Squatting By Country

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.

In industrialized countries, there are often residential squats and also political squatting movements, which can be anarchist, autonomist or socialist in nature, for example in the self-managed social centres of Italy or squats in the United States. Oppositional movements from the 1960s and 1970s created freespaces in Denmark or squatting village in the Netherlands, and in England and Wales, there were estimated to be 50,000 squatters in the late 1970s. Each local situation determines the context: in Athens, Greece, there are refugee squats; Germany has social centres; in Spain there are many squats.

Overview

The majority of squatting is residential in nature. As a phenomenon it tends to occur when a poor and homeless population makes use of derelict property or land through urban homesteading. According to a 2003 estimate by the United Nations in the UN-Habitat report, there were about one billion people in squatter settlements and slums. According to an academic, Kesia Reeve, "squatting is largely absent from policy and academic debate and is rarely conceptualised, as a problem, as a symptom, or as a social or housing movement."

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 become upgraded, they often start off as squats with minimal basic infrastructure. Thus, there is no legal link to sewerage, electricity or water. Such settlements also exist in industrialized countries, such as for example Cañada Real on the outskirts of Madrid.

Squatting can be related to political movements, such as anarchist, autonomist, or socialist. It can be a means to conserve buildings or a protest action. Squats can be used by local communities as free shops, cafés, venues, pirate radio stations or as multi-purpose autonomous social centres. Dutch sociologist Hans Pruijt separates types of squatters into five distinct categories:

# Deprivation-based – homeless people squatting for housing need
# An alternative housing strategy – people unprepared to wait on municipal lists to be housed take direct action
# Entrepreneurial – people breaking into buildings to service the need of a community for cheap bars, clubs etc.
# Conservational – preserving monuments because the authorities have let them decay
# Political – activists squatting buildings as protests or to make social centres

Adverse possession, sometimes described as squatter's rights, is a method of acquiring title to property through possession for a statutory period under certain conditions. Countries where this principle exists include England and the United States, based on common law.

Anarchist author Colin Ward asserts: "Squatting is the oldest mode of tenure in the world, and we are all descended from squatters. This is as true of the Queen f_the_United_Kingdom.html" ;"title="United_Kingdom.html" ;"title="f the United Kingdom">f the United Kingdom">United_Kingdom.html" ;"title="f the United Kingdom">f the United Kingdomwith her as it is of the 54 percent 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." Others have a different view; UK police official Sue Williams, for example, has stated that "Squatting is linked to anti-social behaviour and can cause a great deal of nuisance and distress to local residents. In some cases there may also be criminal activities involved." The public attitude toward squatting varies, depending on legal aspects, socioeconomic conditions, and the type of housing occupied by squatters. In particular, while squatting of municipal buildings may be treated leniently, squatting of private property can often lead to strongly negative reactions on the part of the general public and the authorities.

Africa

In African countries such as Nigeria, informal settlements are created by migration from rural areas to urban areas. Reasons for squatting include the lack of low cost housing, unemployment and inability to access loans. In 1995, almost 70% of the population of the Nigerian capital Lagos were living in slums.

The City of the Dead slum is a well-known squatter community in Cairo, Egypt. Between 1955 and 1975, the Cairo authorities built 39,000 public housing apartments but 2 million people moved there, mostly ending up in informal housing. In Alexandria, Egypt's second city, public housing was only 0.5% of the total housing stock, whereas informal housing was 68%.

An estimated 3,500 people live in the Grande Hotel Beira in Mozambique. Informal settlements in Zambia, particularly around Lusaka, are known as kombonis. As of 2011, 64% of Zambians lived below the poverty line, whilst the United Nations predicted a 941% population increase by 2100.

Liberia

In Liberia, squatting is one of three ways to access land, the other being ownership by deed or customary ownership. West Point was founded in Monrovia in the 1950s and is estimated to house between 29,500 and 75,000 people. During the First Liberian Civil War 1989–1997 and the Second Liberian Civil War 1999–2003, many people in Liberia were displaced and some ended up squatting in Monrovia. The Ducor Hotel fell into disrepair and was squatted, before being evicted in 2007. Recently, over 9,000 Burkinabés were squatting on remote land and the Liberia Land Authority (LLA) has announced it will be titling all land in the country.

South Africa

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 the mid-1990s, an estimated 7.7 million South Africans lived in informal settlements: a fifth of the country's population. The figure was estimated to be 15 million in 2004. In Cape Town and Durban, there have been sustained conflict between the city council and a shack dwellers' movement known as Abahlali baseMjondolo. The organisation has represented the squatters in land occupations such as the Macassar Village in 2009 and the Cape Town and Durban Marikana land occupations in 2013 (both named after the Marikana massacre). It also successfully challenged the KZN Slums Act

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