The Autonomous City: A History of Urban SquattingA radical history of squatting and the struggle for the right to remake the city The Autonomous City is the first popular history of squatting as practised in Europe and North America. Alex Vasudevan retraces the struggle for housing in Amsterdam, Berlin, Copenhagen, Detroit, Hamburg, London, Madrid, Milan, New York, and Vancouver. He looks at the organisation of alternative forms of housing—from Copenhagen’s Freetown Christiana to the squats of the Lower East Side—as well as the official response, including the recent criminalisation of squatting, the brutal eviction of squatters and their widespread vilification. Pictured as a way to reimagine and reclaim the city, squatting offers an alternative to housing insecurity, oppressive property speculation and the negative effects of urban regeneration. We must, more than ever, reanimate and remake the urban environment as a site of radical social transformation. |
Contents
Preservation and Provocation in Amsterdam | 67 |
Makeshift Urbanisms | 118 |
Autonomous Urbanisms | 150 |
Squatting and | 211 |
Rethinking | 235 |
From Survival to Care | 255 |
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Common terms and phrases
abandoned actions active adopted affordable housing alternative Amsterdam Athens autonomous became began buildings campaign City Plaza city's Claimed the City collective Copenhagen council demolition Detroit Downtown Eastside early emerged empty Europe eviction Exarcheia factory families flyer forms Frankfurt gentrification geography Global Hafenstraße Hamburg Häuserkampf history of squatting homeless housing activists housing crisis Ibid increasingly Infoshop infrastructure Italian Italy Kreuzberg landlords later living London Lotta Continua Lower East Side makeshift Märkisches Viertel ment migrants Milan militant neighbourhood neoliberal Nørrebro occupation organised police political practices precarious Press protest radical recent redevelopment refugees rent strikes residents resistance self-organised shacks social centres solidarity squatted spaces squatter movement Straße Street struggles tactics Tenants Claimed tion Tom Burrows Ton Steine Scherben transformed turn Ungdomshuset University urban renewal Vancouver violent wave of squatting West Berlin West Germany wider workers working-class York youth