From precarious tenure to new urban possibilities in manufactured housing communities: A view from the Global South

Global South scholars emphasize the importance of informal settlements in the urban lives of disadvantaged residents. In a similar vein, scholars in the Global North highlight the significance and potential of manufactured homes and manufactured housing communities to provide affordable housing. Although manufactured housing communities and informal housing settlements differ in many ways, they share a history of being ignored as crucial avenues for addressing housing affordability and social mobility challenges. Residents of manufactured housing communities and informal settlements also face the challenge of precarious security of tenure. This Global South-influenced review aims to unsettle narrow assumptions about policy needs in manufactured housing communities and to offer alternative ways to support residents with precarious tenure through heterodox policy approaches. In addition to examining the key similarities, the review discusses the attempts to address the insecure housing tenure of residents of informal settlements in the Global South and their potential lessons for new urban possibilities in the Global North. The Global South experience shows how a narrow debate over tenure in informal settlements, particularly through the legalization of individual land titles, has been successfully broadened into a richer, complementary set of policy alternatives that includes de jure property rights, de facto property rights, perceptions of tenure security, and building legitimacy. The experience is particularly relevant for improving living conditions and strengthening tenure in the Global North’s informal manufactured housing communities. It also offers lessons for formal manufactured housing communities, including land-lease parks.