The chapter begins with an overview of the social dimensions of all housing. This is followed by a definition of the more particular concept of social ownership and explanation of how the housing tenure available to residents of socially owned housing differs from both conventional renting and conventional homeownership. The bulk of the chapter then examines the nature and scope of existing models of social ownership, grouped into two major categories: socially owned rental housing, consisting of public housing, nonprofit rental housing, and mutual housing associations; and nonspeculative homeownership, consisting of limited-equity cooperatives, ownership with community land trusts, and some resale-restricted individual ownership. The models are evaluated in terms of differences in the degree of social control. The chapter concludes with identification of various routes through which the amount of social housing can be increased in the US
