By now, you could be forgiven for assuming that “the commons” refers to another cocktail bar or coffee shop in yet another neighborhood people used to be able to afford. In Chicago, the Commons Co-op is a co-working space inside a cocktail lounge inside a Virgin-branded boutique hotel. In Brooklyn, Common is a property management start-up (backed by $65 million in venture capital) that specializes in something called “co-living.” For just $1,400 a month, Common tenants in New York City get a private bedroom and share amenities like a bathroom, kitchen, and free coffee: an Instagrammable SRO. Common calls this “city living made better.”

But it wasn’t long ago that a different kind of urban cohousing proliferated, organized by and for the working class: limited-equity cooperatives (LECs). Amanda Huron’s new book, Carving Out the Commons, focuses on ten LECs formed during the first wave of gentrification in Washington, D.C., and considers their history and future as urban commons.

A geographer and urban planner who teaches social sciences at the University of the District of Columbia, Huron demonstrates how tenants resisted eviction and built their political power to reclaim housing from capitalists. In doing so, she grounds the urban commons in the everyday struggles of working people.