OUT NOW FROM VERSO:
THE AUTONOMOUS CITY: A HISTORY OF URBAN SQUATTING
By Alexander Vasudevan
A radical history of squatting and the struggle for the right to remake the city
https://www.versobooks.com/books/2435-the-autonomous-city
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The Autonomous City is the first popular history of squatting as practised in Europe and North America. Alex Vasudevan retraces the struggle for housing in Amsterdam, Berlin, Copenhagen, Detroit, Hamburg, London, Madrid, Milan, New York, and Vancouver. He looks at the organisation of alternative forms of housing—from Copenhagen’s Freetown Christiana to the squats of the Lower East Side—as well as the official response, including the recent criminalisation of squatting, the brutal eviction of squatters and their widespread vilification.
Pictured as a way to reimagine and reclaim the city, squatting offers an alternative to housing insecurity, oppressive property speculation and the negative effects of urban regeneration. We must, more than ever, reanimate and remake the urban environment as a site of radical social transformation.
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“An encyclopaedic and vital history of a topic which is often overlooked but is invariably at the heart of radical city politics.”
– Anna Minton, author of Ground Control
“Vasudevan’s argument is compelling and supported by impressive research.”
– PD Smith, author of City: A Guidebook for the Urban Age
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PAPERBACK: APRIL 2017 / 304 PAGES / ISBN 9781781687864 / $26.95 / £16.99 / $35.99 (CAN)
AVAILABLE AS AN E-BOOK
https://www.versobooks.com/books/2435-the-autonomous-city
For more information on university inspection/desk copies visit: http://www.versobooks.com/pg/desk-copies
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