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23-497: Patio Maravillas started life in the summer of 2007, with the squatting and fixing up of a building that was formerly a school and had been closed for 7 years, at 8 Acuerdo Street, in the Malasaña district. Its opening took place on 4, 5, 6 and 7 October, three months after it opened. Different activities were organized to involve people living in the neighbourhood. Its philosophy, both campaigning and respectful, allows participation by

46-661: A basement. On August 4, 2015, this building was evicted. Squatting in Spain Squatting in Spain refers to the occupation of unused or derelict buildings or land without the permission of the owner. In Francoist Spain migrant workers lived in slums on the periphery of cities. During the Spanish transition to democracy , residential squatting occurred in Spanish cities such as Barcelona, Bilbao, Madrid, Valencia and Zaragoza. From

69-653: A large number of different groups and individuals that have joined one by one and made it their focal point. Everything is for free and done by volunteers. There were several permanent activities such as: There were also theatre, painting, music, audiovisual, and immigration groups, that met, rehearsed, and carried out their activities in the space. There were also special activities such as concerts, exhibitions, neighbourhood meetings, talks about health and consumer issues, and meetings of different groups. There have also been performances by groups and soloists including Grande Marlaska and Amparanoia . In 2009, an eviction attempt

92-621: A legal process, for example La Yaya social centre in Argüelles , Madrid. El Mundo stated in 2018 that there had been over 12,000 reported squats in that year, up from 7,739 in 2013. Barcelona had the most reported squats, with 17,465 reported between 2013 and 2018. During the COVID-19 pandemic in Spain , around 600 Roma people squatted properties on the Costa del Sol which had been impounded as part of Operation Malaya . Young people were attracted to

115-557: A new long-abandoned building at number 21. One day after the clearing of Acuerdo, the fixing up of the building and resuming of the Patio activities in the new space were underway. Patio Mariavillas came to have strong links with the 15-M Movement , supporting the protests at Puerta del Sol which was close nearby. Pez 21 was evicted in June 2015, one day before the mayor of Madrid stepped down. Politicians from Ahora Madrid and Podemos criticised

138-526: A result of the Great Recession in the late 2000s, over 50% of young people aged between 16 and 34 were still living with their parents in 2011, since they were unable to afford to buy or rent. Despite the cost of renting being at relatively high level, the number of empty properties rocketed to 3.5 million out of a total of 35 million, again in 2011. Many people lost their houses due to foreclosure , over 600,000 between 2008 and 2014. This situation led to

161-621: A result of the anti-austerity 15-M Movement . As of 2013, there were over thirty squatted social centres in Madrid. Patio Maravillas was active from 2007 until 2015 in several different buildings. La Ingobernable was evicted in 2020 during the state of alarm due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Spain . The number of squatted social centres in Barcelona grew from under thirty in the 1990s to around sixty in 2014, as recorded by Info Usurpa (a weekly activist agenda). The influential Kasa de la Muntanya

184-526: Is Cañada Real , where an estimated 40,000 to 50,000 people live along a 15km track formerly used as a drovers' road , on the boundary shared by Madrid and Rivas Vaciamadrid . Parts of the slum are notorious for drug-dealing. Since it is deemed public land, the squatters are unable to gain possession by usucapión ( adverse possession ). As of 2017, it took on average eight months for owners to regain properties from squatters. A company called Desokupa ("De-Squat") became notorious for evicting squatters without

207-833: Is divided into 6 subsectors: the Sector 1 (the first 0.52-kilometre; 570 yard long stretch in Coslada on the Camino de Santiago , ending at the limit with Madrid at the M-45 ), the Sector 2 (1.8 kilometres; 1 mile long; between the M-45 and the M-203), the Sector 3 (0.73 kilometres; 800 yards long; between the M-203 and the M-823), the Sector 4 (2 kilometres; 1¼ miles long; between the M-823 and

230-499: The Camino de la Partija y Santísimo ), the Sector 5 (1.45 kilometres; 1590 yards long; between the Camino de la Partija y Santísimo and the A-3 ) and the Sector 6 (6.7 kilometres; 4¼ miles long; the last stretch in Madrid, going from the A-3 to the municipal border with Getafe ). The Sector 6 is considered a "supermarket" for drug users. With around 8,048 inhabitants and 2,650 houses as of 2012,

253-577: The Madrid Region of Spain, a linear succession of informal housing following a 14.4-kilometre-long (9 mile) stretch of the drovers' road connecting La Rioja and Ciudad Real. The largest illegal settlement in a European city, it extends through the municipalities of Coslada , Rivas-Vaciamadrid and Madrid . Cañada Real is situated on the Cañada Real Galiana , one of the traditional cattle roads running from La Rioja to Ciudad Real and close to

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276-457: The 1980s onwards a new generation of squatters set up self-managed social centres which hosted events and campaigns. The 1995 Criminal Code among other things criminalised squatting, but failed to stop it. Social centres exist across the country and in Barcelona and Madrid in particular. In the Basque Country they are known as gaztetxes  [ eu ] . Francoist Spain ended with

299-537: The Cañada Real was considered at the time to be the largest shanty town in Southern Europe . The population is mixed. It mostly houses both Spanish Romani and irregular migrants (mainly from Morocco ). As of 2017, it had a population of 7,283. Valdemingómez, a quarter in the centre of Cañada Real, is controlled by drug gangs, and is scarred by violence. Drug users from around Madrid frequent this quarter to visit

322-519: The M50 motorway, Madrid's third outer ring road. The irregular settlement features both high-end detached houses as well as pockets of extreme poverty. The initial settlement, started in the 1950s and 1960s, was built on what currently forms part of the Coslada urban centre; many of the residents later bought the land from the State. It is considered the largest illegal settlement in a European city. The Cañada Real

345-409: The action. The former released a statement declaring that Madrid needed “to open and not close down citizen-run spaces. The city needs to listen to projects such as Patio Maravillas.” The same day as the eviction of Pez 21, a new building was squatted on 9 Divino Pastor Street. It was owned by Miguel Ángel Capriles López, cousin of Venezuelan opposition leader Henrique Capriles . It had five floors and

368-494: The death of Francisco Franco in 1975. In the following year, the numbers of people striking increased from 500,000 to over 5 million and social movements blossomed. During the Spanish transition to democracy , residential squatting occurred in cities such as Barcelona, Bilbao, Madrid, Valencia and Zaragoza. In the 1970s, there were self-built informal settlements or slums as new industrialised zones in cities drew working class migrants from rural areas. A contemporary slum

391-555: The form of gaztetxes  [ eu ] . Influential projects in the 1980s included Bolsa de Bilbao, Gaztetxe de Gazteiz in Vitoria-Gasteiz and Euskal Jai in Pamplona . The eviction of Kukutza in Bilbao was met with largescale protests in 2011. On the outskirts of Vitoria-Gasteiz, the squatted neighbourhood of Errekaleor was occupied in 2013 and has around 150 inhabitants. As

414-616: The foundation of the Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca (PAH) (Platform for People Affected by Mortgages) in Barcelona in 2009. By 2018, there were 78 PAH groups in Catalonia and 245 in total in Spain. The PAH used a variety of tactics to support tenants under threat of eviction, including street protests against banks and legal challenges. Between 2009 and 2017, it prevented 2045 evictions and rehoused over 2500 people by squatting properties owned by banks. The PAH has points of agreement with

437-401: The late 1970s onwards. The 1995 Criminal Code among other things criminalised squatting but it did not stop the squatters movement from growing. In Madrid, a key project in the 1980s was Minuesa. Eskalera Karakola was a feminist squat, which was active from 1996 to 2005 before legalizing and taking a new building. The squatter movement experienced a resurgence in the early 2010s as

460-602: The new 1980s squatting movement and began to set up self-managed social centres , known as CSOAs (Centros Sociales Okupados y Autogestionados), which hosted infoshops and co-operatives, organised events and provided meeting space for campaigns. The word okupa is derived from the Spanish verb "ocupar", meaning to occupy. The letter "k" is seldom used in Spanish, so squatter activists used it to signify their radicality and their difference to mainstream culture. The social centres has their antecedents in libertarian ateneus, countercultural spaces which were founded in many cities from

483-462: The okupa movement and is also seen as reformist, since its leaders moved towards local government. For example, Ada Colau was a regional leader of the PAH in Barcelona and then became mayor, representing the party Barcelona en Comú ("Barcelona in common"). The PAH uses the more conventional spelling of "ocupa" instead of "okupa" for a squat. Ca%C3%B1ada Real Cañada Real is a shanty town in

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506-443: Was occupied in 1989. In 2014, the ultimately unsuccessful attempts to evict the long-running social centre of Can Vies provoked major riots. Another long-running squat is Can Masdeu , which survived a concerted eviction attempt in 2002. Eleven occupiers suspended themselves off the walls of the building for several days. The Basque Country is another area where a high number of houses have been occupied and social centres take

529-483: Was thwarted by the number of people resisting. Following a legal suit by the legal owner , Acuerdo 8 was cleared by the police on January 6, 2010. On the same day, the Patio Maravillas community organized a peaceful protest demonstration in the area of Plaza del Dos de Mayo , summoning hundreds of people who were guided through the neighborhood until nearby Pez Street, where a group of activists had just entered

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