Co-living (as a way of life): The Urbanism of the New Urban Crisis in Los Angeles and Beyond

The 21st century global city is in the midst of a new urban crisis: while it holds an increasing monopoly on employment opportunities, it has become harder to access. In this article, I argue that young urban aspirants are still accessing the global city in crisis through the practice of co-living. Co-living can be understood as an emergent collection of residential commoning practices employed by in-bound urbanites to access in-demand parts of the city and attain employment, housing and community. Through a relational ethnographic case study of the PodShare co-living space in the global city of Los Angeles, I argue that co-living is as an urbanism arising to stabilize the new urban crisis on both the level of the individual and the city, guiding individuals to grin at their condition and be increasingly mobile between multiple global cities in an attempt to maximize their chances of securing longer-term residency.