Abstract
The book offers a multidimensional analysis of the squatter movement in European cities. The overall question posed in the book is how the squatter movement changed over time. The topic is explored through case studies based on empirical data and from a historical perspective. The case studies focus on the neoliberal era of the late 20th century and the early 21st century. The authors aim to search for commonalities and differences among the squatter movements in Northern cities – Paris, Berlin, Copenhagen, Rotterdam, and Brighton – and Southern cities – Madrid, Barcelona, Seville, and Rome – of Europe. The last collective chapters after the case studies present comparisons and outline some results about the European squatter movement.
The authors adopt a concept of ‘protest cycles’, since the development of the squatters’ movement is ‘seldom linear, homogeneous and regular’ (Piazza and Martínez López, p. 230) but rather shaped by discontinuity and cycles of protest. The analysis of the book is dynamic in that it comprises the interactions between various squatting movements with different levels of radicalism. As opposed to ‘the fragmentation of the squatting landscape in Paris’ (Aguilera, p. 135) and elsewhere, the background of squatters’ movements is marked by ‘neo-liberalisation of both housing markets and policies’ (González, Díaz-Parra, and Martínez López, p. 272) everywhere without exception. The city authorities that have become increasingly neoliberal and pro-gentrification either repress opposing groups or tolerate and control them through selective neglect, co-option, legalisation, and institutionalisation.
The case study chapters offer diverse examples of squatting initiatives. The final chapter makes a comparative analysis of these examples and formulates three common results. The first of these notes the existence of four configurations of squatted social centres (SSCs) in relation to housing (abolitionism, communalism, pragmatism, and unitarianism) in all European cities in different periods. Communalism and pragmatism are suggested to be more prone to negotiation and likely to become legalised (González, Díaz-Parra, and Martínez López, p. 276). A particular observation in the analysis of the European squatter movements based on this classification in a developmental time frame is that the movement in Spanish cities shifted from abolitionist and communalist configurations to the more pragmatist and unitarian forms after the 1990s. This can apply to other cities as well.
Second, there is a general trend of moderation in squatting, despite some differences between North and South European cities. The squatting movements in the South continued to be vibrant in a political environment of selective neglect and containment, whereas ‘the combo plate of legalisation and repression has been very effective in Berlin and Copenhagen’ (Piazza and Martínez López, p. 237). The third result is that the spatial context is important. For example, Martínez López depicts the structures beyond the multiplicity of squatting in Madrid since its birth to be vacancy rates, speculation, criminalisation or legalisation of SSCs, global financial crisis, and alliances with other social movements that enhance public support. Likewise, Mudu and Rossini consider the case of Rome unique, because migrants are involved. Therefore, the book underlines that SSCs and housing configuration in any city are influenced by socio-spatial or political opportunity structures that are produced by the political elites, other social movements, and the media.
The relationship between gentrification and squatting merits consideration in terms of the increased pragmatism of the European squatter movement. The chapters make clear the link between gentrification and displacement through examples of squatters’ evictions from the centre to the urban periphery due to gentrification, such as in the Spanish cases and Brighton in the UK. The book also shows how squatting is enabled by dereliction and threatened by urban renewal. Yet, there is a possibility that some squats, such as artist squats of Paris in the 1990s and 2000s, are co-opted by gentrification or creative city policies. A governmental tendency is ‘to make squatting, in its subversive dimension, increasingly difficult and therefore less likely to happen while co-opting its vibrant dimension’ (Rossini, azozomox, and Debelle, p. 250). In these situations, the squatters cannot avoid becoming pioneers of gentrification.
The book achieved its aim in terms of tracing the change of the European squatter movement comprehensively. However, the question of political alternatives that challenge the increasing gentrification and financialisation in European cities is less well developed. Nevertheless, this vivid history of squatters’ battle against urban renewal, regeneration, and gentrification in Europe after the 1970s has a wide appeal for activists and researchers of urban social movements, gentrification, and urban policy.