A cooperative is "an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically-controlled enterprise". Cooperatives are democratically controlled by their members, with each member having one vote in electing the board of directors. They differ from collectives in that they are generally built from the bottom-up, rather than the top-down. Cooperatives may include:
A housing cooperative, or housing co-op, is a legal entity, usually a cooperative or a corporation, which owns real estate, consisting of one or more residential buildings; it is one type of housing tenure. Typically housing cooperatives are owned by shareholders but in some cases they can be owned by a non-profit organization. They are a distinctive form of home ownership that have many characteristics that differ from other residential arrangements such as single family home ownership, condominiums and renting.
Seward is a neighborhood in the Longfellow community of Minneapolis, Minnesota, located geographically southeast of downtown. It consists of the land bordered by the Hiawatha Avenue industrial district to the west, Minneapolis Midtown Greenway to the south, the Mississippi River to the east, and Interstate 94 to the north.
The North Loop is a neighborhood in the Central community of Minneapolis.
The North American Students of Cooperation (NASCO) is a federation of housing cooperatives in Canada and the United States, started in 1968. Traditionally, NASCO has been associated with student housing cooperatives, though non-student cooperatives are included in its network. NASCO provides its member cooperatives with operational assistance, encourages the development of new cooperatives, and serves as an advocate for cooperatives to government, universities, and communities. NASCO teaches leadership skills, provides information, and serves as a central link in facilitating the fruition of the cooperative vision for students and youth.
A worker cooperative is a cooperative owned and self-managed by its workers. This control may mean a firm where every worker-owner participates in decision-making in a democratic fashion, or it may refer to one in which management is elected by every worker-owner who each have one vote. Worker cooperatives may also be referred to as labor-managed firms.
Cedar-Riverside, also referred to as the West Bank, or simply Riverside, is a neighborhood within Minneapolis, Minnesota. Its boundaries are the Mississippi River to the north and east, Interstate 94 to the south, and Hiawatha Avenue and Interstate 35W to the west. It has a longstanding tradition of cultural diversity and settlement, with a robust arts tradition.
A consumers' co-operative is an enterprise owned by consumers and managed democratically and that aims at fulfilling the needs and aspirations of its members. Such co-operatives operate within the market system, independently of the state, as a form of mutual aid, oriented toward service rather than pecuniary profit. Many cooperatives, however, do have a degree of profit orientation. Just like other corporations, some cooperatives issue dividends to owners based on a share of total net profit or earnings ; or based on a percentage of the total amount of purchases made by the owner. Regardless of whether they issue a dividend or not, most consumers’ cooperatives will offer owners discounts and preferential access to goods and services.
A student housing cooperative, also known as co-operative housing, is a housing cooperative for student members. Members live in alternative cooperative housing that they personally own and maintain. These houses are designed to lower housing costs while providing an educational and community environment for students to live and grow in. They are, in general, nonprofit, communal, and self-governing, with students pooling their monetary and personal resources to create a community style home. Many student housing cooperatives share operation and governing of the house. As with most cooperatives, student housing coops follow the Rochdale Principles and promote collaboration and community work done by the members for mutual benefit.
People's Food Co-op or just the People's Co-op is a food cooperative located in Portland, Oregon. Founded in 1970 by the members of a food-buying club, the co-op is owned by over 3000 member-owners and is a member of the National Cooperative Grocers Association and the United States Federation of Worker Cooperatives.
The Wedge Community Co-op or The Wedge is a food cooperative located in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Located at 2105 Lyndale Avenue South, the Wedge derives its name from the popular nickname for the Lowry Hill East neighborhood, called "The Wedge" due to its shape. The Wedge is a member of the NCG.
The O., short for "the Organization", also known as the C.O. or Coop Organization, was a radical political cadre organization that grew out of the Twin Cities New Left movement in the 1970s. It was established in 1974 by Theophilus Smith, a former staff member of Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
The Traffic Zone Center for Visual Art (TZCVA) is an artist cooperative located in the historic Warehouse District of downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. Founded in 1993, TZCVA was established to create an artist-owned and managed building that provides stable, safe, and affordable studio, teaching and exhibition space for mid-career visual artists. TZCVA is a partnership between Artspace Projects, Inc., a leading national non-profit real estate developer for the arts, and a cooperative of 23 artist-members.
Hard Times Cafe is a collectively owned restaurant in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is known for its punk and hippie ideology, its gritty ambiance, and its large selection of vegan and vegetarian food. It is open from 8AM to Midnight every day.
A bicycle cooperative can take the many forms of the cooperative model. These often include co-ops composed of businesses to achieve economies of scale, co-ops managed by those who work at the business, and bicycle co-ops owned and managed by the cyclists that use their services. To date, many bicycle co-ops have taken the form of community bike shops and cooperatives organized to give the local bike shop national scale and buying power.
Hundred Flowers was an American underground newspaper published in Minneapolis, Minnesota from April 17, 1970 to April 4, 1972. It was produced by a communal collective, with the main instigator being antiwar activist and former Smith College drama instructor Ed Felien. The 16-page, two-color tabloid was published weekly and cost 25 cents, circulating about 5,000 copies.
The New Riverside Cafe was a coffeehouse and vegetarian restaurant located near the University of Minnesota in the West-Bank neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota, from 1970 to 1997. It became a center for political and social movements around revolutionary politics.
The Minnesota Food Cooperative Wars took place in 1975-1976 time period and revolved around the many food cooperatives in the Twin Cities region of Minnesota. Initially, the disputes and confrontations within the Twin Cities Cooperative movement were not referred to as "Wars", but the nomenclature developed in part as a result of the title of a documentary made decades later.
