Overview

This is what happens when you need to organize your thoughts. Bits of things are wrong with it, pieces are missing, pathways are not complete. On the whole though I think it lays out what I am going for with this project.
So what is squatting? The easiest answer to this complicated question is that it is taking possession of real property to which you do not have legally recognized rights.
There are a few iconic squattertypes in the US of A:
The easiest stuff to run down and document is the Shanty Irish connections. This is why there are so many lines running in and out of that corner in the diagram above. The Shanty Irish are iconic in part because they were a high profile immigrant population in 19th century New York City and for decades were a mainstay of Tammany Hall.

Either circumstance would have made them Enemies of Progress and a Detriment to the City, but the combination made them an evil to be stamped out by right thinking land developers. Which they were at great profit to the developers, but which did nothing to rid the city of squalor, poverty, or the Irish.

Another icon is the sturdy pioneer. They went forth seeking freedom from civilization, bravely opening the country at great risk to themselves, and moving on when things got too civ-lized.

A subset of the sturdy pioneers were claim jumpers. They aren't terribly interesting because they seem to be mostly an invention of Louis L'Amore and Max Brand. Oddly their web presence is almost entirely links to a chain of family restaurants. What kind of message does this send to the children?

In more recent decades there is the alt-culture movement that occupies vacant urban properties as an applied philosophic statement.

These iconic squatters avoid the stigma of homelessness, although they can have a lot in common and get confused in public opinion. By publication proportions I get the impression that the population of present day squatters is about 47% graphic novelist. I like that.

Less noted is the society squatter, which is something I want to highlight. There are other squattertypes that still need to be brought forward, although from what I am finding there is no specific "type" that is more prone to squatting that others. Some of the biggest trespassers in Brooklyn were major businesses, and in the chapter I am working on right now an entire community was given leases on land they had squatted for decades as a reward in an annexation struggle.
Old squatters don't fade away, they go mainstream.

One thing that I still need to think through is where I stand on The Mystery of Capital.