Affordable but Marginalized

Abstract

Problem, research strategy and findings

Mobile home parks (MHPs) are a major source of unsubsidized affordable housing in the United States but are poorly understood in planning research and practice. Here we present findings of one of the first and most comprehensive studies of MHPs in a U.S. metropolitan area. We located and spatially analyzed MHPs in the Houston (TX) metropolitan statistical area, comparing the sociodemographics, built environment, and environmental exposure of census block groups with higher shares of MHP land to block groups with fewer or no parks. We examined the relationship between land use regulations and the location of MHPs by coding government documents for the 132 jurisdictions in the metropolitan statistical area. We found that MHPs are an important component of the regional housing system and are located in areas with more diverse populations, lower socioeconomic status, and larger families. MHPs are concentrated in moderately urbanized areas relatively close to the central business district with lower housing costs and moderate job opportunities. They are clustered near other MHPs in areas with less access to transportation and urban amenities and greater exposure to environmental hazards. We demonstrate that the location of MHPs is associated with exclusionary land use regulations, which indicates future parks will likely be in areas with significant inequalities.

Takeaways for practice

MHPs are difficult to analyze because they are not identified in typical sources of planning data like the U.S. Census. Planning departments should use alternative methods, like those described in our study, to map and plan for MHPs. Most major cities and metropolitan regions are facing an affordable housing crisis, and the anti-MHP regulatory stance we observed in our study is concerning for regional equity. The concentration of MHPs in areas with significant environmental hazards indicates that planning actions are likely necessary to protect these residents from future flood events.

Keywords:

• affordable housing
• flood risk
• land use regulations
• mobile/manufactured homes
• regional equity

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors gratefully acknowlege the research assistance of Natasha Albert, Seonju Jang, Shelley McMullen, Ryan Maye Handy, Nicole Maier, Gabriela Gonzales, Sebastian Montenegro, Mayra Gonzales, and Camron Bridgford. The article benefited from the critical feedback of Editor Ann Forsyth and three anonymous reviewers.

RESEARCH SUPPORT

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1825341.

Notes

1 Durst and Sullivan (2019) estimated that monthly housing costs for occupants of manufactured homes located in MHPs are $660.61 compared with $1,309.86 for site-built traditional owners and $993.28 for site-built traditional renters.

2 Chambers County had only a corrupted parcel GIS file, so we used the H-GAC data, which we cross-referenced with the national data sets.

3 Project team members analyzed satellite imagery following a protocol for identifying and counting manufactured homes within MHPs. Because the density of manufactured homes tended to vary by size of MHP, we used a stratified random selection scheme based on size of MHPs to calculate average per acre density of MHPs for each MHP size group.

4 The K-means clustering method is a nonhierarchical partitioning method used to examine similarities among observations by engaging internal cohesion and external isolation (Cormack, 1971). We transformed the percentage of block group land in MHPs using a log transformation to create a more normal distribution, given variables with a highly skewed distribution and large number of zeros.

5 We tested these other variables, but the absolute numbers did not capture the geographic location of the MHPs because they do not account for the size of the block group, which varies by location in the region.

6 The purpose was to identify the unique regulation of MHPs, rather than barriers to manufactured housing generally. We acknowledge local land use regulations that restrict mobile homes to MHPs are an important regulatory barrier to the siting of mobile homes and may also constrain mobile homes located outside of traditional parks, but this was not our focus.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Esther Sullivan

ESTHER SULLIVAN ([email protected]) is an associate professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Colorado Denver.

Carrie Makarewicz

CARRIE MAKAREWICZ ([email protected]) is an associate professor in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Colorado Denver.

Andrew Rumbach

ANDREW RUMBACH ([email protected]) is an associate professor in the Department of Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning at Texas A&M University.