The Uncertain Future of Slab City, California

2015-03-13T20:52:00-04:00

An unregulated squatter settlement, Slab City is home to perhaps 150 year-round residents — refugees from mortgages and bill collectors, former hippies, rebels and self-identified misfits — who live in personal camps made from old trailers, truck campers and crude lean-tos, and call themselves Slabbers. From October to April, the population swells to perhaps 2,000 as snowbirds, attracted by the guaranteed sunshine and zero fees, arrive in sometimes majestic motor homes.

But now, as the New York Times article documents, the residents of Slab City are divided over the fate of their shared home. After news began to percolate that the California State Land Commission might sell the land, the "Slabbers" began to debate what to do. Should they band together to try to buy the land? Should they form a residents' association? Would that make them, for lack of a better word, sell-outs, replicating the very structures they came to Slab City to escape?

Located on top of the abandoned foundations of an old Marine base, Slab City began has been undergoing changes for some time now. After cameos in different media, in particular the film "Into the Wild," the ad-hoc city began attracting more people, some of whom are less committed to a communitarian or anarchist ethos. The Times quotes one resident: “Nowadays, a lot of people are just coming to hang out for the party.” Apparently, this has historically created problems with methamphetamine.

The article gives fair ...

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The Uncertain Future of Slab City, California