after the expiry of social housing agreements, particularly as long-term affordability is a core value for most housing groups and is embedded in their statutes. This means that most flats in Kleineschholz will not revert to market-rate housing. Projects further support long-term affordability by targeting various groups (such as trainees, refugees or retirees) and offering various, often flexible, flat sizes.

Beyond these predictable and formally secured aspects surrounding affordable housing, Kleineschholz presents further potential for reducing growth dependencies. The gradual approach towards the upcoming construction in Kleineschholz has resulted in community-building – amongst future residents and between housing projects and other civil society groups. Despite some constraints as outlined above, this demonstrates a pronounced turn away from private economic interests and surplus appropriation in neighbourhood development.

First, the involvement of (some) future residents in the development from a very early stage enables dialogue, coordination and negotiation about how Kleineschholz should be and how its residents will live together. This ranges from developing shared visions for individual housing developments to coordination amongst groups over communal approaches and use concepts. Future residents of the district are involved much earlier, much more deeply and in much greater numbers in designing their neighbourhood than would be the case in ordinary urban developments. Beyond these observable collaborative processes, this early involvement also has the potential to lay the groundwork for lasting relationships of mutual support, whether in relation to repairing everyday items, assisting with official correspondence, sharing leftover food, or simply providing companionship. These networks can help prevent numerous social costs and issues. Cultivating a residential community and building trusting relationships can further promote more sustainable lifestyles through the sharing of communal spaces such as offices, guest rooms, community gardens, laundry rooms and everyday items – ideas that are embedded in most housing concepts.

On a more structural level, the proposed use concepts and collaborations with community-led initiatives (Schmid/Smith/Aiken 2021) are likely to foster needs-based, local supply structures including food, shared means of transport, local production and repair, care and education, integration, arts and community development. Of course, this will not result in a closed-off or self-sufficient neighbourhood economy – the desirability of which remains questionable. However, in addition to shorter distances being required for everyday needs, this would imply proximity between owners, workers, users and their social context, alongside a low level of external value appropriation. Based on collaborative structures, grounded in collectively owned and operated spaces, and focused on needs-based provisioning, such a local economy would operate to some extent outside the pressures of a growth-based economy. While not insulated from broader economic relations – such as those connected to supply chains and labour markets – such a community-based economy lowers the pressures from rent and value extraction.

Resident-driven projects, however, face an important limitation common to community-led initiatives, including from the housing sector: they are characterised by a disproportionate number of privileged individuals – often middle-class and male (Grossmann/Creamer 2017; Scheller/Thörn 2018). Although Kleineschholz presents a unique opportunity to realise resident-driven housing projects, it requires immense investments of resources and time. Unless housing projects deliberately address these challenges, individuals without the necessary capacities tend to be excluded. Some housing groups have implemented countermeasures. For instance, one project in Kleineschholz deliberately keeps its initial size below a certain limit to allow those with fewer capacities to join at a later stage. However, such strategies come with their own challenges, including additional efforts to address diverse participants and fewer resources such as lower deposits.

The main challenge here is structural: Despite the lowering of the entrance barrier through a two-step tendering process, the projects must navigate a complex landscape of planning and building regulations, funding programmes, architectural specifications, self-management, decision-making, conflict resolution and much more. Additionally, the projects face significant upfront costs, requiring a broad base of funding or wealthy individuals willing to provide substantial financial support. The professionalisation programme initiated by the local authority fell short of addressing this issue as it targeted the applicants’ capabilities rather than simplifying the underlying processes. A much more promising avenue would be further simplification of the process itself, for instance through fewer regulatory requirements. Further research is needed to explore how this could facilitate broader participation while maintaining legal standards.

A second factor driving the high financial costs for initiatives is the failed implementation of a leasehold model. Sequential payments as is the norm for heritable building rights would have considerably lowered the initial costs and thus the entrance barrier. Here a number of structural barriers – including Kleineschholz’s financing structure as an urban development scheme with a separate account and the costing methods used by state subsidy programmes – have significantly limited the room for manoeuvre for both housing groups and municipal actors. Critical research on the potentials of more productive uses of leasehold models is needed to support future efforts.

In addition to these challenges, two critical notes are in order. First, Kleineschholz relies on new building stock, making this approach potentially resource-intensive and at least questionable from an ecological viewpoint. While most projects aim to use sustainable materials including wood, clay and straw, a long-term material impact assessment is beyond the scope of this paper and would merit future research. Regardless, the construction of new building stock avoids distributive conflicts over existing housing at the expense of land consumption, which presents a significant challenge for a growing city like Freiburg.

Second, Freiburg’s long-standing tradition of collaborative housing merits highlighting. Ongoing capacity-building efforts over several decades have laid the groundwork for successful resident-driven projects with considerable expertise. This strongly limits the transferability of findings to other cities without a strong collaborative housing landscape.