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Squatters
Squatting is the action of occupying an abandoned or unoccupied area of land or a building, usually residential, that the squatter does not own, rent or otherwise have lawful permission to use. The United Nations estimated in 2003 that there were one billion slum residents and squatters globally. Squatting occurs worldwide and tends to occur when people who are poor and homeless find empty buildings or land to occupy for housing. It has a long history, broken down by country below. In developing countries and least developed countries, shanty towns often begin as squatted settlements. In African cities such as Lagos much of the population lives in slums. There are pavement dwellers in India and in Hong Kong as well as rooftop slums. Informal settlements in Latin America are known by names such as villa miseria (Argentina), pueblos jóvenes (Peru) and asentamientos irregulares (Guatemala, Uruguay). In Brazil, there are favelas in the major cities and land-based movements. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Squatting In England And Wales
In England and Wales, squatting—taking possession of land or an empty house the squatter does not own—occurs for a variety of reasons which include needing a home, protest, poverty, and recreation. Many squats are residential; some are also opened as social centres. Land may be occupied by New Age travellers or treesitters. There have been waves of squatting through British history. Squatting was "a big issue in the Peasants' Revolt of 1381 and again for the Diggers in the 17th Century howere peasants who cultivated waste and common land, claiming it as their rightful due" and that squatting was a necessity after the Second World War when so many were homeless.''Squatters: Who are they and why do they squat?'' , BBC A more recent wave began in the late 1960s in the midst of a housing crisi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Squatting In The United States
Squatting in the United States is the unauthorized use of real estate. Historically, squatting occurred during the California Gold Rush and when colonial European settlers established land rights. There was squatting during the Great Depression in Hoovervilles and also during World War II. Shanty towns returned to the US after the Great Recession of 2007 to 2009 and in the 2010s, there have been increasing numbers of people squatting foreclosed homes using fraudulent documents. In some cases, a squatter may be able to obtain ownership of property through adverse possession. Squatting is illegal and squatters can be evicted for trespassing. A homesteading movement led by community organizations such as the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), Operation Homestead, Tacoma Housing Now and Take Back the Land has used squatting as a tactic to house homeless people. In New York City, squatters occupied 32 buildings on Manhattan's Lower East Side in the 1990s; ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Squatting In The Netherlands
Squatting in the Netherlands ( Dutch: kraken) is the occupation of unused or derelict buildings or land without the permission of the owner. The modern squatters movement ( Dutch: kraakbeweging) began in the 1960s in the Netherlands. By the 1980s, it had become a powerful anarchist social movement which regularly came into conflict with the state, particularly in Amsterdam with the Vondelstraat and coronation riots. Some squats in cities have successfully legalised into still extant social centres and housing cooperatives such as ACU in Utrecht, the Grote Broek in Nijmegen, the Landbouwbelang in Maastricht, ORKZ in Groningen, the Poortgebouw in Rotterdam and Vrankrijk in Amsterdam. There have also been squats in the countryside such as Fort Pannerden and the Ruigoord village. Squatting was criminalised in October 2010. Between then and November 2014, 529 people were arrested. Some recent high-profile evictions have included ADM, the Tabakspanden and De Vloek. The soc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Athens Refugee Squats
Athens refugee squats exist since the 2015 spike in the European migrant crisis. Greece has been a destination for migrants seeking refuge on the European continent via the "Balkan Route." Coalitions of solidarity groups and migrants have established squats throughout Athens (mostly in Exarcheia) to house refugees, demonstrating an alternative to solutions offered by the European Union and NGOs. The squats are grouped together in the Coordination of Refugee Squats. Notable projects included 5th School and City Plaza. In late 2019, the New Democracy party declared it would evict all the squats. Background Following the 2008 financial crisis, a Greek government-debt crisis prompted the European Troika to implement austerity policies in the form of three distinct memoranda, despite public protest. Widespread poverty and unemployment led to unstable political conditions, and high percentages of housing and storefronts sat unoccupied. Emerging as an alternative to and critique of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Squatting In Spain
Squatting in Spain refers to the occupation of unused or derelict buildings or land without the permission of the owner. In Francoist Spain migrant workers lived in slums on the periphery of cities. During the Spanish transition to democracy, residential squatting occurred in Spanish cities such as Barcelona, Bilbao, Madrid, Valencia and Zaragoza. From the 1980s onwards a new generation of squatters set up self-managed social centres which hosted events and campaigns. The 1995 Criminal Code among other things criminalised squatting, but failed to stop it. Social centres exist across the country and in Barcelona and Madrid in particular. In the Basque Country they are known as . Overview Francoist Spain ended with the death of Francisco Franco in 1975. In the following year, the numbers of people striking increased from 500,000 to over 5 million and social movements blossomed. During the Spanish transition to democracy, residential squatting occurred in cities such as Barcelona, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Self-managed Social Centers In Italy
Self-managed social centres in Italy exist in many cities. They are part of different left-wing political networks including anarchist, communist, socialist, and autonomist. The centres ( Italian: centri sociali) tend to be squatted and provide self-organised, self-financing spaces for alternative and noncommercial activities such as concerts, exhibitions, farmers' markets, infoshops, and migrant initiatives. Over time, some but not all projects have opted to legalize their status. History Self-managed social centres were first occupied in the mid-1970s in cities such as Milan by groups of young people, both students and unemployed. The social centres in Milan were used for diverse activities such as concerts, films, yoga classes, discussion groups and counselling for drug addicts. They often affiliated themselves with Autonomia Operaia (Workers' Autonomy) and suffered when social movements were repressed following the Years of Lead. A second wave of social centres began ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Villa Miseria
A ''villa miseria'' (), or just ''villa'', is the informal term for a type of shanty town slum found in Argentina, mostly around the largest urban settlements. Name The term is a noun phrase made up of the Spanish words ''villa'' (''village'', ''small town'') and ''miseria'' (''misery'', ''destitution''), and was adopted from Bernardo Verbitsky Bernardo Verbitsky (22 November 1907 – 15 March 1979) was an Argentine writer and journalist. Biography Verbitsky was born of Ukrainian-Jewish immigrant parents (his surname Verbitsky means willow in Ukrainian). He was a screenwriter, a jour ...'s 1957 novel ''Villa Miseria también es América'' ("Villa Miseria is also [a part of] the Americas"). These shanty towns are euphemism, euphemistically called ''asentamientos'' ("settlements") or ''villas de emergencia'' ("emergency villages"). In most parts of Argentina, the non-modified word ''villa'' usually refers to a ''villa miseria''. Informal settlements These settlements consist ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Slum Upgrading
Slum upgrading is an integrated approach that aims to turn around downward trends in an area. These downward trends can be legal (land tenure), physical (infrastructure), social (crime or education, for example) or economic." The main objective of slum upgrading is to remove the poor living standards of slum dwellers and largely focuses on removing slum dwellers altogether. Slum upgrading is used mainly for projects inspired by or engaged by Commonwealth Bank and similar agencies. It is considered by the proponents a necessary and important component of urban development in the developing countries. Many slums lack basic local authority services such as provision of safe drinking water, wastewater, sanitation, and solid-waste management. Many people do not believe that slum upgrading is successful as community planners believe that there is no successful alternative of where these displaced slum dwellers should go. They point to the difficulties in providing the necessary resource ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pueblos Jóvenes
''Pueblos jóvenes'' (, "young towns") is the term used for the shanty towns that surround Lima and other cities of Peru. Many of these towns have developed into districts of Lima such as Comas, Los Olivos and Villa El Salvador. Population Pueblos jóvenes were estimated to have over one million inhabitants in 1974. They were built on hillsides or beside rivers. By 2008, it was estimated that tens of millions of Peruvians were squatting land. Areas include Comas District, Los Olivos District and Villa El Salvador in Lima. The shanty town of Medalla Milagrosa is composed of migrants from all over Peru. Others are populated by Black, Amerindian, and mestizo campesinos who since the 1940s have migrated in great waves from Peru's countryside in search of economic opportunity, turning Lima into the fourth-largest city in America. Like many other rapidly industrializing cities, Lima's job market has largely been unable to keep up with this influx of people, forcing many to accept ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Autonomist
Autonomism, also known as autonomist Marxism is an anti-capitalist left-wing political and social movement and theory. As a theoretical system, it first emerged in Italy in the 1960s from workerism (). Later, post-Marxist and anarchist tendencies became significant after influence from the Situationists, the failure of Italian far-left movements in the 1970s, and the emergence of a number of important theorists including Antonio Negri, who had contributed to the 1969 founding of as well as Mario Tronti, Paolo Virno and Franco "Bifo" Berardi. George Katsiaficas summarizes the forms of autonomous movements saying that "In contrast to the centralized decisions and hierarchical authority structures of modern institutions, autonomous social movements involve people directly in decisions affecting their everyday lives, seeking to expand democracy and help individuals break free of political structures and behavior patterns imposed from the outside". This has involved a call for the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rooftop Slum
Rooftop slum () or penthouse slum generally refers to illegal housing on the rooftops of apartment buildings. In Hong Kong, some people are unable to afford traditional apartments and are forced to wait years for affordable public housing. They therefore live in squatted shacks on top of buildings. According to the Hong Kong population census, there were 47,091 rooftop dwellers in 2011 and this number is likely to have dropped as working class areas are redeveloped. Context A housing crisis developed in the 1950s and 1960s when a large number of refugees left mainland China and moved to Hong Kong, creating a large, unmet demand for affordable housing options and squatting in shanty towns or rooftop slums. The census of 1971 reported 27,000 people living in rooftop dwellings. In 1956, the estimated squatter population of Hong Kong was 450,000. Hong Kong is now one of the most densely populated places in the world. Between 2009 and 2014, residential property prices doubled. Rooft ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Informal Settlements
Informal housing or informal settlement can include any form of housing, shelter, or settlement (or lack thereof) which is illegal, falls outside of government control or regulation, or is not afforded protection by the state. As such, the informal housing industry is part of the informal sector. To have informal housing status is to exist in "a state of deregulation, one where the ownership, use, and purpose of land cannot be fixed and mapped according to any prescribed set of regulations or the law". While there is no global unified law of property-ownership, typically, the informal occupant or community will lack security of tenure and, with this, ready or reliable access to civic amenities (potable water, electricity and gas supply, road creation and maintenance, emergency services, sanitation and waste collection). Due to the informal nature of occupancy, the state will typically be unable to extract rent or land taxes. The term "informal housing" is useful in capturin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
