At a time when many local authorities are under financial pressure and public facilities such as swimming pools are often threatened with closure, innovative approaches are becoming increasingly important. As part of his Bachelor's thesis, Mr Simon Blome-Drees examined the potential solutions that cooperatives can offer local authorities: entitled ‘Management of municipal infrastructures as a field of action for sports cooperatives’, he investigated how cooperative models can contribute to the financing and organisation of municipal infrastructures. This outstanding thesis was the first thesis on cooperative research to be included in the new publication series ‘Young Academics: Common Good and Cooperatives’ and published as Volume 1 of the series in February 2024. He visited us for an interview and explained what this topic is all about.
1. You recently published an article in the Young Academics: Common Good and Co-operatives series entitled ‘Management of municipal infrastructures as a field of action for sports co-operatives’. What exactly is it about?
The question is whether and how the cooperative can represent a design option for the financing and organisation of municipal infrastructures by transferring public swimming pools to cooperatively organised community swimming pools.
2. How did you get the idea to devote yourself to this topic?
I read in the Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger that co-operative solutions are a good way of continuing to run municipal facilities in areas such as health, mobility, communication, social affairs, culture, leisure, sport and education. I found the topic fundamentally exciting. As I am personally a sports enthusiast, I was particularly interested in the preservation of municipal sports facilities.
3. Why is this topic of significant importance in the scientific discourse?
Against the backdrop of the omnipresent financial difficulties facing local authorities, cooperatives have long been discussed not only in practice but also in academia as an option for privatising municipal infrastructures for the common good.
4. What exactly did you investigate?
I have investigated whether and how co-operatives can ensure the preservation of public swimming pools that are threatened with closure for financial reasons.
5. How exactly did you carry out your research?
The aim of my work was to make both a conceptual and an empirical contribution to the chosen topic. To this end, I first developed a conceptual frame of reference. I then tested this frame of reference empirically using two case studies.
6. What results did you come to?
I have come to the conclusion that the cooperative is a suitable form of privatisation of public swimming pools for the common good, as it has democratic governance and convincing financing options for their management. My analyses show that cooperatives create opportunities to combine civic engagement with municipal interests. With their principles of self-help, self-administration and self-responsibility, cooperatives offer an appropriate economic and legal framework for the privatisation of municipal infrastructures in the public interest.
7. What significance do your findings have for research in this area?
As local authorities will probably continue to suffer from financial difficulties in the future, it would be interesting to test cooperative design options for the privatisation of other municipal infrastructures in a way that is compatible with the common good.
Simon Blome-Drees was born in Cologne and grew up in Hürth. After training as a wholesale and foreign trade merchant, he completed a B.Sc. in Business Administration at the University of Cologne.
