Twin city review. [volume] (Champaign, Ill.) 19??-1929, 1923-07-06
DANISH COOPERA-
TIVES SOLVE THE
HOUSING PROBLEM

How one cooperative building so
ciety starting ten years ago with p
members, a few dollars Of subscribed
capital and a little borrowed money,
has built 1900 apartments, a number
Of cooperative stores, and a bank
building, and has acquired and is now
operating d brickworks. lumber yard.
carpenter shop, planning mill, and a
paint factorythis is the story of high
venture and achievement that the
Danish workingmen' Cooperative
Building Association is telling on the
tenth anniversary Of its organization
in the city Of Copenhagen.
Like other sound institutions, the
Cooperative Building Association
was founded to meet a real need.
The local consumers cooperative So
ciety was having difficulty in secur-
ing a suitable store wherein to sell
its goods. A little group of its active
members saw that what was most
needed was a cooperative building So
ciety which would build suitable Co
operative stores as well as homes for
the individual cooperators. Twenty
three cooperators therefore organized
into the Wofkingmen's Cooperative
Building Association and set to work.
The first building was erected in
1913 to house the consumers coOpera-
tive, thus beginning an intimate con
nection between these two related
movements which has continued TO
this day. The second and third build
ings went up in 1914, the capital for
them being procured with great diff
Guilty from the banks. So many hard
ships were placed in the way of the
cooperative builders by the private
banking interests that when they
we're ready TO start on their fourth
building, a sixty family apartment,
they appealed to the trade unions for
a loan to finance it.
Another step forward was taken
with the fifth building. In 1914 the
Danish Cooperative Bank had been
started. Ii was founded as the Cen
trail Credit Institute for the benefit
of the consumers and farmers co.
operative movements, and had no in
tention at first of doing business or
an application for a loan from the
building society was granted, and re-
suited in the location of the bank in
Copenghagen. To the cooperation
thus begun may be credited in large
measure the subsequent rapid growth
of the building society.
When Denmark's housing shortage
grew steadily worse, the results
achieved by the cooperative building
society drew TO il the confidence of
the public and a rapidly increasing
membership. The sixth, seventh, and
eighth apartments housing 232 fam
lilies in addition to stores, were erect
ed in rapid succession.
At the lnter-Allied Housing and
Town planning Congress held in Lon
don in June, 1920, the society became
interested in the English garden
city" homes, and the same year
erected similar group on one of its
own estates. The instant approval
and popularity of these garden homes
led the cooperative builders to erect
group of 140 one-family dwellings
on ten-acre plot, each with its own
garden, and goruped around a small
lake with attractively handicapped
grounds.
The cooperation of the Danish
Cooperative Bank, which began when
the bank financed the fifth building
of the society, gradually developed
until all the financial business of the
society was transacted through it.
When the business of the bank had
grown so rapidly that it needed new
and larger premises the building CO.
operative put up the building.
And now, after ten years of sue
| cessful achievements, this doughty
cooperative, with its 6000 members
is embarking ON five new building
projects following the garden-city
scheme, which will provide homes fol
between 700 aed 500 more families
BY eliminating speculative profits, in
| efficiency and graft the Danish Co.
| operative home builders are effective
ly solving the housing problem.