Squatting London

‘Timely and urgent ... challenges how we come to think about property and homeownership while reminding us that there are other ways of inhabiting and transforming the city’ Alexander Vasudevan, author of The Autonomous City

‘The generative power of squatting lies at the core of Burgum’s beautiful book’ Michele Lancione, author of For a Liberatory Politics of Home

‘Homes without people, people without homes. This book demonstrates that squatting is not just the correction of this unfair mathematics, but also the creation of collectivity in a context of dispossession’ Raquel Rolnik, author of Urban Warfare

‘Who deserves space? Who is entitled to home? In a powerful and subversive account, Sam Burgum opens up the political space of the city as he takes us inside London’s squats’ Nicholas Blomley, Professor of Geography, Simon Fraser University

Squatting in London has a rich and diverse history. Today, squatters live a marginalised and criminalised existence, yet they persist. Behind the glittering façade, London is a network of vacant offices, boarded-up shops and dilapidated pubs that host some of the city’s poorest and most determined citizens, exiled and increasingly pushed to the margins.

This is an account of the ambitions and struggles of the city’s squatters. Squatting is a challenge to the logic of property so squats are by nature political acts. They sit in direct opposition to the speculation, gentrification and regeneration that controls London today. From office blocks transformed into a life-saving homeless shelter, to temporary art exhibitions, mutual aid networks, restaurants, shops, offices and pubs — Squatting London is a first-hand account of the alternative, underground and rebellious city you thought you already knew.

Sam Burgum is an urban sociologist and the author of Occupying London: Post-Crash Resistance and the Limits of Possibility.