Talk:Squatting

Squatters The early squatters were brave farmers who moved out to newly discovered lands in the hope of finding a place they could settle for themselves.

Two meanings

I would suggest that a distinction be made between squatting (1) as the act of initially settling on Crown land without permission, as in the Australian pastoral expansion or the westward movement in the USA in the nineteenth century, and (2) the more modern, principally urban act, of occupying a building without any right or title. It seems to me that the motivation and methods of these two processes are fundamentally different, and the use of the same term muddies this distinction. So, could we disambiguate between, say, "Squatting (pastoral)" and "Squatting (urban)". I'm not fussed whether the heading refers to the act (squatting) or the person (squatter). Dick 21:16, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)