Robert Neuwirth: Squatter Cities

Robert Neuwirth, Habitats

Having spent two years living in squatter communities across four continents, urban ethnographer Robert Neuwirth finds people living lives of complexity, challenge, and surprising resiliency.

See video from PopTech 2005

The culmination of this research was Shadow Cities: A Billion Squatters, a New Urban World (Routledge, 2005), his controversial new book that argues that squatting is an ancient and legitimate form of urban development. His blog is: http://squattercity.blogspot.com/

Neuwirth has written for many publications, including The Nation, Fortune, Metropolis, The New York Times, The Washington Post, New York, The Village Voice, Mother Jones and Wired, and has worked as a business reporter, a political reporter and an investigative reporter on the staff of a variety of newspapers, news magazines, and television stations

His work on squatters was supported in part by a research and writing grant from the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.