Squatter

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.

Author Robert Neuwirth suggested in 2004 that there were one billion squatters globally. He forecasts there will be two billion by 2030 and three billion by 2050. Yet, according to Kesia Reeve, "squatting is largely absent from policy and academic debate and is rarely conceptualised, as a problem, as a symptom, or as a social or housing movement."

Squatting can be related to political movements, such as anarchist, autonomist, or socialist. It can be a means to conserve buildings or to provide housing.

In many of the world's poorer countries, there are extensive slums or shanty towns, typically built on the edges of major cities and consisting almost entirely of self-constructed housing built without the landowner's permission. While these settlements may, in time, grow to become both legalised and indistinguishable from normal residential neighbourhoods, they start off as squats with minimal basic infrastructure. Thus, there is no sewage system, drinking water must be bought from vendors or carried from a nearby tap, and if there is electricity, it is stolen from a passing cable.

Besides being residences, some squats are used as social centres or host give-away shops, pirate radio stations or cafés. In Spanish-speaking countries, squatters receive several names, such as okupas in Spain, Chile or Argentina (from the verb ocupar meaning "to occupy"), or paracaidistas in Mexico (meaning "parachuters", because they "parachute" themselves at unoccupied land).

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Wikipedia