Books about Squatter from Amazon.com

In the middle of the night they quickly build houses and seize land before the police destroy their fragile homes. They're squatters--families that risk the wrath of governments and property owners by building dwellings on land they don't own--and they represent one out of every ten people on the planet.

Investigative journalist Robert Neuwirth lived among squatter communities from Rio to Bombay to Nairobi to Istanbul to give us an impassioned, inside view of squatter life and a glimpse into the urban future. He met people in Nairobi who built homes with their bare hands, Turkish families who plot land invasions, and children in Rio whose parents justify outfoxing the authorities as the only path to a better life. And he shows us that in cities like Rio, squatter settlements have become decent places to live for formerly landless people. Tracing the notion of private property from the enclosure movement in Europe to the settlement of the U.S., Neuwirth shows how squatting rights may actually be seen as more "natural" than the current laws practiced in the U.S.

In almost every country of the developing world, the most active builders are squatters, creating complex local economies with high rises, shopping strips, banks, and self-government. As they invent new social structures, Neuwirth argues, squatters are at the forefront of the worldwide movement to develop new visions of what constitutes property and community..
Price: $22.96 [Notify me when price goes down.]

The Squatter and the Don, originally published in San Francisco in 1885, is the first fictional narrative written and published in English from the perspective of the conquered Mexican population that, despite being granted the full rights of citizenship under the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo in 1848, was, by 1860, a subordinated and marginalized national minority..
Price: $13.22 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Crimes against Nature reveals the hidden history behind three of the nation's first parklands: the Adirondacks, Yellowstone, and the Grand Canyon. Focusing on conservation's impact on local inhabitants, Karl Jacoby traces the effect of criminalizing such traditional practices as hunting, fishing, foraging, and timber cutting in the newly created parks. Jacoby reassesses the nature of these "crimes" and provides a rich portrait of rural people and their relationship with the natural world in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries..
Price: $23.34 [Notify me when price goes down.]

This book is a survey of small houses from early settler cabins to the tiny house movement of today. The houses include frontier shelters, squatter houses, Cracker houses, farmhouses, bandboxes, shotguns, bungalows, and tiny houses. The book shows how these houses were built and served the special needs of their owner-builders. Each chapter starts by showing the house in the context of its construction, the kind of resources that were available to its owners, and how their construction was shaped by both their purpose and historical situation. Many of the insights of these home-builders can be used in small house construction today. These insights include the use of decks and outdoor spaces, separation of spaces, and simple framing techniques that are visible in the construction models. These models help readers get a feel for what it might be like to live in a small space and ways traditional builders maximized the efficiency and comfort of their homes. The book s CD includes a model of every house in the book as well as contextual plans and elevations, three-dimensional details of the structure, and the layout of each house. Readers can explore the house s construction, deconstruct its pieces, modify the spaces, and adapt them to test their own ideas. All our books are written as graphic narratives in a comic style. Every book mixes layers of visual information with construction models, short video tours, and tutorials on how the models were built and organized..
Price: $29.95 [Notify me when price goes down.]

The gunshots came in rapid succession There were three of them, followed by screeching tyres and a screaming engine. In a matter of seconds I recalled the conversation I'd had with Mary. She'd been right after all. 'You'll be fine for a few days,' she'd said, 'but after that they'll turn on you. Our cultures are too different. You won't live through it, not just because of the cultural differences, but because of the common crime. Find a home here in the suburbs where you belong.' The three gunshots had been my first, but perhaps for those who'd lived in these streets for years they were only three gunshots among countless others. Who knows? Perhaps three a week, maybe even three a night? Either way, I'd have to get used to them - or leave. Ignoring advice from his white friends, and to the bemusement of his black friends, Steven Otter throws caution to the wind and moves into Khayelitsha, a black township outside Cape Town. The story of his experiences in the uneven spread of shacks and informal housing that are home to more than a million people provides an unusual perspective on and insight into a predominantly Xhosa community and their reaction to an umlungu in their midst.Steven comes to understand his identity as a South African, the true meaning of community and brotherhood, and that some tsotsis are not what they seem. He finds that his preconceived notions of culture and race are called into question and that ubuntu, community and a sense of humour may still thrive alongside poverty and crime..
Price: $10.34 [Notify me when price goes down.]

In the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s, an active political movement emerged on the streets of Iran's largest cities. Poor people began to construct their own communities on unused urban lands, creating an infrastructure­­roads, electricity, running water, garbage collection, and shelters­­all their own. As the Iranian government attempted to evict these illegal settlers, they resisted­­fiercely and ultimately successfully. This is the story of their economic and political strategies..
Price: $29.50 [Notify me when price goes down.]

The scene of this little book is on a high mountain There are, indeed, many higher; there are many of a nobler outline It is no place of pilgrimage for the summary globe-trotter; but to one who lives upon its sides, Mount Saint Helena soon becomes a center of interest It is the Mont Blanc of one section of the Californian Coast Range, none of its near neighbors rising to one-half its altitude. It looks down on much green, intricate country. It feeds in the spring-time many splashing brooks. From its summit you must have an excellent lesson of geography: seeing, to the south, San Francisco Bay, with Tamalpais on the one hand and Monte Diablo on the other; to the west and thirty miles away, the open ocean; eastward, across the corn-lands and thick tule swamps of Sacramento Valley, to where the Central Pacific railroad begins to climb the sides of the Sierras; and northward, for what I know, the white head of Shasta looking down on Oregon. . . ..
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In developing countries, squatter developments are without infrastructure, dense with dwellings without ownership, and built from materials at hand. Yet they house more than one-third of the urban population in developing countries and are valued by residents. The scope and depth of urban poverty in squatter developments requires immediate action. Analyzing Urban Poverty: GIS in the Developing World shows how geographic information systems (GIS) can be used in developing countries to improve quality of life in poor urban areas. With thirty years of experience using GIS technology to manage urban problems in Venezuelan barrios, Rosario Giusti de Prez and Ramn Prez describe how they developed sustainable solutions that go beyond conventional planning programs. Chapters cover site analyses of the natural and built environments, visualizing poverty maps, developing appropriate improvement proposals, managing these projects, and organizing communities and encouraging their participation..
Price: $18.00 [Notify me when price goes down.]