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 find empty buildings or land to occupy for housing. It has a long history, broken down by country below.
Tute Bianche, Italian for "White Overalls", was a militant Italian social movement, active from 1994 to 2001. Activists were notable for covering. their bodies with white padding so as to resist the blows of police, pushing through police lines, and marching together in large blocks for mutual protection during demonstrations.
Matteo Salvini is an Italian politician who has served as Deputy Prime Minister of Italy and Minister of Infrastructure and Transport since 2022. He has been Federal Secretary of Italy's Lega Nord party since December 2013 and an Italian senator since March 2018. Salvini represented Northwestern Italy in the European Parliament from 2004 to 2018.
Self-managed social centres in the United Kingdom can be found in squatted, rented, mortgaged and fully owned buildings. These self-managed social centres differ from community centres in that they are self-organised under anti-authoritarian principles and volunteer-run, without any assistance from the state. The largest number have occurred in London from the 1980s onwards, although projects exist in most cities across the UK, linked in a network. Squatted social centres tend to be quickly evicted and therefore some projects deliberately choose a short-term existence, such as A-Spire in Leeds or the Okasional Café in Manchester. Longer term social centres include the 1 in 12 Club in Bradford, the Cowley Club in Brighton and the Sumac Centre in Nottingham, which are co-operatively owned.
Self-managed social centres in Italy exist in many cities. They are part of different left-wing political networks including anarchist, communist, socialist, and autonomist. The centres tend to be squatted and provide self-organised, self-financing spaces for alternative and noncommercial activities such as concerts, exhibitions, farmers' markets, infoshops, and migrant initiatives. Over time, some but not all projects have opted to legalize their status.
Centro 73 was a social and cultural centre in Chișinău and the first squat created in Moldova. The early twentieth century villa at 73 Alexei Mateevici street was a monumental building which the owner intended to demolish. It was occupied in August 2010 and evicted in December the same year.
Cascina Torchiera is a historic cascina a corte (farmhouse) of Milan, Italy, dating back to the first half of the 14th century. It is located in zone 8 of Milan, adjacent to the Maggiore cemetery, in the Musocco/Garegnano district, and is one of the oldest surviving cascine within the city boundaries. The cascina is formally the property of the Comune di Milano city administration and has been a squatted self-managed social centre since the 1992. It is known as Cascina Autogestita Torchiera SenzAcqua.
Squat Milada is a First Republic villa located in the Libeň district of Prague. Milada was intended to be demolished in the 1980s and deleted from the cadastre. Therefore it was a house which officially did not exist and it became one of the Czech Republic's best known squats, occupied from 1997 until 2009. It was then reoccupied for a day in 2012. Acting as a self-managed social centre and infoshop hosting concerts and events, Milada was also home to a number of people. Despite various plans for the site, as of 2021, the building was standing derelict.
A far-right social centre is a space inspired by neo-fascist and Third Position ideas, typically in the 21st century.
CSOA Forte Prenestino is a large self-managed social centre based in a squatted fort in Centocelle, Rome. It was occupied on May Day 1986. Forte Prenestino is an "important node of production of cultural and political events" and hosts many groups and events across its 13 hectares.
La Ingobernable is a series of self-managed social centres in central Madrid, Spain. The squats have been used by feminist, environmentalists, LGBTI, anti-racist and other cultural groups. Between 2017 and 2019, the La Ingobernable was based in a municipal building located at the corner of Paseo del Prado and Calle del Gobernador. It was then located at Calle Alberto Bosch 4, behind the Prado Museum from March until April 2020, when it was evicted during the state of alarm. In 2021, an Office for Social Rights was set up at Calle Cruz 5.
Buridda, officially known as LSOA Buridda, is a squatted self-managed social centre in the city of Genoa, Italy. It was established in 2003 and has changed location several times since inception, due to its uncertain legal status. The centre is wholly run and organized by volunteers and funds itself through donations and fundraising. It offers various services and activities to the community, including open space for exercise, circus-related facilities and skills training, art spaces and workshops, wood and metalworking shops with tools and machinery, 3D printers, communal kitchen, and an amateur radio station.
Ladronka is a homestead situated in a park in Břevnov, Prague 6, in the Czech Republic. Built by Charles IV in 1340, it was bought by an Italian count, then owned by the Sovereign Military Order of Malta before being broken into flats during the communist period. It was then squatted in 1993, becoming an internationally famous anarchist, self-managed social centre. The squatters organised gigs, exhibitions, readings and theatre, before being evicted in 2000 following the anti-globalization protests in Prague. After several years of renovation, Ladronka was re-opened as an activity centre in 2005, serving the surrounding park.
Squatting became a political phenomenon in the Czech Republic after the Velvet Revolution in 1989. Squats in Prague included Sochora, Stary Střešovice and Ladronka. Milada was occupied in 1998 and following its final eviction in 2009, there was a lull in squatting actions. In the 2010s a new social movement squatted houses to highlight the number of derelict properties in Prague and the social centre Klinika was founded in 2014.
Squatting in Spain refers to the occupation of unused or derelict buildings or land without the permission of the owner. In Francoist Spain migrant workers lived in slums on the periphery of cities. During the Spanish transition to democracy, residential squatting occurred in Spanish cities such as Barcelona, Bilbao, Madrid, Valencia and Zaragoza. From the 1980s onwards a new generation of squatters set up self-managed social centres which hosted events and campaigns. The 1995 Criminal Code among other things criminalised squatting, but failed to stop it. Social centres exist across the country and in Barcelona and Madrid in particular. In the Basque Country they are known as gaztetxes.
Squatting in Norway is taking possession of land or an empty house without the permission of the owner. The first public occupation was Hjelmsgate 3 in 1969 and self-managed social centres which were first squatted and then legalized include the Blitz House, Hausmania and UFFA. Brakkebygrenda was a land squat which has twice been evicted.
Chanti Ollin was a self-managed social centre in Mexico City, Mexico, between 2003 and 2017. It was occupied in 2003 by students from the 1999–2000 UNAM strike and participants in Okupa Che. It was a derelict five storey building at Calle Melchor Ocampo 424 in Cuauhtémoc. The name means "house in motion" in the Nahuatl language.
The modern political squatting movement began in Hamburg, Germany, when Neue Große Bergstraße 226 was occupied in 1970. Squatters wanted to provide housing for themselves amongst other demands such as preventing buildings from being demolished and finding space for cultural activities. The Hafenstraße buildings were first occupied in 1981 and were finally legalized after a long political struggle in 1995. The still extant Rote Flora self-managed social centre was occupied in 1989. Squatting actions continue into the present; more recent attempts are quickly evicted, although the Gängeviertel buildings were squatted and legalized in the 2010s.
Cox 18 is a self-managed social centre in Milan, Italy. It was first squatted in 1976 and after being evicted in 1989 was quickly re-squatted. It houses the Calusca bookshop and the Primo Moroni archive.
