Building Communities: The Co-Operative Way, first published in 1988, sets the flourishing of housing co-operatives throughout the 1980s in a theoretical and historical framework that suggests that tenant control is the best way out of the still-problematic issue of housing policy.

Before the First World War, co-operative housing was poised to become a potent force in government policy, but instead municipal housing rose to prominence. However, alongside a growing crisis of confidence in state housing and a continued decline in the private rented sector, a new political consensus has emerged that has placed co-ops firmly at the top of the agenda. Setting out the argument for collective dweller-control of housing, Birchall demonstrates that the arguments for co-operatives are strong, based on a broad spectrum of political thought. He charts the early and recent history of co-operative housing, and shows how they provide a flexible and stable means of meeting housing needs.