Dictionary Definition
squatter
Noun
1 someone who settles lawfully on government land
with the intent to acquire title to it [syn: homesteader, nester]
2 someone who settles on land without right or
titlesquat adj
1 short and thick; as e.g. having short legs and
heavy musculature; "some people seem born to be square and chunky";
"a dumpy little dumpling of a woman"; "dachshunds are long lowset
dogs with drooping ears"; "a little church with a squat tower"; "a
squatty red smokestack"; "a stumpy ungainly figure" [syn: chunky, dumpy, low-set, squatty, stumpy]
2 having a low center of gravity; built low to
the ground [syn: underslung]
Noun
1 exercising by repeatedly assuming a squatting
position; strengthens the leg muscles [syn: knee bend,
squatting]
2 a small worthless amount; "you don't know jack"
[syn: jack, diddly-squat,
diddlysquat,
diddly-shit,
diddlyshit, diddly, diddley, shit]
3 the act of assuming or maintaining a squatting
position [syn: squatting]
Verb
1 sit on one's heels; "In some cultures, the
women give birth while squatting"; "The children hunkered down to
protect themselves from the sandstorm" [syn: crouch, scrunch, scrunch up,
hunker, hunker
down]
2 be close to the earth, or be disproportionately
wide; "The building squatted low"
User Contributed Dictionary
Noun
- One who occupies a building or land without title or permission.
Derived terms
Related terms
Translations
French
Etymology
From to squat.Verb
squatterDerived terms
Extensive Definition
Squatting is the act of occupying an abandoned or
unoccupied space or building that the squatter does
not
own, rent or otherwise have permission to use. Squatting is
significantly more common in urban areas than rural
areas, especially when urban decay
occurs. According to author Robert
Neuwirth, there may be as many as one billion squatters
globally, or about one of every seven people.
Overview
In many of the world's poorer countries there are
extensive slums or shanty towns,
typically built on the edges of major cities and consisting
almost entirely of self-constructed housing built without the
landowner's permission. While these settlements may in time grow to
become both legalised and indistinguishable from normal residential
neighbourhoods, they start off as squats with minimal basic
infrastructure. Thus, there is no
sewage system, drinking
water must be bought from vendors or carried from a nearby tap
and if there is electricity, it is stolen from a passing
cable.
To squat in many countries is in itself a
crime; in others it is
only seen as a civil
conflict between the owner and the occupants. Property law
and the state have
traditionally favored the property owner. However, in many cases
where squatters had de facto
ownership, laws have been changed to legitimize their status.
Squatters often claim rights over the spaces they have squatted by
virtue of occupation, rather than ownership; in this sense,
squatting is similar to (and potentially a necessary condition of)
adverse
possession, by which a possessor of real
property without title
may eventually gain legal title to the real property.
Anarchist
Colin
Ward comments: "Squatting is the oldest mode of tenure in the
world, and we are all descended from squatters. This is as true of
the
Queen [of the United
Kingdom] with her 176,000 acres as it is of the 54 per cent of
householders in Britain who are owner-occupiers. They are all the
ultimate recipients of stolen land, for to regard our planet as a
commodity offends every conceivable principle of natural
rights."
Besides being residences, some squats are used as
social
centres or host give-away
shops, pirate radio
stations and cafés. In Spanish-speaking
countries squatters receive several names, like okupas in Spain or Argentina (from
the verb ocupar meaning "to occupy"), or paracaidistas in Mexico (meaning
"paratroopers", because they "parachute" themselves at unoccupied
land).
Africa
There are large squatter communities in Kenya such as
Kibera in
Nairobi. A
BBC News
report described it as follows: "The first thing that hits you here
is this rich stench of almost 1 million people living in this ditch
- in mud huts, with no sewage pipes, no roads, no water, no toilet,
in fact, with no services of any kind."
An estimated 1,000 people live in the Grande
Hotel Beira in Mozambique.
The Zabbaleen
settlement and the City of the Dead are both well known squatter
communities in Cairo.
In South
Africa, squatters tend to live in informal settlements or
squatter camps on the outskirts of the larger cities, often but not
always near townships.
In 1994 when Nelson
Mandela was elected President it was estimated that of South
Africa's 44 million inhabitants, 7.7 million lived in these
settlements. The number has grown rapidly in the post-apartheid
era. Many buildings, particularly in the inner city of
Johannesburg
have also been occupied by squatters. Property owners or government
authorities can usually evict squatters after following certain
legal procedures including requesting a court order. In Durban the city
council routinely evicts without a court order in defiance of the
law and there has been sustained conflict between the city council
and a shack dwellers' movement known as Abahlali
baseMjondolo. There has been a number of similar conflicts
between shack dwellers, some linked with the
Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign, and the city council in
Cape
Town. One of the most high profile cases have been the brutal
evictions of squatters in the N2 Gateway homes in the suburb of
Delft where over 20 residents were shot including a 3 year old
child. There have been numerous complaints about the legality of
government's actions and in particular whether the ruling of the
judge was unfair given his party affiliations and the highly
politicized nature of the case .
Asia
India
In Mumbai, there are an estimated 10 to 12 million inhabitants and six million of them are squatters. The squatters live in a variety of ways. Some possess two or three story homes built out of brick and concrete which they have inhabited for years. Geeta Nagar is a squatter village based beside the Indian Navy compound at Colaba. Squatter Colony in Malad East has existed since 1962 and now people living there pay a rent to the city council of 100 rupees a month. Dharavi is a community of one million squatters. The stores and factories situated there are mainly illegal and so are unregulated, but it is suggested that they do over $1 million in business every day.Other squatters live in shacks, situated
literally on a pavement next to the road, with very few
possessions.
Activists such as Jockin
Arputham are working for better living conditions for slum
dwellers.
Philippines
In Metro Manila, squatting, or Iskwater in Tagalog, is a major issue in Filipino society, especially in industrialized areas of the society. Squatting was started after World War II, as people built makeshift houses called Barong-Barong in abandoned private property plots.The Government tried to transfer those squatters
to low cost housing projects, especially in Tondo (in
the former Smokey
Mountain landfill),
Taguig (BLISS
Housing Project), and in Rodriguez
(formerly Montalban), Rizal.
Europe
In many European countries, there are squatted houses used as residences and also larger squatted projects where people pursue social and cultural activities. Examples of the latter include an old leper hospital outside Barcelona called Can Masdeu and a former military barracks called Metelkova in Slovenia. Squats can be run on anarchist principles, for example Villa Amalia in Greece, Ernst-Kirchweger-Haus in Austria or Blitz in Norway. Young people squat buildings to use as concert venues for alternative types of music such as punk and hardcore. The eviction of one such place, Ungdomshuset, in March 2007 received international news coverage. Others have been legalised.In Italy, there is
Bussana
Vecchia, a ghost town in
Liguria
which was abandoned in 1887 following an earthquake and subsequently
squatted in the 1960s. In France, there is
Collectif la vieille Valette, a self-supporting squat village
which has been active since 1991.
Denmark
Christiania is an independent community of almost 900 people founded in 1971 on the site of an abandoned military zone. In Copenhagen, as in other European cities such as Berlin and Amsterdam, the squatter movement was large in the 1980s. It was a social movement, providing housing and alternative culture. A flashpoint came in 1986 with the Battle of Ryesgade. Another flashpoint came in 2007 when Ungdomshuset was evicted. While not a squat, it was a social center used by squatters and people involved in alternative culture more generally.Germany
After the German reunification, many buildings were vacated due to the demise of former state-run enterprises and migration to the western parts of Germany, some of which then were occupied by squatters. In Berlin, the now-legalised squats are in desirable areas such as Mitte and Prenzlauer Berg. Before the reunification, squats in Berlin were mostly located in former West Berlin's borough of Kreuzberg. The squats were mainly for residential and social use. Squatters became known by the term "instandbesetzen", a conflation of "instandsetzen" (i.e. renovating) and "besetzen" (i.e. occupying).Despite being illegal, squats exist in many of
the larger cities. Examples are Au in Frankfurt and
Hafenstraße
and Rote
Flora in Hamburg.
Squatting can also take place for campaigning
purposes, such as the Anatopia project
which protested against a Mercedes-Benz
test track.
Italy
In Italy, squatting has no legal basis but there are many squats used as social centers. They are known as C.S.O.A. (Centro Sociale Occupato Autogestito) which translates as "self-governing squatted social centers" and include: Leoncavallo in Milan, Officina99 in Naples, Brancaleone, Corto Circuito, Forte Prenestino and Villaggio Globale in Rome,Askatasuna in Torino.Netherlands
In the Netherlands, if a building is not in use for twelve months, empty and the owner has no pressing need to use it (such as a rental contract starting in the next month), then it can be legally squatted. The only illegal aspect would be forcing an entry, if that was necessary. When a building is squatted it is normal to send the owner a letter and to invite the police to inspect the squat. The police check whether the place is indeed lived in by the squatter — in legal terms this means there must be a bed, a chair, a table and a working lock in the door which the squatter can open and close.In cities there is often a kraakspreekuur
(squatters' conversation hour), at which people planning to squat
can get advice from experienced squatters. In Amsterdam, where
the squatting community is large, there are three kraakspreekuur
sessions in different areas of the city and so-called 'wild'
squatting (squatting a building without the help of the local
group) is not encouraged. Dutch squatters use the term "krakers" to
define people who squat houses with the aim of living in them (as
opposed to people who break into buildings for the purpose of
vandalism or theft).
There are many residential squats in Dutch cities
such as Leiden, Rotterdam,
Groningen,
Nijmegen,
Haarlem,
Zwolle and
Amsterdam. There are also some squats in the countryside such as a
squatted village called Ruigoord near to
Amsterdam and Fort
Pannerden, near Nijmegen. Fort Pannerden (a military fort built
in 1869) was evicted on November 8
2006 by a
massive police operation which used military machinery and cost one
million euros. The
squatters then resquatted the fort on November 26
and have since made a deal with the local council which owns the
fort.
Sometimes squats can become legalised. This is
the case with the Poortgebouw in
Rotterdam, which was squatted in 1980. In 1982, the inhabitants
agreed to pay rent to the city council and they are still living
there in 2008. ORKZ (Oude Rooms-Katholieke Ziekenhuis) in Groningen
is an old Roman Catholic Hospital, which is now declared
legal.
Well-known squats include the OT301 and ASCII in
Amsterdam, Anarres in Dordrecht, Het
Slaakhuis in Rotterdam and the LandbouwBelang and Kraakpand
Wolder in Maastricht. De Blauwe
Aanslag in The Hague was
evicted in 2003.
Squatting gained a legal basis in the Netherlands
in 1971, when the Supreme Court ruled that the concept of domestic
peace ("huisvrede") which means a house cannot be entered without
the permission of the owner also applied to squatter. Since then,
the owner of the building must take the squatters to court (or take
illegal action) in order to evict them. A law was passed in 1994
which made it illegal to squat a building which was empty for less
than one year.
There have been moves to ban squatting. In 1978,
the Council of Churches launched a protest which scotched the idea.
In June 2006 two ministers from the
Dutch government (Sybilla
Dekker and Piet Hein
Donner) proposed a plan to make squatting illegal. Other
ministers, such as Alexander
Pechtold, were not in favor of this plan. Representatives of
the four largest Dutch cities wrote a letter stating that it would
not be in their interest to ban squatting. Squatters nationwide
made banners and hung them on their squats in protest.
Spain
Squatting became popular in Spain in the 1960s and 1970s, as a result of the shortage of urban accommodation during the rural exodus. It was revived in the mid-1980s during the La Movida Madrileña, under the name of the okupa movement, when thousands of illegal squats were legalized. Influenced by the British Levellers, the movement's popularity rose again during the 1990s, once more due to a housing crisis, this time related to the 1992 Summer Olympics and the concomitant urban regeneration. Property speculation and house price inflation continue to catalyze okupa activism.Related to the anarchist
movement, okupas support the ideal of Autogestion
and create social centers, which carry out various grassroots activities. The
okupa movement represents a highly politicized form of squatting,
so much so that participants often claim they live in squats as a
form of political protest first and foremost. The movement is
involved in various other social struggles, including the alter-globalization
movement. In 1996, during José
María Aznar's presidency, the first specific legislation
against squatting was passed and became the prelude to many squat
evictions. In the barrio of Lavapiés in
Madrid, the
Eskalera
Karakola was a feminist
self-managed squat, which was active from 1996 to 2005 and
participated in the nextGENDERation network.
As of 2007 there were approximately 200 occupied
houses in Barcelona. At least 45 of these, as Infousurpa, a
collective event calendar mentions, are used as social and cultural
centers – so called "open houses". A number of popular rock groups
have come out of this kind of venue, such as Sin Dios in
Madrid and Ojos de
Brujo in Barcelona.
The
Basque Country is another area where a high number of houses
are occupied. There are at least 46 squats or gaztetxes ("youth's
houses" in the Basque
language). During the 80s a house was occupied by squatters in
almost every town and the booming punk
movement used them to organize concert tours, and expositions.
During the last 10 years, at least 15 gaztetxes have closed down,
often after protests and clashes with the police . The most
well-known gaztetxe currently is from Gasteiz. Squatting
has always been related with the Basque independence
movement.
The RHINO
("Retour des Habitants dans les Immeubles Non-Occupés"; in English,
"Return of Inhabitants to Non-Occupied Buildings") was a 19 year
long squat in Geneva. It occupied
two buildings on the Boulevard des Philosophes, a few blocks away
from the main campus of the University
of Geneva. The RHINO organisation often faced legal troubles,
and Geneva police evicted the inhabitants on July 23, 2007.
United Kingdom
England and Wales
In England and Wales, the term 'squatting' usually refers to occupying an empty house in a city. The owner of the house must go through various legal proceedings before evicting squatters. Squatting is regarded in law as a civil, not a criminal, matter. However, if there is evidence of forced entry then this is regarded as trespass and the police have the powers to remove the occupants. If the squatter legally occupies the house, then the owner must prove in court that they have a right to live in the property and that the squatter does not, while the squatter has the opportunity to claim there is not sufficient proof or that the proper legal steps have not been taken. In order to occupy a house legally, a squatter must have exclusive access to that property, that is, be able to open and lock an entrance. The property should be secure in the same way as a normal residence, with no broken windows or locks.In 2003, it was estimated that there were 15,000
squatters in England and Wales.
The legal process of eviction can take a month or
longer, perhaps even years. This is what happens when the property
is owned by a council or a
housing
association. Private landlords have been known to
use various intimidatory methods to convince a squatter to move out
or indeed, to pay squatters to leave.
Local Authority Housing Departments, facing
rising court costs when evicting squatters, often resort to taking
out the plumbing and toilets in empty buildings to deter
squatters.
To show that the occupier of the squatted
building is in fact in physical possession of the property,
squatters often put up a legal warning known as a 'Section 6', a
copy of which is often displayed on the front door. Doing so
attempts to claim that there are people living there and they have
a legal right to be there. It also claims that anyone — even the
technical owner of the property — who tries to enter the building
without permission is committing an offence. These claims are
fallible following amendments to the law in 1994.
Some properties are still occupied by squatters
who have resisted eviction for 20 years. Squatters have a right to
claim ownership of a dwelling after 12 years of having lived there
if no one else claims it, by adverse possession under common law. In
practice this can be difficult, since the squatter must prove in a
court of law that he or
she has lived in the building continuously for the whole 10 years.
For example, St Agnes
Place in London had been
lived in for 30 years until 29 November
2005, when
Lambeth Council evicted the entire street. The law of adverse
possession has been fundamentally altered following the passing of
the
Land Registration Act 2002. In effect, after 10 years of actual
physical possession, a squatter must apply to the Land
Registry to have their title recognised as the owner in
fee
simple. The original owner of the property will receive
notification from the Land Registry and will be able to defeat the
application by simple objection. Obviously, this will seriously
curtail the ability of squatters to claim adverse possession.
In London, a group called the
Advisory Service for Squatters runs a volunteer service helping
squatters. It publishes the Squatters' Handbook.
The most empty homes in the UK are in Birmingham
(17,490), Liverpool
(15,692) and Manchester
(14,017). North
West England has the most empty homes (135,106), which is close
to 5% of its housing. The fewest empty homes are in South
East England and East Anglia,
but there are currently thousands of empty homes in London, as
house prices are soaring above the level of income that most people
earn.
History
In 1649 at Saint George's Hill, Walton-on-Thames in Surrey, Gerrard Winstanley and others calling themselves The True Levellers occupied disused 'common land' and cultivated it collectively in the hope that their actions would inspire other poor people to follow their lead. Gerrard Winstanley stated that "the poorest man hath as true a title and just right to the land as the richest man". While the True Levellers, later more commonly known as the Diggers, were not perhaps the first squatters in England their story illustrates the heritage of squatting as a form of radical direct action.More recently there was a huge squatting movement
involving ex-servicemen and their families following World War
II. This involved thousands of people occupying sites as
diverse as former military
bases and luxury apartment
blocks in West
London.
The 1960s saw the development of the Family
Squatting Movement which sought to mobilise people to take control
of empty properties and use them to house homeless families from
the Council
Housing Waiting List. This movement was originally based in
London (where Ron Bailey and Jim Radford were instrumental in
helping to establish family squatting campaigns in several London
boroughs) and several local Family Squatting Associations
signed agreements with Borough
Councils to use empty properties under licence (although only
after some lengthy and bitter campaigns had been fought — most
particularly in the Boroughs of
Redbridge and
Southwark).
In 1969 members of the London
Street Commune squatted a mansion at 144 Piccadilly in central
London to highlight the issue of homelessness but were quickly
evicted. In the early seventies Ron Bailey and Jim Radford were
closely involved in founding the Family Squatting Advisory Service
which promoted and provided information for Family Squatting
Associations and direct action Housing Campaigns. However, there
was a growing conflict between the original activists of the Family
Squatting Movement and a newer wave of squatters who simply
rejected the right of landlords to charge rent and who believed (or
claimed to) that seizing property and living rent-free was a
revolutionary political act. These new wave squatters (often young
and single rather than homeless families) were a mixture of
Anarchists, Trotskyists —
the
International Marxist Group (IMG) being especially prominent —
and self-proclaimed hippie-dropouts and
they denounced the idea that squatters should seek to make
agreements with local Councils to use empty property and that
Squatting Associations should then become landlords (or Self Help
Housing Associations as they were sometimes styled) in their own
right and charge rent.
In 1979 there were estimated to be 50,000
squatters throughout Britain, with the majority (30,000) living in
London.
There was a London's Squatters' Union in which Piers Corbyn
was involved. For eighteen months it was housed at Huntley Street,
where over 150 people lived in 52 flats. The Union organised
festivals and provided homes for the homeless.
Scotland
Squatting is a criminal offence in Scotland, punishable by a fine or even imprisonment. The owner or lawful occupier of the property has the right to eject squatters without notice or applying to the court for an eviction order, although when evicting they cannot do anything that would break the law, for example use violence.North America
Mexico
In Mexico squatters are known as paracaidistas (that is, paratroopers, because they "drop" themselves mostly at unoccupied lands), and it is a common practice in large cities. Since the most valuable real property is located near the downtowns of the cities, the paracaidistas usually establish slums at unoccupied lands at the outskirts of the cities. Since Mexican laws establish that an individual may take legal possession of a property after 5 years of peaceful occupation, many paracaidistas establish themselves with the hope that the legitimate owner will not discover them and expel them before 5 years. Large extensions of many Mexican cities were established originally as squats (for example, Nezahualcoyotl, in Mexico City).United States of America
In the United States, squatting laws vary from state to state and city to city. For the most part it is rarely tolerated to any degree for long, particularly in cities. Laws based on a contract ownership interpretation of property make it easy for deed holders to evict squatters under loitering or trespassing laws. The situation is more complicated for legal residents who fail to make rent or mortgage payments, but the result is largely the same.Most squatting in the US is dependent on law
enforcement and the person legally considered to be owner of the
property being unaware of the occupants. Often the most important
factors in the longevity of squats in the US are apathy of the
owner and the likeliness of neighbors to call police. This was not
always the case, particularly in the era of
Westward expansion, wherein the
Federal government specifically recognized the rights of
squatters. For example, see the Preemption
Act of 1841.
The United States Homestead
Act legally recognized the concept of homesteading and
distinguished it from squatting since it gave homesteaders
permission to occupy unclaimed lands. Additionally, US states
which have a shortage of housing tend to tolerate squatters in
property awaiting redevelopment until the developer is ready to
begin work; however, at that point the laws tend to be
enforced.
Squats used for living in can be divided into two
types (although they are not absolutes): So-called "back window
squats" (the most common type, in which occupants sneak in and out
of the building with the intent of hiding that they live there),
and "front door squats" (where the occupants make little or no
effort to conceal their comings and goings). Many squats may start
out as one or the other and then change over time. Frequently
squatters will move in and then later assess how open they can be
about their activities before they approach the neighbors; others
will not move into a place until they have first met and discussed
the idea with the neighbors. The difference between the two types
can be signs of vast differences in philosophies of squatting and
its purpose, how long the occupants plan to be around, and on the
atmosphere of the neighborhood, among many other factors.
Squatters can be young people living in punk houses or
low-income or homeless people, as observed in Philadelphia.
A group called Homes Not
Jails advocates squatting houses to end the problem of
homelessness. It has opened "about 500 houses, 95% of which have
lasted six months or less. In a few cases, [these] squats have
lasted for two, three or even six years."
In common law, through the legally recognized
concept of adverse
possession, a squatter can became a bona fide
owner of property without compensation to the owner. In early 2008,
Cleveland, Ohio began recognizing hundreds of homeless people
taking shelter in foreclosed homes.
New York City
In New York
City, homeless
people squatting in underground spaces such as Freedom
Tunnel have come to be known as Mole People.
They were the subject of an award-winning documentary called
Dark
Days.
It is estimated that in the 1990s there were
between 500 and 1,000 squatters occupying 32 buildings on
Manhattan's Lower East
Side. The buildings had been abandoned as a result of
speculation by owners or police raids as part of a crackdown on
drug use. As the area became gentrified, the squats were evicted,
Dos
Blockos being one. Three buildings on 13th Street were evicted
without notification following a prolonged legal battle in which
the squatters argued through their lawyer Stanley Cohen that they
were entitled to ownership of the buildings through adverse
possession since they had lived there since 1983. In 1995 a
preliminary injunction had been granted against the eviction plans,
but this was overturned by state appellate.
Despite squatting being illegal, artists had
begun to squat buildings to live in and use as atelier
space. European squatters coming to New York brought ideas of
cooperative living with them such as a bar, support between squats,
and tool exchange.
In 2002, eleven squats out of the twelve
remaining on the Lower East Side signed a deal with the city
council brokered by the Urban Homesteading Assistance Board in
which they bought the buildings for $1 and agreed to undertake
essential renovation work. One of the squats is C-Squat another is
the social center ABC No Rio,
which was founded in 1980.
South America
Around many South American cities there are shanty towns. Sometimes the authorities tear the houses down, but often the squatters simply rebuild again. The houses are built out of whatever material can be scavenged from the local area or bought cheaply. As time goes by, the squatters start to form communities and become more established. The houses are rebuilt piece by piece with more durable materials. In some cases, a deal is reached with the authorities and connections for sewage, drinking water, cable television and electricity are made.In Peru, the name given
to the squatter settlements is pueblos
jóvenes. In Venezuela, they
are called barrios and in
Argentina
the term used is villa
miseria.
Brazil
In Brazil, these squatter communities are called favelas and a famous example is Rocinha in Rio de Janeiro, estimated to be home of 500,000 people. Favelas are home to the extremely poor of Brazil. They lack much infrastructure and public services. They are equivalent to slums or shanty towns. There are 25 million people living in favelas all over Brazil.In São Paulo,
the largest favela is Heliópolis
and there is also a 22 story squatted highrise building called
Prestes
Maia.
There are also rural squatter movements, such as
the Landless
Workers' Movement which has an estimated 1.5 million
members.
Social centers
In Europe, it is common for buildings to be squatted to be used as social centres. Cafés, bars, libraries, free shops, swaps shops and gyms have all been created, with many squats also holding parties and concerts. Social centers are often a combination of many things that happen in one space with the aim of creating a space for people to meet in a non-commercial setting, whether it be for a party, political workshop, to see a film, have a drink or have breakfast. There are many squatted social centers around the world but they exist mainly in countries where squatting is legal. Examples include Ernst-Kirchweger-Haus in Austria, the RampART Social Centre in England, OT301 in the Netherlands and Ungdomshuset in Denmark (evicted on the 1 March 2007 and demolished four days later).Notable and well known squats
Austria- Ernst-Kirchweger-Haus (EKH), Vienna
- Freetown Christiania, Copenhagen
- Ungdomshuset, Copenhagen, evicted 1 March and demolished 5 March, 2007
- Anatopia, Papenburg
- Au, Frankfurt
- Hafenstraße, Hamburg
- Rote Flora, Hamburg
- Kunsthaus Tacheles, Berlin
- Köpi (often spelled Køpi), Berlin
- ASCII, Amsterdam
- OT301, Amsterdam
- Ruigoord, Amsterdam
- De Blauwe Aanslag (now evicted), The Hague
- Fort Pannerden, Pannerden
- Poortgebouw, still exists, but no longer a squat, Rotterdam
- Het Slaakhuis, Rotterdam
- Metelkova, Ljubljana, a claimed free state in a former Yugoslav army garrison
- Tovarna Rog, Ljubljana (abandoned bike factory)
- infousurpa contains info about squats in Barcelona
- Kasa de la Muntanya, Barcelona, the citys oldest squat
- Ruina Amalia, Barcelona, site of the Biblioteka Kilombo
- Can Masdeu, Barcelona
- C.S.A. Can Vies, Barcelona
- Bahía, Barcelona
- Gaztetxe of Gasteiz, Gasteiz
- RHINO, Geneva, evicted July 2007
- Cabaret Voltaire, Zürich, now evicted, art house 2002
- Kulturzentrum Reithalle, Berne
- Eel Pie Island, London
- RampART Social Centre, London
- St Agnes Place, London, evicted 2005
- Medina House, Hove, evicted September 2006, re-occupied briefly in January 2007
- ABC No Rio, New York City, a social center founded by artists and activists in 1980
- C-Squat, New York City (Ownership gained by squatters via Adverse_possession)
- Hellarity, Oakland, internationally-known anarcho-punk traveler house with its own pirate radio station
- Halfway House, West Philadelphia
- Paradise City, West Philadelphia (Now inaccessible)
- People's Park, Berkeley, 1960s icon which epitomizes the notion of squatter's rights
- Zzyzx Mineral Springs and Health Spa, evicted 1974
Well-known squatters
See also
- Abahlali baseMjondolo
- Adverse possession
- Claim club
- Cybersquatting
- Gecekondu Squatting public land in Turkey.
- Inclusionary zoning
- Movimento dos Trabalhadores Sem Teto (MTST)
- Squatting (pastoral), in Australia, often a large landholder, as in Waltzing Matilda.
- Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign
References
Further reading
- Waterhouse, Richard (2005). The Vision Splendid: A Social and Cultural History of Rural Australia, Fremantle, Curtin University Books
- War In The Neighborhood – a Graphic Novel about squatting on New York City's Lower East Side in the 1980s by World War 3 Illustrated artist and editor Seth Tobocman published by Autonomedia
- Corr A. (1999) No Trespassing!: Squatting, Rent Strikes and Land Struggles Worldwide South End Press ISBN 0896085953
- 949 Market - a 2002 zine by a group of people who squatted an abandoned pool hall in a very public way and created a community center in San Francisco. $2-3 cash to: Lara, 3288 21st St. PMB #79, San Francisco, CA 94110
- Survival Without Rent - A how to guide from NYC originally printed in 1986
- Cracking The Movement - Amsterdam squatter history and the movement's relation to the media. Also available online
- The ELF Squat Experiment An experiment in squatting large buildings.
- Squat The World a story of 1995 squat evictions in NYC
- Katsiaficas G. (1999) The Subversion of Politics: European Autonomous Social Movements and the Decolonization of Everyday Life Humanity Books ISBN 1573924415 Also online
External links
- Advisory Service for Squatters (UK)
- Squat.net
- Squattercity Blog Blog by writer Robert Neuwirth who lived in squatter communities across the developing world
- Wasteland (UK) - Documentary about squatting by Will Wright
- South African Shack Dwellers' Movement
- Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign
- Special issue of Mute Magazine on global slums
squatter in Aragonese: Okupazión
squatter in Asturian: Okupación
squatter in Catalan: Moviment okupa
squatter in Czech: Squat
squatter in Danish: Bz-bevægelsen
squatter in German: Hausbesetzung
squatter in Spanish: Movimiento Okupa
squatter in Esperanto: Domokupado
squatter in Basque: Okupazio
squatter in French: Squat (lieu)
squatter in Croatian: Squatter naselje
squatter in Italian: Invasione di terreni o
edifici
squatter in Hebrew: סקווטינג
squatter in Hungarian: Squat
squatter in Dutch: Kraken (pand)
squatter in Japanese: スコッター
squatter in Polish: Squat
squatter in Portuguese: Ocupação
squatter in Russian: Сквоттинг
squatter in Serbian: Skvotiranje
squatter in Serbo-Croatian: Skvotiranje
squatter in Finnish: Talonvaltaus
squatter in Swedish: Husockupation
Synonyms, Antonyms and Related Words
arriviste, colonial, colonist, colonizer, emigrant, gate-crasher,
greenhorn, hirer, homesteader, immigrant, incumbent, intruder, leaseholder, lessee, lodger, nester, new arrival, new boy,
newcomer, novus homo,
occupant, occupier, parvenu, paying guest, pioneer, planter, precursor, recruit, renter, resident, rookie, roomer, settler, sooner, stowaway, sublessee, subtenant, tenant, tenant at sufferance,
tenant for life, tenderfoot, underlessee, upstart