What the F*ck is Coworking
On yuppification, performative inclusion, and why the person calling out your jargon might be right
I was once on an online call with eight people.
We were discussing the future of work and coworking in a very ethnically diverse London borough.
I pointed out that we were six white men and two white women discussing the socio-economic future of a group of people whose voices weren’t in the room.
The call went very quiet.
No one said anything for about a minute, and then they just started talking again, as if I hadn’t said anything.
Seth Godin talks about how “people like us do things like this” drives decisions. That room was performing tribal identity: “People like us discuss communities without including them.”
I didn’t really know what to do either. Maybe I should’ve come with data, or stories, or statistics, or someone we could’ve added to the call.
It was almost colonial—like a Monty Python sketch, but without the laughs.
This goes back to what I keep coming back to: we don’t participate in society—we just choose from the menu rather than building it ourselves. Someone else decides what the options are, and we pick from what’s available.
Consumer story, not citizen story.
Like I wrote last week, Bernard De Koven understood this when he coined ‘coworking’—he meant working together as equals, building the menu together, not choosing from someone else’s options. The kitchen door is open for us and we can go and make the menu.
And I’ve always had this feeling in my stomach: we’re doing the exact same thing in coworking.
And I might be part of the problem.
The Yuppification Problem
(And Its Performative Cousin)
What gives me a knot in my stomach is the ‘yuppification’ of shared workspaces.
This is often fuelled by spaces that are heavily investor-led.
Here’s what I mean by yuppification: turning community spaces into a luxury product for Young Urban Professionals whilst pricing out the people who actually need it.
It’s tribal identity in action: “People like us deserve premium amenities.” Think high membership fees and inclusion that’s really just targeting affluent demographics.
When the middle class gets squeezed by the cost-of-living crisis, spaces chase the premium market to survive.
Which prices out the very people who need affordable workspace most.
This isn’t about being anti-business. One of the things I’ve most benefited from in coworking is having lunch and building friendships with people working at agencies and larger organisations sitting right next to me.
The magic happens when people doing different types of work, in different formats of employment, can share the same room together.
That’s what yuppification destroys—the random collisions between the farmer and the tech worker, the parent and the student, the agency executive and the freelancer. When spaces optimise for one demographic, we lose the deliberative magic that happens when different worlds meet around the same table.
The problem isn’t people running businesses.
It’s extraction systems that price out the very diversity that makes coworking valuable in the first place.
I know there are coworking brands we all worship on LinkedIn whose main investors are also investors in ‘battle tech’ and are bankrolling infamous companies like Elbit Systems.
There are people in the coworking industry who adore the current US administration, even with the havoc it’s spreading in US neighbourhoods and the Middle East.
When profit becomes the only metric, community becomes collateral damage.
I know one coworking space in Old Street, owned and run by overseas investors, shut down without notice one day. My friend was the community manager there, and a lawyer came into the building and said, “We need to close the building now, and everyone needs to leave with their stuff. The company has decided to stop operating this building as it’s no longer profitable.”
It was like they fired a missile from far away and walked away.
That was her day. She needed to go around to everybody and explain that their planned workday now involved finding somewhere else to work from now on. Many of these people had teams—their whole company was completely disrupted because someone decided the numbers didn’t add up.
This tribal exclusion shows up everywhere extraction takes over from community.
And it gets more subtle too.
So many coworking companies make childcare into an upsell. They make a product out of parents being able to work and have children. It’s expensive to set up and run a childcare facility, and expensive for parents to pay for.
The tribal message becomes: “People like us can afford childcare as a luxury add-on.”
When what actually happens is the people who need the childcare are so far away from that conversation, they don’t even know it exists. And to find an investor for your female-focused or childcare-led coworking space is like trying to find a lifejacket on the Titanic.
Part of that is the profit margins—childcare breaks even at best. But largely it’s because investment flows toward white men doing AI or battle tech, not toward solving the care crisis that actually affects communities.
Georgia Norton from Playhood - Family Club, Research & Consulting in London has done one of the most extensive research projects on coworking and childcare ever. And many of the coworking and childcare operations that open up are parent groups creating their own solutions and exist for the time they are needed.
This is where, when people shout about inclusion, it gets tricky.
Because it becomes performative: “We’re making childcare so women can run their own business.” Sounds amazing—who would argue with that?
But just because it’s there and you say it’s inclusive doesn’t mean it’s inclusive.
I learned this the hard way.
“Why Don’t You Just Call It Work?”
When I first met Kofi and Urban MBA in July 2019, we were running a workshop at Mainyard Studios in Hackney—right on the edge of the Olympic Park, in an area still adjusting to a new era of gentrification after existing communities were displaced for the 2012 Games.
That’s the same playbook happening everywhere: displace existing communities for development, then call the new spaces ‘inclusive’ when the people who used to live there can’t afford to get back in.
We were sitting in a circle on chairs in their big event space that functions as anything from an art gallery to a rave club, depending on your needs.
I was hosting, and I kept vomiting very complicated language about the “interdependency of a coworking community.” I probably said something wanky like, “How can we reimagine collaboration,” and I must’ve used the word ‘coworking’ 50 times in a sentence of 90 words.
At one point, a 17-year-old lad in a McKenzie hoodie with the hood up shouted from the back: “Oi, mate, what the fuck is coworking?”
And off I went again.
And McKenzie Lad said, “Why don’t you just call it work?”
That’s when I realised I was performing the exact tribal identity that excludes McKenzie Lad. I was full of hot air, and McKenzie Lad at that moment in time and in his circumstances in Hackney—did not have the time or energy to sit around and navel-gaze about what the meaning of ‘coworking’ was.
Only people with too much time and privilege on their hands can afford to sit around and debate the nuances of industry jargon.
It’s not about how real your coworking is—it’s about whether you run a business based on extraction and killing the local competition or not.
This was in 2019, before COVID, before Ukraine, before October 7th and Gaza, and before Brexit had actually happened.
It was a bit shit then, and it’s even shitter now.
The cost-of-living crisis has throttled the lives of people in marginalised communities and has made life harder for the middle class.
Could McKenzie Lad use a desk with a computer to get on the Internet and create something?
Certainly.
Since that day in 2019, I’ve met hundreds of people who have been through the Urban MBA programme. Before finding their own venue near Old Street in 2023, Urban MBA cohorts were hosted by XCHG Spaces in Bishopsgate and ARC Club, these spaces connected people who may never have met otherwise.
Would McKenzie Lad ever get an invite into that building, 10 10-minute walk from his home?
Probably not.
Just because it’s there and you say it’s inclusive doesn’t mean it’s inclusive.
The New Churches
So what’s the alternative to this extraction bullshit?
I have hope, and I know I’m not the only one.
There are so many examples of how coworking communities have brought together their neighbourhoods and enabled people to go further: to start businesses, collaborate on projects, work near their home, be part of the local community, connect with people, build friendships and relationships, and find ways to collaborate on childcare—because that’s what communities do.
As Xavier Damman pointed out on our recent Coworking Values Podcast,“Coworking spaces are the new churches.”
Back when ‘being a yuppie’ was a thing, the neighbourhood I lived in had multiple places of worship for every faith. People went to the pub, and that was where they met. I went to youth clubs and to community centres.
Nearly all of that has been closed down, defunded by the government, or sold off.
The impact on London was particularly severe. Between 2010 and 2021:
- Youth service budget slashed from £145 million to £42 million
- At least 130 youth centres closed
- Around 30% of youth clubs shut down
In all my time running meetups and events for community conversations, one of the best things I’ve come across, both as an organiser and a participant, is hosting a screening of the 25-minute documentary ACTionism.
It’s a thought-provoking true story of how 16-year-old Ellie Meredith who was both overwhelmed and curious about the state of the world, connected to Jon Alexander and the Re-Action Collective.
It’s a guide for taking back your neighbourhood with your neighbours.
It’s not an instruction manual; it’s a conversation starter.
Inviting people into your coworking space to watch a 25-minute documentary about working together in society, and then letting them talk about it, is an incredible starting point.
Over the years, I’ve seen so many amazing projects that I’d love to do but are way out of my capacity. From starting a rock band to turning the London Coworking Assembly into a co-op... I love the idea, but I haven’t got the brainpower or the headspace to do it.
But to set up a screen, get some people around to watch a documentary with intention, and start a conversation afterwards?
Even I can do that.
Building the Menu Together
The London Coworking Assembly has been searching for how to actually be an assembly—not just a meetup, but a space where we build solutions together.
We’ve hosted over 100 events, including breakfasts, online meetups, and workshops, over the years.
Ireland proved this works at scale with their Citizens’ Assembly. They deliberately create encounters across tribal lines: 51 women, 49 men, 4 farmers, 11 people with disabilities, 17 people who weren’t born in the country—all working together on the hardest problems.
As I listened to the How To Save Democracy podcast, the story of Finbar and Chris made me cry: Finbar, a homophobic truck driver, was seated next to Chris, an openly gay man with painted nails. Finbar initially felt such visceral hatred that he considered hitting Chris.
By the end, they were close friends, and Finbar stood up to announce he’d vote for marriage equality.
That transformation happened because they were forced to sit together, work together, and see each other as humans.
Different tribes are collaborating to build the menu together, rather than choosing from separate ones.
We’re nowhere near that level yet. But our February Unreasonable Connection Going Live! event is a start: a whole day of people working with each other and co-creating for themselves and each other.
It’s collaborating.
When you join the waitlist, we put it together with you. So when you get to the room in February, you’ve helped design what we talk about all day.
Our intention for 2026: meet four times a year, plus our monthly Unreasonable Connection calls online. The connections, continuity, and relationship-building will grow. Maybe over time we become more of a decision-making assembly.
But for now, we’re focused on what coworking community builders do best—learning from each other and taking ideas back to our own communities.
The best place on earth to see how this works in practice is next Wednesday at Urban MBA, where Jon Alexander will be joining Kofi and the current Urban MBA cohort to watch the documentary and have an open conversation. RSVP for ACTionism, the documentary at Urban MBA
The food, as always, will be amazing.
Many Urban MBA graduates have started food businesses, and they often cater events.
And that food is always African or Caribbean—not your usual sandwiches wrapped in plastic.
Your Monday Domino
So here’s your Monday Domino: Get a piece of paper. Write down what tribe you’ve been choosing for 2025. Then write what tribe you want to choose for 2026.
Are you choosing: “People like me optimise personal brands and choose from premium menus”?
Or: “People like me host screenings and build tables for others”?
Not running a coworking space?
Write down one way you could build something with others instead of just choosing from the premium options.
You could start a WhatsApp group, host a coffee chat, or ask, “How can I help?” instead of “What’s in it for me?”
We’re either part of our own story, or we’re extras in someone else’s.
The Irish assembly proved that when different tribes work together, they solve problems politicians can’t touch.
The McKenzie lad told me which tribe I belonged to.
What about you?
Bernie’s Picks
🎙️ How to save democracy - by Omezzine Khelifa , Jon Alexander and Jo Barratt - The Irish Citizens Assembly Listen here.
🎙️Why Your Real Competition Isn’t Another Coworking Space with Lucy McInally on the Coworking Values Podcast - Listen here.
🎬 ACTionism screening - Wednesday 3-7PM at Urban MBA with Jon Alexander. The conversation starter your community needs. RSVP here.
☮️ Jewish Voice for Peace - How to Have Hard Conversations
📲 Since 2012, I’ve been using Voice Dream on my phone and computer to listen back to what I write, and also as a reading tool. As a very neurodiverse person, this has been transformative in my learning and work.
Thank you for your time and attention today!
Bernie 💚🍉
P.S. - Only 150 spots for Unreasonable Connection Going Live! February 2026. Join the co-creation list now for first dibs on tickets in January.
