The Complex Value of Temporary Communities

Across Europe, a shortage of affordable housing and workspace coexists with widespread vacancy in buildings, lots, and public spaces. Since the 1970s, squatting, anti-squatting, and co-management practices have turned this contradiction into an opportunity, with young people, activists, and creatives temporarily reclaiming empty spaces and, when displaced by rising rents, forming urban nomad communities. While the social and cultural relevance of these initiatives is widely recognised, the value they generate—and how to assess it—remains poorly understood. This thematic issue brings together 10 contributions that examine how temporary reuse of real estate and public space creates value for real estate management, urban development, and local communities, and why diverse actors choose to engage in it. The collected articles present cases from Belgium, the Netherlands, Portugal, Germany, Italy, Curaçao, and Australia, and identify four interrelated dimensions of value: activation, commons, care, and transformation that unfold differently across places, scales, and temporalities. Together, they argue that temporary communities generate effects that persist beyond the end of the temporary use itself, reshaping perceptions of place and future development trajectories, and call for new frameworks to recognise and support this complex value.