The Autonomous City: A History of Urban Squatting

Alexander Vasudevan, The Autonomous City: A History of Urban Squatting London: Verso, 2017; 304pp; ISBN 9781781687864

In The Autonomous City: A History of Urban Squatting, Alexander Vasudevan charts the recent history of urban squatters movements across Europe and North America. Roaming from New York to London, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Berlin, across Italy, Vancouver and finally back to New York, his history offers insight into a range of different movements, trajectories, alliances, and fractures, which serve to highlight the importance of squatting as an urban movement in all its messy forms.

Of particular value is Vasudevan's consistent effort to relate the actions and aims of the squatters to those of broader housing movements and urban and political struggles. Squatting is often relegated in the public mind to the realm of an exclusive or hidden subculture, while, as Vasudevan points out, it has always been connected to a range of political conflicts. He notes the role of squatters in fighting against the decline of housing in neoliberal cities, explicitly relating the impact of the Global Financial Crisis of 2008 to the rejuvenation of squatting in many cities in recent years. In doing so,...