Shadow Cities: A Billion Squatters, A New Urban World

Shadow Cities offers an historically based justification of squatters' rights, arguing that property rights are not 'natural.'Neuwirth provides rich first-hand accounts of squatters in megacities throughout the worldincluding Rio, Delhi, Istanbul and Nairobi and explores what has happened and how squatters have come to dominate these cities and developed new forms of property rights.Contrasting this examination with a history of squatting in the US up to the present, Neuwirth shows how draconian anti-squatting laws are out of step with a world whose population of impoverished people is rapidly growing.For cultural, urban and social studies students, this book is a must read.