Manufactured Insecurity: Mobile Home Parks and Americans’ Tenuous Right to Place - Softcover

Sullivan, Esther

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0520295668 ISBN 13: 9780520295667

Verlag: University of California Press, 2018

Inhaltsangabe

Manufactured Insecurity is the first book of its kind to provide an in-depth investigation of the social, legal, geospatial, and market forces that intersect to create housing insecurity for an entire class of low-income residents. Drawing on rich ethnographic data collected before, during, and after mobile home park closures and community-wide evictions in Florida and Texas—the two states with the largest mobile home populations—Manufactured Insecurity forces social scientists and policymakers to respond to a fundamental question: how do the poor access and retain secure housing in the face of widespread poverty, deepening inequality, and scarce legal protection? With important contributions to urban sociology, housing studies, planning, and public policy, the book provides a broader understanding of inequality and social welfare in the United States today.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Esther Sullivan is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Colorado Denver.

Von der hinteren Coverseite

"This beautifully written blend of theoretical imagination and ethnographic discovery, destined for classic status among studies of urban marginality, shines light on the social, legal, and political construction of housing insecurity via a devastating analysis of evictions from mobile home parks in Texas and Florida. A stunning exemplar of analytic intensity and politically committed scholarship that will inspire its readers and live in their minds long thereafter."—Tom Slater, Reader in Urban Geography, University of Edinburgh

"Through a beautifully executed ethnography, Esther Sullivan deftly details how for many living in manufactured mobile homes the façade of the American Dream often turns into displacement and disillusionment. Not only is this work a meaningful contribution to housing studies, it also advances our understandings of social inequality reproduction. For those interested in America’s private-market affordable housing challenges and how they perpetuate vulnerability mainly, but not exclusively, among disadvantaged whites, this is a must-read."—Derek S. Hyra, author of Race, Class, and Politics in the Cappuccino City

"Esther Sullivan has produced a comprehensive and nuanced analysis of manufactured housing in the United States. This is an outstanding and unique ethnographic study of park closings that deserves wide readership among policymakers, advocates, and scholars."—Edward Goetz, Humphrey School of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota, author of The One-Way Street of Integration: Fair Housing and the Pursuit of Racial Justice in American Cities

"Manufactured Insecurity is a gripping account of the struggles of families losing their marginalized and stigmatized yet cherished mobile homes. Through her insightful analyses Esther Sullivan shows this tragedy is no accident but the result of deliberate neoliberal planning and policy choices in America in the late twentieth century. Manufactured Insecurity is sure to join the pantheon of great books that have forced Americans to take notice of the most vulnerable among us."—Lance Freeman, Professor of Urban Planning, Columbia University, and author of A Haven and A Hell: The Ghetto in Black America

Aus dem Klappentext

"This beautifully written blend of theoretical imagination and ethnographic discovery, destined for classic status among studies of urban marginality, shines light on the social, legal, and political construction of housing insecurity via a devastating analysis of evictions from mobile home parks in Texas and Florida. A stunning exemplar of analytic intensity and politically committed scholarship that will inspire its readers and live in their minds long thereafter."&;Tom Slater, Reader in Urban Geography, University of Edinburgh

"Through a beautifully executed ethnography, Esther Sullivan deftly details how for many living in manufactured mobile homes the façade of the American Dream often turns into displacement and disillusionment. Not only is this work a meaningful contribution to housing studies, it also advances our understandings of social inequality reproduction. For those interested in America&;s private-market affordable housing challenges and how they perpetuate vulnerability mainly, but not exclusively, among disadvantaged whites, this is a must-read."&;Derek S. Hyra, author of Race, Class, and Politics in the Cappuccino City

"Esther Sullivan has produced a comprehensive and nuanced analysis of manufactured housing in the United States. This is an outstanding and unique ethnographic study of park closings that deserves wide readership among policymakers, advocates, and scholars."&;Edward Goetz, Humphrey School of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota, author of The One-Way Street of Integration: Fair Housing and the Pursuit of Racial Justice in American Cities

"Manufactured Insecurity is a gripping account of the struggles of families losing their marginalized and stigmatized yet cherished mobile homes. Through her insightful analyses Esther Sullivan shows this tragedy is no accident but the result of deliberate neoliberal planning and policy choices in America in the late twentieth century. Manufactured Insecurity is sure to join the pantheon of great books that have forced Americans to take notice of the most vulnerable among us."&;Lance Freeman, Professor of Urban Planning, Columbia University, and author of A Haven and A Hell: The Ghetto in Black America

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Manufactured Insecurity

Mobile Home Parks and Americans' Tenuous Right to Place

By Esther Sullivan

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS

Copyright © 2018 Esther Sullivan
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-520-29566-7

Contents

List of Illustrations, 
Acknowledgments, 
PROLOGUE, 
INTRODUCTION: HALFWAY HOMEOWNERS, 
1. THE MOBILE HOME IN AMERICA AND AMERICANA, 
2. SOCIO-SPATIAL STIGMA AND TRAILER TRASH, 
3. DAILY LIFE UNDER THE SPECTER OF DISLOCATION, 
4. "WE ARE NOT FOR SURE WHEREVER WE ARE", 
5. RELOCATION AND THE PARADOX OF STATE INTERVENTIONS, 
6. COMMUNITIES AS CURRENCY WITHIN THE MOBILE HOME EMPIRE, 
CONCLUSION, 
Methodological Appendix, 
Notes, 
References, 
Index, 

CHAPTER 1

The Mobile Home in America and Americana

The owners of the singlewide on lot #83, Marta and George had abandoned their mobile home and their investment in a Florida retirement after they received the notice of an application for a rezoning of Silver Sands Mobile Home Park. At first, they debated whether to abandon the home or wait to see what the city council would decide with regard to the rezoning. The notice, delivered to every household in Silver Sands, was not an eviction letter but to many residents it signaled the probability of eviction. Marta and George decided they could not continue to invest $250 in lot rent each month while they waited to be evicted. They had banked on a Florida retirement on a budget. The weather would help with George's arthritis and the proximity to Marta and George's adult son would help them both as they aged. They thought of attempting to sell the pre-owned, circa-1989 trailer, which they had purchased on site in Silver Sands, but any purchaser would need to commit to moving it at a cost of up to $10,000. The many For Sale postings in the Silver Sands laundry room indicated that the sale of their aging singlewide was unlikely. They signed over ownership of their home to Ron Silver, owner and landlord of Silver Sands, rather than pay continued rent or abandonment fines. In May 2012, Mr. Silver rented the fully furnished singlewide to me for $600 a month on a month-to-month basis so that he could continue to earn income on the lot in the months during which the sale of the park was finalized and the eviction was carried out. Over the next 11 months I would sleep in the couple's abandoned bed, eat off their abandoned mixed-matched plates, and work into the night transcribing that day's recordings on their old corduroy recliner.

On first arriving in the home I boxed up George and Marta's abandoned items, making note as I went: a prescription bottle of cholesterol medication, children's beach toys with price tags still on them, a hanging calendar marked with dates of doctor's appointments at the VA hospital (the month turned to April 2012), a guide to other Florida mobile home parks, a metal wall-hanging that read "Bless This Home." Outside in the screened-in porch that ran the length of the singlewide, I swept the linoleum floor, took a break in the aluminum patio furniture, dusted off and rearranged a seashell collection.

But what I learned about the owners of this Florida mobile home came less from the objects I found inside and more from the neighbors just outside, many of whom could recount intimate details of George and Marta's life. The details were similar to others in the park. George and Marta were staging an incremental move into their mobile home, downsizing from their long-term home in New Hampshire. They were drawn to Jupiter, Florida, because they had a son who lived nearby; he had stopped by frequently to check on them. The extra help from their son was especially important now as Marta's Alzheimer's progressed. But Marta's illness and the expense they knew they would incur if they were forced to move their home also played into their decision to abandon the home in the face of eviction rather than continue to pay rent in a gamble that the rezoning of the park might not be approved. They gave up the singlewide and their investment rather than deal with eviction on top of their many health problems.

Neighbors were able to recount the details of George and Marta's life because of a unique closeness that existed in the parks where I lived, where homes might be only 10 feet away from each other. The social and spatial closeness I noted in every park where I spent time is constructed, in part, by the tools of urban governance. Zoning regulations, for instance, often restrict mobile homes exclusively to mobile home parks while also requiring a separation of uses between land zoned as a mobile home park and land zoned as single-family residential. Though overdetermined by local planning, this closeness feels organic, creating an internal cohesiveness that leads many to define their neighborhood as the park rather than the surrounding community (Apgar et al. 2002). Historic zoning and restrictive covenants require separation between mobile home parks and "conventional" homes, but also lead to the development of self- contained communities, walled off and separated from their neighbors, accessed by single entrance points that require residents to drive or walk past the homes of neighbors as they wind their way home. Municipal regulations that protect neighboring real estate values require parks to be visually screened or fenced off, but this often creates networks of safe internal streets where people can meet or children can play without the threat of through-traffic.

This chapter explores how the regulatory treatment of the mobile home park is intricately linked to the historical development of the mobile home as a uniquely American housing invention. Planning and zoning regulations have shaped the development and proliferation of mobile home parks as well as the everyday life that occurs within them. By tracing the production and regulation of the housing form over the last century, this chapter helps to contextualize the social and spatial stigma that is central to constructing mobile home park residents' housing insecurity and disposing them to dislocation.

Paradoxically, the spatial containment and social segregation produced by a century of restrictive regulations also contribute to a sense of neighborliness found in parks. In both Texas and Florida, park residents used the open spaces inside parks as their personal playgrounds. In Twin Oaks and Trail's End in Alvin, Texas, even the most diligent parents let small children play freely in the park, out of eyesight, often in and out of neighbors' homes. In Silver Sands, elderly neighbors could be seen each evening riding alone or in pairs on the stable three-wheeled bicycles that were a popular item among residents. They biked their rounds along the park's nine internal streets, stopping to talk with neighbors while perched right in the center of the road.

Silver Sands resident Hanna did this each evening. She did not drive, seldom left the park, and dutifully rode her bike each night to stay active. At 80 years old she was tanned and toned and said, "I am feeling pretty good!" When I first met Hanna out on her bike she stopped to get the details on who I was and how I was able to move in to Silver Sands, which was one of Florida's many "55 and older" parks devoted to seniors. She guessed that the rules did not mean as much since the park was now up for sale. Hanna moved to Jupiter, Florida, from Switzerland in the 1950s at a boom time for mobile home parks in the United States. She lived nearby with an uncle while Silver Sands was being constructed, and in 1969...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: University of California Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2018
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0520295668
• ISBN 13: 9780520295667
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 264
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar