Urban Squatting Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

- by
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- Value Theory, Gift Giving (Economic Anthropology), Claude Lévi-Strauss, Urban Squatting

My current research focuses upon the varied strands of the squatting movement in Rotterdam from the 1960s to the present day. Whereas Western European capital cities such as Amsterdam, Berlin and Copenhagen all have well established... more

- by E.T.C. Dee
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- Sociology, Typology, Migration, Urban Studies

In this essay I want to figure out in which ways the Squat Group Kinderen van Mokum fit into what we know about contemporary problems in Amsterdam, especially concerning the youth. In analysing literature and comparing that to the characteristics of the activist group, I want to know in what way the activism of Kinderen van Mokum is a response to the problems that young people face in Amsterdam.

- by Lara Verheugen
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- Gentrification, Affordable Housing, Creative City, Activism
- by Emanuele Belotti
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- Social Movements, Migration, Housing Policy, Migration Studies

This article analyses the contribution of housing squats and Housing Rights Movements (HRMs) in Rome in envisioning a new model of public estates that could respond to the surge and complexification of the post-2008 housing crisis. The first part of the article fleshes out the theoretical and methodological framework for investigating the peculiarities of housing squats in comparison to other forms of housing informality and urban squatting. In the second part, it analyses the development and composition of housing struggles since the post-Second World War. It then details the new demographics of the housing crisis in Rome to provide a framework for the innovation in the HRMs' confrontational politics and demands towards a more comprehensive notion of the 'right to the city'. Their emphasis upon the role of city developers and real estate agents, and the opposition towards the exclusionary nature of contemporary social welfare, have in fact redirected squatting actions towards different urban vacancies that are repurposed for habitation. I conclude by suggesting that these practices prefigure a new model of public housing estates that is economically, environmentally sustainable and socially inclusive, whereby it pivots around use value and commoning.

- by Margherita Grazioli
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- Urban Geography, Economic Geography, Social Anthropology, Social Sciences
- by Luisa Rossini
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- Urban Planning, Urban Squatting, Cultural/Political Squatting, Reclaiming the city

This chapter examines the trajectory of Squatted Social Centres from 1977 to 2016 within the metropolitan area of Madrid. Martínez identifies specific protest cycles and the significant political, historical, urban, economic and social contexts in each period. The data collected and its broader interpretation allow distinguishing the main landmarks in the development of the squatters’ movement. The analytical approach chosen focuses on the structural aspects of urban politics that influence the evolution of squatting, although this is not simply viewed as a mechanistic reaction to housing shortages and high vacancy rates. Squatters in Madrid critically responded to urban speculation but they were also configured in tight articulation with other social movements.

- by Miguel A. Martínez López
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- Urban Politics, Urban Sociology, Socio-spatial Theory, Squatting

In the prolonged afermath of the economic crisis begun in 2008, the importance of Housing Rights Movements is gaining a new momentum in metropolises like Rome. Here the spaces they squat for inhabitng purposes represent more than emergency shelters for people in a conditon of severe housing deprivaton within a proft-oriented and individualistc cityscape. Indeed, they enact a “right to stay put” into the city and contrast the socio-spatal marginalizaton of the dispossessed urban dwellers in three main ways. Firstly, they subtract spaces from the speculaton and from the top down model of urban regeneraton. Secondly, they allow marginal people not to be relegated out of the consolidated urban fabric, and to be visible as social and politcal subjects. Thirdly, they provide a set of grassroots actvites that confgure alternatve models of sociability, contentious politcs and communing inside neighborhoods afected by diverse forms of deprivaton. In this respect, housing squats can be interpreted as urban commons that, besides providing emergency housing, contrast gentrifcaton and
artculate a renewed “right to the city”. In order to empirically support this theoretical framework, we will discuss the case of the squat Porto Fluviale, located in the central area of OstIense and occupied since 2003. The alternatve housing paterns it has been developing, and the role it plays in the neighborhood, shows the diverse ways in which Housing Rights Movements conceive and practice the 'right to stay put' in the urban landscape.

- by Margherita Grazioli and +1
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- Social Movements, Urban Geography, Southern Europe, Political Science

During the last years many different researches regarding social spaces have been realized in Rome, sometimes containing different maps representing these experiences. Nevertheless, these processes are very dynamic and the situation of Rome changes every year. For this reason in November, 2017 we decided to realize, during the International Conference "Cities and Self-organization" held in Rome on December 2017, an updated map of all the self-organization experiences within the city of Rome in order to better understand the reach and the meanings of this phenomenon. The main questions at the base of the present research are: why, even though these spaces are so copious, are not they able in influencing urban policies? Why are they concentrated mainly in some specific quarters of the city? What are their features compared to others European cities? To what extent are they able to change the public institutions?

- by Chiara Cacciotti
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- Urban Studies, Urban Squatting, Cultural/Political Squatting
- by Rowan Tallis Milligan
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- Urbanism, Housing, Squatting, Urban Squatting

Anàlisi socio-històric del moviment okupa del Baix Llobregat entre els anys 1985 i 2006. El Baix Llobregat és una de les comarques del cinturó industrial de Barcelona i una de les que ha comptat amb un moviment d'okupacions més dinàmic,... more

- by Robert González García
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- Sociology, Social Movements, Social Sciences, Political Science

Informality is usually defined as the whole practices that escape from the state and the radar of the administrations. Yet, informality is not invisible and causes conflicts around the way it is possible to produce knowledge about it. The article, which focuses on slums upgrading policies in Madrid (Spain) since the 1960s, sheds light on urban informality by locating itself at the crossroads of two types of literature: the anthropol- ogy of ignorance and the sociology of public policies. It shows how the institutionalization of these resorption policies was based on the constitution of important statistical and mapping devices but that a large part of the phenomenon (the big slum of the Cañada Real Galiana) was deliberately left out of these official public knowledge devices in order to avoid putting on the political agenda what appeared to be a reserve of informal- ity necessary to host of populations evicted elsewhere. It also shows that residents have mobilized to resist this exclusion and produce alternative knowledge about their neighbourhood. The article concludes that shantytowns, and more generally urban informality, are at the crossroads of processes of formalization and informalization that overlap on struggles for the production of knowledge or ignorance.

- by Thomas AGUILERA
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- Cartography, Statistics, Urban Planning, Illegality (Anthropology)

Esta dissertação, trabalho individual, mas de inspirações coletivas, demonstra a contradição e o movimento característicos de um modelo teórico-metodológico preocupado com os processos relativos à metrópole e aos estudos urbanos do período atual. O objetivo principal da dissertação busca reunir a riqueza das dimensões do cotidiano metropolitano, principalmente preocupado com os movimentos populares de luta pela moradia, com uma interpretação mais abrangente acerca da produção do espaço na Área Central do Rio de Janeiro. Essa associação contribui para a conformação do objeto analítico, que chamo “labirintos” e “bifurcações”, duas metáforas inspiradas na poesia de Jorge Luís Borges e na teoria de Daniel Hiernaux. Esse par teórico remete à condição perene de clausura da metrópole, uma realidade que, dada a heterogeneidade da vida de todo dia, se preenchem de maneira ininterrupta. No cerne da elaboração de uma cidade inóspita à apropriação por pessoas mais pobres, fez sentido promover um pequeno retorno a alguns eventos historicamente problemáticos da conformação urbana, para chegar a eventos mais próximos do período atual, como os momentos que antecederam os Jogos Olímpicos Rio 2016. Essa perspectiva possibilita a denúncia de violências inerentes à história de produção da cidade, como as remoções, uma interpretação que não ignora os vínculos próprios que a negação dos principais espaços metropolitanos seria direcionada a alguns grupos sociais específicos, quase sempre pessoas negras e pobres. O fato demarca a correlação imediata entre teoria e prática, um prisma metodológico característico de um arquétipo textual preocupado com sentidos que não viabilizem apenas a edificação de labirintos e bifurcações em sentidos práticos, mas também como a própria dimensão do apagamento, no cerne da episteme dos estudos urbanos, emerge de maneira intensa.

- by Felipe Taumaturgo Rodrigues de Azevedo
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- Utopian Studies, Everyday Life, Utopia, Epistemologia

This contribution has several theoretical aims: to question the implicit aspects of the concept of repertory of action, to propose a typification of the modes of action ; to indicate leads for a joint analysis of the instrumental and discursive repertories implemented by the organizations ; to reconsider the historical ruptures stressed by Charles Tilly ; and finally to think of the organisational and contextual conditions supporting the use of direct actions. This paper is empirically grounded on the study of the genesis of a specific mode of action, squat, between 1880 and 1914, and based on a work on archives and on etymology. We show in particular that the
passage from "resistance" to "contest", in which prevails the "claimed", supposes a particular form of relation to politics which constituted in itself a significant stake of struggles between various groups, at the beginning of this century.

- by Cécile Péchu
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- Anarchist Studies, History of Anarchism, Squatting, Urban Squatting

The Netherlands has a housing shortage since the 1960s. The estimated demand reaches 845.000 new
dwellings by 2035. Simultaneously, 6% of all the offices and shops are vacant, which possibly increases even
more due to the covid-19 pandemic and due to the rise of freelancers, who generally do not need an office
space. Since the 20th century, and especially since the post-war era, the squatting movement counteracted this
vacancy by occupying urban space to ensure a living and/or working space. This thesis focuses on the historical
framework of squatting practices in Amsterdam starting from the post-war era until now, and how squatting
can be a practice for an alternative, affordable housing system. The thesis brings the disadvantages regarding
the most acknowledgeable development of affordable housing – social housing – to the foreground. The Dutch
housing system is characterized by a strong government involvement. The social housing system is the most
acknowledgeable development regarding affordable housing in the Netherlands. However, the social housing
system has counterparts, as it has very long waiting lists (up to ten year - within the main cities of the
Netherlands) to be allocated to a dwelling, unequal opportunities for middle incomes to obtain a dwelling and
landlord levy’s which diminish the affordable housing production and indirectly passes on to the tenant.
Squatting emerged mainly because of the housing shortage, aswell as the fact that education became
more important after World War II, which led to the increased need of independency and independent housing
for youth. People started to take the matter into their own hands, by appropriating urban space. During the
mid 1970s, the social movement gained broad societal support because of the preservation of the
‘Nieuwmarkt’ (district in Amsterdam) and became an institutionalized practice with the emergence of squatting
agencies, squatting manuals and newspapers. Starting from mid 1980s, the movement declined and lost the
societal support due to conflicts and riots with the authorities. During the following decades, the squatter’s
movement was put under pressure by the authorities through legal actions. In 2010, the squatting practice was
totally banned. The ‘Breeding Ground Act’ (1998) enabled squatted buildings to be legalized in which the
squatters’ ambitions were maintained. Two case studies addressed in the thesis - ‘Plantage Doklaan’ and
‘Overtoom 301’ - are squatted buildings which were legalized and transformed to breeding grounds around the
00s, including affordable dwellings, workspaces and public amenities. These examples, which still exist today,
show to have a positive influence on the city fabric of Amsterdam – both socially and culturally.
The regular housing shortage, the continuing vacancy and the fate of real estate speculation are all
interlinked. Squatting challenges these problems as a whole and opened up the conversation about housing
shortage, vacancy and real estate speculation. There should be an option in which empty office space can be
converted into affordable living space, temporarily or permanent. Governmental zoning plans need to be
changed quicker instead of long-term processes. Then, for example an office space, could easier be
transformed into a (temporary) home, which put less pressure on the building industry. Collective ownership
(for example CLT) could function as a tenure ship in which the needs of the residents are met, instead of
private ownership as a speculative tool from which money is made.

- by Maurice Verhoef
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- Sociology, Architecture, Housing Policy, Squatting

La première partie de ce travail s’interroge sur la crise du logement à Bruxelles. On y explore les causes et facteurs de la problématique, définit le terme de logement décent et ce que signifie le « droit à la ville ». On s’y intéresse particulièrement aux personnes en situation de grande précarité afin de déterminer le plus grand facteur d’inclusive. L’auteur souligne les carences des solutions institutionnelles menant au développement d’alternatives sur le terrain par des associations citoyennes. La problématique du logement est mis en connexion avec celle du parc immobilier vacant à Bruxelles: Effectivement 2013 ce sont entre 15000 et 30000 logements privés, 2275 logements sociaux et plus de 1000000 m² de bureaux qui sont inoccupés. Et pourtant plus de 2600 personnes sans-abris et mal logés.
Ces conditions favorisent un accroissement du phénomène du squat. Aussi l’auteur pose l’hypothèse qu’à partir de ce contexte un élément de réponse possible émerge: la convention d’occupation temporaire et le développement au sein de celui-ci d’un logement collectif solidaire.
La seconde partie consiste en une étude de cas : Le « 123 rue royale ».
Cet ancien Squat situé dans un immeuble de bureaux de la communauté française est le premier projet en son genre en Belgique. Les habitants, qui signent en 2007 une convention d’occupation temporaire avec le propriétaire, portent un projet de logement solidaire alternatif en autogestion. Celui-ci allie logements a mixité socio-économique, ateliers urbains et projets de récupération. Tous les projets au sein du « 123 » se basent sur les mêmes principes : L’autogestion la solidarité, la participation et le prix libre. Ainsi des habitants récupèrent chaque jour les invendus de divers magasins pour leurs repas et le dimanche organisent une table d’hôte. On peut aussi y réparer son vélo à partir de pièces récupérées. Ce projet qui existe depuis 9 ans au moment d’écrire ces lignes reste néanmoins dans la précarité, car les habitants peuvent se voir expulsés du bâtiment, une fois un acquéreur trouvé, dans un délai de 6 mois. Quant à savoir qui, du bâtiment ou des habitants porte réellement le projet…

- by Loïc Desiron
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- Social Sciences, Architecture, Urban Planning, Urban Studies

Important contributions have been made to our knowledge of squatting in sociology, anthropology, geography, political science, planning, and architecture. In addition, there is research led by international organizations, agencies and NGOs. Squatting is the occupation of vacant land or buildings, without the consent of the owner. But squatting involves a wide range of activities, claims, goals, resources, locations and relationships with authorities, and squatters can have many different profiles. A common response has been the creation of typologies. A central problem has been fragmentation of the approaches to the study of squatters. Interested in different dimensions, these literatures are separated by cleavages. We identify five main cleavages around which research is organized: North / South, urban / rural, survival tactics / social movements, buildings / lands, inhabitants / policies. Distinct approaches by scholars with different backgrounds and theoretical interests limit our ability to understand the phenomenon. In this entry, we attempt to address the diversity of issues and debates around them.

- by Thomas AGUILERA and +1
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- Social Movements, Homelessness, Urban Planning, Urban Studies

This book brings together ten researchers from various disciplines: Sociology, Anthropology, History, Geography,Art, Urban Planning, Landscape Architecture and Political Science to bring their own reflections on the unique Community that is Christiania. In the introduction chapters the editors provide an overview of the research that has been done on the settlement from the early 1970s to the 2000s.

- by Cathrin Wasshede and +1
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- Urban Planning, Urban Social Movements, Urban Governance, Alternative Culture
- by Emily Pugh
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- Architectural History, Urbanism, Social Housing, Urban Squatting

Disagio e povertà abitativa sono un fattore specifico della disuguaglianza sociale. Le caratteristiche della struttura produttiva ed economica, le politiche neo-liberiste e le trasformazioni della sfera politica plasmano lo spazio urbano e producono varie forme di esclusione (Castells 1981; Graziani 2005; Morlicchio 2012). Oggi, una delle pratiche informali più diffuse nelle città italiane è l'occupazione di edifici vuoti a scopo abitativo. Il paper vuole esaminare queste azioni che, oltre a soddisfare un bisogno primario come la casa, rappresentano una forma di attivazione dal basso e di riappropriazione sia dei tempi privati sia degli spazi in disuso (Piazza 2012; Harvey 2012; McGann 2014; Mudu, 2014). Ma in che modo i movimenti per il diritto all'abitare provano a sopperire alla mancanza d'interlocutori politici nella risoluzione di problemi strutturali? Come si organizzano le comunità di occupanti? Il contributo prova a rispondere a questi interrogativi riprendendo e aggiornando alcuni risultati della ricerca di dottorato sulle occupazioni abitative a Roma e i Movimenti per il diritto all'abitare, realizzata tra il 2012 e il 2016.

El següent article pretén reflexionar sobre un dels
actors que ha denunciat de manera més
contundent i continuada el problema de la manca
d’habitatge i d’espais de sociabilitat no
mercantilitzats. L’okupació d’immobles abandonats
és un fenomen antic, però la seva constitució en
tant que moviment social es remunta a la dècada
dels 70. És durant aquesta dècada quan es
popularitzen les okupacions a països com
Alemanya, Holanda, Itàlia o Gran Bretanya. Al
nostre país, però, no és fins al 1984, quan es
produeixen les primeres okupacions reivindicades
en el barri de Gràcia a Barcelona. De fet, no és fins
al 1996 amb la conjunció de diversos factors
d’oportunitat (criminalització de l’okupació a través
del Codi Penal, okupació i desallotjament violent
del Cinema Princesa, acumulació de forces del
propi moviment) que aquest moviment no dóna el
salt a l’Agenda Pública. A continuació presentarem
breument el context sociopolític on es desenvolupa
el moviment; apuntarem els principals impactes
que ha tingut el moviment en les polítiques
públiques i acabarem amb un reflexió comparada
de cara a abordar la temàtica de l’okupació des de
les institucions.

- by Robert González García
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- Social Movements, Social Sciences, Youth Studies, Public PolicyStudies

Starting from the observation of the paucity of comparisons between Northern and Southern squatting, this chapter analyzes the obstacles to such comparisons and tries to open pathways to develop a comparative research agenda beyond regional studies. Squatted settlements are bigger in the South, squatting policies are much more institutionalized in the South, forms of collective action diverge, and local contexts are extremely different. However, we believe that conceptual, methodological and contextual problems can be overcome by adopting a political economy approach emphasizing toleration and formalization policies as a common point of departure in order to address the puzzling question of persistence of illegal housing in both hemispheres. We identify three main reasons that explain the persistence of squats and slums in the 21 st century, not only due to policy failures. Firstly, public administrations contribute to create illegality by planning the city for growth and attractiveness. Secondly, they strategically tolerate illegal housing to defend economic and political interests. Finally, both Northern and Southern squatters collectively organize to resist evictions and to survive in cities in times of crisis. Behind these common results, we argue that each research tradition can learn from the other and their synthesis mutually contributes to the improvement of our knowledge of illegality, informal housing and urban policies.

- by Thomas AGUILERA
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- Social Movements, Anthropology, Urban Politics, Land and Property Development
- by Renato Cymbalista
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- Urban Studies, Urban Sociology, Berlin, Squatting

Squats are of notable importance in the punk scene in Poland, and these spaces are a key aspect of the relationship between anarchism and punk. However, the overlap of squatting, punk, and anarchism is not without its tensions. This article, drawn from ethnographic research carried out between 2013 and 2014, explores the issues around punk and anarchist squats in Poland, looking at: criticisms levelled at punk squats by 'non-punk' squatting activists (e.g. Przychodnia in Warsaw); instances of squats as a hub for a wide spectrum of anarchist activity (e.g. the 'anarchist Mecca' of Rozbrat in Poznań); and the repression of squatting in Poland through eviction and legalisation (affecting all squats in some form). (Other squats and social centres mentioned here include Elba and ADA Puławska in Warsaw, Wagenburg and CRK in Wrocław, and Od:zysk in Poznań.) Among the various squats, there were tensions around approaches and tactics identified as 'more anarchist' or 'less anarchist' – this speaks to the supposed 'workerist'/'lifestylist' dichotomy within anarchism more widely, but the lived experience of the squatters is shown here to be far too complex to be encompassed in any false binary.

- by Jim Donaghey
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- Cultural Studies, Social Movements, Anthropology, Ethnography

Today there is a return to the housing issue and new forms of housing (co-housing, housing cooperatives, squatters, etc.) as an alternative to the population impoverishment process. Regarding the phenomenon of squatting housing, Rome is one of the Italian cities with the highest number of buildings occupied. Various mobilizations have been organized to occupy new abandoned buildings recently; however, these initiatives had produced a negative reaction by the State, which
has implemented forms of control to ostracize collective experiences based on mutuality and solidarity. The purpose of the contribution is to fill emptiness in the literature and the Italian sociological empirical studies on phenomenon, going beyond the rhetoric of legality. The research analyzes the organization and the political goals that gave rise the housing movement organizations “Movimenti per il diritto all’abitare” actives a Rome; it examines the role played by collective actors within the dynamics of power and management of urban territories and grasp the extent of the phenomenon through a mapping of the occupied buildings present on the territory.

- by Chiara Davoli
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- Social Movements, Mapping, Squatting, Urban Squatting
- by Sutapa Chattopadhyay
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- Radical Geography, Anarchist Studies, International Migration, Autonomy

The paper presents the constitution of the “political” in two cases of political squatting in Hungary after 1989: the Centrum squatter group’s occupations in 2004-2006, and the homeless advocacy group The City is for All’s occupations in 2013-2014. In the case of the Centrum group, the political significance of squatting was defined by a position allocated to squatters within a larger global justice movement coalition. As soon as that allocated position changed, the political perception of the Centrum group vanished. In the case of The City is for All, the constitution of the politics of the occupations was kept under control by a conscious long-term strategy, which defined squatting as a tactical element. Drawing attention to the shifting political ontology, the paper argues for a context-sensitive definition of political squatting.

- by Agnes Gagyi
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- Social Movements, Housing, Hungary, Squatting

This chapter describes the history of squatting in France. It identifies a diversity of forms and goals of squatting that overlap during the 20th century. Squatting in France is strongly linked to the Housing Movement since the 19th century. It arose as a phenomenon in parallel to the development of housing policies and State control. Nowadays we can identify a diversity of goals, resources and level of institutionalisation.

- by Thomas AGUILERA and +1
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- Social Movements, Anarchism, Anarchist Studies, Urban Studies

This special issue focuses on migrants’ self-organised strategies in relation to housing in Europe, namely the collective squatting of vacant buildings and land. In particular, the contributions to this special issue differentiate between shelter provided in state-run or humanitarian camps and squatted homes. Migrants squats are an essential part of the ‘corridors of solidarity’ that are being created throughout Europe, where grassroots social movements engaged in anti-racist, anarchist and anti-authoritarian politics coalesce with migrants in devising non-institutional responses to the violence of border regimes. In these spaces contentious politics and everyday social reproduction uproot racist and xenophobic regimes. The struggles emerging in these spaces disrupt host-guest relations, which often perpetuate state-imposed hierarchies and humanitarian disciplining technologies. Moreover, the solidarities and collaborations between undocumented and documented activists challenge hitherto prevailing notions of citizenship and social movements, as well as current articulations of the common. These radical spaces enable possibilities for inhabitance beyond, against and within citizenship, which do not only reverse forms of exclusion and repression, but produce ungovernable resources, alliances and subjectivities that prefigure more livable spaces for all. Therefore, these struggles are interpreted here as forms of commoning, as they constitute autonomous socio-political infrastructures and networks of solidarity beyond and against the state and humanitarian provision.

- by Margherita Grazioli and +2
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- Commons, Housing, Migration Studies, Citizenship

Η μετάφραση του άρθρου έγινε από το αναρχικό στέκι ΡΕΣ(Α)ΛΤΟ, τον Ιανουάριο του 2020, με αφορμή ένα κρατικό “τελεσίγραφο”, τις εκκενώσεις των καταλήψεων, το δόγμα “νόμος και τάξη” >στο πλαίσιο της αλληλεγγύης στις καταλήψεις και της... more

- by Galvão Debelle dos Santos
- •
- Urban Squatting, Squatting Europe Kollective

This study is an attempt to signify the efforts put by common ground citizens to aid the refugee crisis at stake since 2015. Although forced migration from armed conflicts and natural catastrophes have been a recurring phenomenon throughout the last century, the current exodus from Middle-East countries like Syria and Afghanistan is beyond known comparison. The number of displaced citizens escaping from battlegrounds, trying to find a safe passage to Europe is counted by
millions. After the inability shown by many European governments to offer safe asylum to migrants, many have been trapped between borders in south-eastern Europe. The major hotspot is still located in Greece, where many refugees managed to reach islands in the Egean Sea avoiding the otherwise forced passage through Turkey. The Greek government, facing many difficulties since the start of the
economic crisis in 2009, has been unable to provide decent living conditions to the asylum seekers trapped today in the country. This empty space has been filled by self-organised organisations and communities, being the most prominent example the Exarchia neighbourhood in Athens. Hosting refugees in “squats”, occupied
buildings, the local community has shown an admirable ability to give back the dignity lost in their tough journey from home. In this paper I will concentrate in describing the resiliency of Exarchia providing basic needs in this crisis, comparing it to the inefficient efforts by the Greek State. Squatting movements provide the opportunity to produce public and domestic space in a different way, and could set path to other initiatives around the globe. Towards the end of the paper, I will abide
for bottom up decision-making in communities as the prime revolutionary method to design urban life.

There is a chronical inability of the Italian Government to enforce a rapid and effective protection from infringements of property rights, as demonstrated by the problem of squatting. Despite the lack of official data, it appears that about 50,000 buildings all over the country are subjected to squatting. This research explores the reasons for such an inadequate reaction by a State that, although qualifies itself as “welfaristic”, it has no problem in burdening the law-abiding citizens with the costs of hardship of those most in need. Unfortunately, this situation has so far received the approval of Italian courts, which have been reluctant to defend the owners’ good reasons. But, as the research points out, in contrast with the dominant jurisprudence, it has emerged a new case-law (from the Tribunale of Rome and the Corte Suprema di Cassazione) that sentences the Government to pay damages in case of squatting, if the proper institutions have failed to prevent or suppress it. It is a case-law that, albeit open to criticism, makes clear that property rights are entitled to the protection accorded to them by the Constitution and other international laws. It seemed as if the Italian Government had understood that but lately it has approved several measures that go in the opposite direction. After a brief introduction on the constitutional concept of property rights (and on the misconceptions surrounding the “social function” of property enshrined in art. 42 of the Italian Constitution), the research focuses on the aforesaid case-law and the most recent legislative interventions about squatting.

- by Giuseppe Portonera
- •
- Property Rights, Judicial review, Squatting, Urban Squatting

From the late 1970s and early 1980s, the city center of Oslo was for several years in a row affected by riots on the night to May 1st (The International Workers' Day). As a result of a larger number of fines and arrests after the uprising in 1981, the group "Ungdomsgruppa mot bøteterror" (Youths Against Fines Terror) , later "Ung Mobilisering" (Young Mobilization), (UngMob), emerged. In the fall of the same year, on October 9, they took the lead when about 200 youths squatted the abandoned apartment building in Skippergata 6/6b in Oslo. On the same evening, the house was declared as Oslos first Autonomous Youth House. The thesis examines the ideological and social origins and developments of UngMob and what would become known as "Blitz" at the beginning of the 1980s in Oslo. The group made a strong impression on Oslo's public space during the decade, and in many ways, represented a new type of urban youth culture. This thesis will contribute to place the group as an important timed tendency among youth in the the counter and subcultural landscape of the capital in the 1980s, a decade marked by cultural, political and social changes, particularly apparent in the cities. This places Blitz as an important event in the city's modern history, with influences far beyond its own existence, in the fight for the right to the city. The history of Blitz is composed of many facets, and can be told in many different ways, which this thesis cannot grasp and describe in detail. Still, the thesis can tell a great deal about a differentiated group, and about conflicts both inside and outside the house, where I seek a greater understanding of the origins and the start-up phase of the movement.

- by Marius Solli
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- History, Social Movements, Urban Planning, Punk Culture
- by E.T.C. Dee
- •
- Sociology, Social Movement, Urban Studies, Urban Studies