Squatters in the Capitalist City

Miguel Martinez's analysis of squatters' movements is an insightful probing of the failures of housing provision under neoliberalism and the varying ways that mobilization in response has occurred within different contexts. It also offers an important contribution to the theorization of urban social movements within a political-economic framework. -Susan S. Fainstein, Senior Research Fellow, Harvard University Graduate School of Design, USA, Author of The Just City Squatting empty buildings has been for decades a self-organized policy to ensure the right to adequate housing for those excluded both from the residential markets and the bureaucratic and exclusionary webs of housing policies. This book is an essential road map to understand squatting in Europe, in its diversity and complexity. -Raquel Rolnik is Professor of Planning at the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil, Author of Urban Warfare: Housing Under the Threat of Finance Squatting is a reality-in almost every country in the world. Miguel A. Martinez shows it's about more than a roof over their heads. Squatting is the best housing policy-because they almost everywhere point out and enforce alternatives to organize housing beyond the capitalist exploitation logic. -Andrej Holm, Department of Urban and Regional Sociology of Humboldt Universitat zu Berlin, Germany, Co-editor of The Berlin Reader: A Compendium on Urban Change and Activism The most comprehensive analysis of European urban squatters' movements ever written. By examining a remarkable range of cases across Europe, the author reveals the surprising diversity within and between these movements, and the political opportunities and constraints that shaped squatters' interactions with their numerous opponents. A beautifully written example of scholar-activism by one of its most important voices. -Tom Slater, University of Edinburgh, Scotland, Co-editor of The Sociology of Stigma The book, lavishly illustrated with images, all taken by the author, which complement the text and bring the reader closer to the sites of the events, invites the reader to a fascinating read that deals with the questions: is squatting a social movement, and, by the way, what is a social movement? This book must be read by scholars and activists interested on the topic of squatting and in general those interested in urban movements of resistance against neoliberalism. -Irene Molina, Radical Housing Journal