The book and action research project Funding the Cooperative City. Community Finance and the Economy of Civic Spaces describes numerous case studies from across Europe, which tell of how local community finance can be set up. A wide variety of groups that have developed new models for developing and operating non-commercial spaces for their neighborhoods are presented and discussed. None of this is easy, as many interviews and discussion notes reveal. But it is possible: through the formation of solidarity networks, neighborly commitment, a willingness to experiment, and administrative and often financial support from the respective communities.
When Yuriy Fylyuk and his friends moved from Kyiv to Ivano-Frankivsk in the summer of 2008, they found a place with scarcities of all sorts. Out of this, Teple Misto or Warm City emerged—a network that today includes around sixty local companies. A restaurant became one of the platforms for the group’s activities and serves as a place for meeting as well as exchange. One hundred people participate as co-financiers in the Urban Space 100 project. Since 2015, parts of the restaurant’s profits have gone into a pot that finances and supports initiatives, small and larger projects. The money collected in this way has already been used to restore historic building entrances, procure computers for medical facilities, and organize sporting events and festivals.
