Mobile home Park on the Prairie

[MotherRussia]

Mobile home parks are an increasingly common form of residence for the rural poor. A rural central Illinois mobile home park and its residents seemingly possess features-a distinct territory, a homogeneous population, and a collectively held rural ideology-that foster formation of a sense of community. Other factors, however, some unique to this relatively new rural residential form, present physical and social barriers that challenge park residents' construction of a sense of community. We use ethnographic data to describe daily life in a rural mobile home park and to determine who among its working-poor residents are most able to construst a sense of community and thus gain access to the potentially beneficial community scoial resources that are crucial to making a difference in the quality of their lives

MacTavish, Katherine, and Sonya Salamon. "Mobile Home Park On The Prairie: A New Rural Community Form," Rural Sociology, Vol. 66, No. 4 (2001); pp. 487-506.

"we don't feel like we belong to any community here. it's a roof over our heads and a place to live, and that's all"
- 40 year old married mother and two year park resident

"i know everybody out here. it's like a community within itself. everybody knows everybody"
- 29 year old single mom and 10 year park resident

absolutely fascinating read, i encourage anyone interested in sociology to get their hands on a copy of this article

[RuthlessMan]

http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P3-95718452.html

I found it really interesting.

[MotherRussia]

hahahaha that's all you fucking have to say? and i doubt that's the complete article fyi...probably complete with spyware and the such if it is.

[RuthlessMan]

Mobile Home Park on the Prairie: A New Rural Community Form*

ABSTRACT Mobile home parks are an increasingly common form of residence for the rural poor. A rural central Illinois mobile home park and its residents seemingly possess features-a distinct territory, a homogeneous population, and a collectively held rural ideology-that foster formation of a sense of community. Other factors, however, some unique to this relatively new rural residential form, present physical and social barriers that challenge park residents' construction of a sense of community. We use ethnographic data to describe daily life in a rural mobile home park and to determine who among its working-poor residents are most able to construct a sense of community, and thus to gain access to the potentially beneficial community social resources that are crucial to making a difference in the quality of their lives.

We don't feel like we belong to any community here. It's a roof over our heads and a place to live, and that's all.

-40-year-old married mother and a two-year park resident

I know everybody out here. It's like a community within itself. Everybody knows everybody.

-29-year-old single mother and a 10-year park resident

The two women quoted above, both residents of the same rural mobile home park in central Illinois, seem to live in different places. The paradox they present highlights differences in how residents of a given place experience a sense of community. Such a paradox raises questions central to the study of community: What factors are fundamental to a sense of community among residents of a common place? How might such a sense be influenced by the characteristics of the place itself? Disagreement about the mobile home park might logically follow from the disparate definitions of community held by these two residents. Sociologists certainly have never reached consensus on what factors define a sense of community in a particular locale.

We contend that these two residents' comments about the place we call "River Terrace Mobile Home Park" derive from differences in living experiences where a sense of community-a sense of belonging to a larger social unit-is held only by park households that are embedded in neighborhood social networks (Gusfield 1975; Wilkinson 1991). We first describe mobile home park life; then we ask the residents whether and by whom a sense of community is experienced. Our question is relevant because lower-income households, those most common in a rural mobile home park population, are likely to be most in need of the resources that a cohesive community can provide (Rural Sociological Society Task Force 1993). Our question also has implications for whether a mobile home park functions as a pathway to a better life for rural working-poor families.

Across rural America, the mobile home park is a relatively new and increasingly common form of community. Growth in rural areas has tightened housing markets and has displaced lower-income rural families, particularly in rural counties adjacent to metropolitan areas (Fitchen 1991; Ziebarth, Prochaska-Cue, and Shrewsbury 1997). As a consequence, lower-income families and retirees increasingly find a mobile home the most affordable and most available rural housing (Dillman and Tremblay 1983; Meeks 1988). During the 1980s the number of mobile homes in the United States increased by more than 50 percent, reaching 7.3 million by 1990 and ballooning to over 9.9 million by 1997 (Meeks 1998; Wallis 1991). More than half of these homes are found in mobile home parks; three-quarters of the parks are located in rural settings (Geisler and Mitsuda 1987; Ruditsky 1994).

A mobile home offers lower-income rural families access to the American dream of stand-alone homeownership. Much is known about how a small town can benefit rural families and children; yet we know little about how a mobile home park functions as a community context for rural families (MacTavish 2001).

The "Ideal" Small Town as Community

Characterized by overlapping spheres of family, kin, church, school, and community, the "ideal" small town (in a Weberian sense) can support, enhance, monitor, and channel its residents, especially youths, in productive ways (Coleman 1990; Elder and Conger 2000). Effective social norms and sanctions against deviant behavior in these towns derive from high levels of trust and from a sense that everyone knows everyone else (Elder and Conger 2000). The close-knit social networks of such communities facilitate the achievement of shared goals such as the collective socialization of children and youths (Putnam 1993). Children with access to these supportive community structures are more resilient in overcoming serious family or economic deficiencies than are children and youths with fewer such resources (Coleman 1990; Elder and Conger 2000; Furstenberg et al. 1999).

The literature identifies specific features as essential to the functioning of an ideal or cohesive community. Key features include public spaces that provide for the repetitive face-to-face social interactions needed to bind residents into interdependent networks (Hawley 1950; Oldenburg [1989] 1999; Williams 1988). In addition, a relatively homogeneous population with a common lifestyle based on shared occupational or class status produces a consistent daily rhythm that makes life predictable and thus more secure for residents (Suttles 1972). Further, multiple generations of the same families living in the same place with overlapping networks and repetitive interactions make it likely that residents will construct a collective history and a community culture (Elder and Conger 2000; Salamon 1992). Finally, a community ideology shared by rural residents, which prizes neighborliness and cooperative norms, reinforces a uniquely rural form of community (Bell 1994; Hummon 1990). When all of these features exist (shared territory, a homogeneous population, collective residential stability, and a shared ideology), a cohesive community-one rich in the social resources important to families-emerges and is maintained by residents as they interact.

Access to local social resources depends directly on a household's integration into a community's social networks (Wilkinson 1991). Length of residence directly increases a household's social and sentimental ties to place (Kassarda and Janowitz 1974). Conversely, high residential mobility reduces the potential for the poorest individuals to be integrated into the community social structure (Fitchen 1991). Life stage or age is regarded as influencing who is embedded in social networks: older adults have a stronger sense of community in rural settings (Goudy 1990). Liberated community or community "without propinquity" (Webber 1970) rooted in choices and interests rather than in locality, has proved to be experienced primarily by the middle and upper classes (Weissbourd 1996; Wellman and Leighton 1979; Wilson 1987). Lower incomes, in particular, restrict choices of places where social engagement can take place (Bennett 1991; Bott 1971; Rubin 1994). Thus length of residence, life stage, and socioeconomic position shape a household's ties to community.

Mobile home parks are home to an increasing number of lower-- income rural families with children; thus it is important to understand the social implications of residence in these parks. By investigating how various community features of a mobile home park combine with certain household factors, we learn whether a rural mobile home park functions, as does a cohesive rural community, to provide residents with the social supports so important to families' and children's well-being.

The Study

Our data constitute the initial survey phase for a larger ethnographic study that explores the community effect of residence in mobile home parks on children's and families' well-being. In the fall of 1997 four students, members of a graduate class in qualitative methods, took part in the pilot phase with a door-to-door survey of park households. In a subsequent expanded survey, conducted from spring to fall 1998, we sought to interview a randomly selected sample of 20 percent of the park's 560 occupied homes (out of a capacity of 600). Over a four-month period we made numerous efforts to contact each household in the drawn sample. At the completion of the survey, 85 households had been interviewed, for a 76 percent response rate.

Through the survey we collected descriptive data on households' demographics, neighborhood and community perceptions, and patterns of social interaction in the neighborhood and wider community. Immediately after each of the in-home interviews, which lasted approximately 45 minutes, detailed field notes were recorded. These notes provide the physical and interactional context for the interviews. Census data, key informant interviews with school, village, and park administrators, and local newspaper reports are also sources of background information. Residents' statements reflect comments heard repeatedly during the fieldwork. In our research protocol we made a rule that something must be heard or seen in at least three distinct situations to be considered compelling evidence of a pattern or a theme of park life. We conducted descriptive statistical operations, including frequencies and cross-tabulations, to distinguish relative and significant differences that emerged from the data. In combination, these research methods produced a set of thick and contextually specific data required for a thorough qualitative study (Denzin 1970; Patton 1990).

[RuthlessMan]

The Park Setting

River Terrace possesses many of the features typical of a rural mobile home park. Developed over 30 years ago, it was founded in an era when mobile homes were "trailers" and mobile home parks "courts" (Wallis 1991). Constructed on a section of the owner's family farmland, the original park was modest in size; its current capacity is just over 600 units. Although this growth parallels that of other parks, River Terrace has always been larger than the national average of 150-175 units (Wallis 1991). Today the park of 1,600 residents (in 560 occupied units) on 30 acres is the size of a small town. In fact, the population is large enough to constitute its own census tract. River Terrace's location two miles outside the neigh*****g village of "Prairieview" is a characteristic mobile home park site for the rural Midwest (Allen 1994). A major highway separates the park from Prairieview; yet children from the park attend school in the village, transported there by bus each day. A modest grocery store and several filling stations and convenience stores, positioned between the park and the village, serve park residents as well as a nearby apartment complex.

River Terrace requires that residents own their homes and rent the lot on which the home sits. These 80' by 100' lots are larger than those found in most parks; they rent for $170 a month, below the national average of $200 (U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development 1998). The rental fee includes a concrete pad for locating the home, complete with required trailer tiedowns, utility hookups, a paved driveway, a front yard light, and a lawn. Numerous large trees dot the park; every unit benefits from their shade. The park owner continually encourages upgrading to a newer, bigger double-wide home or "unit," which he sells; yet only one-third of the park's households have achieved this goal. For the remaining two-thirds, home is a single-wide, often purchased used from either the park owner or a family who is upgrading. The park owner reports that units too old for resale, those 20 years old or more, are most often sold off to dealers in Kentucky and Tennessee.

An aerial view (see Figure 1) reveals that the park layout follows the originally platted grid of the former fields, on which soybeans and corn were grown (Johnson 1976). Because of the long, straight streets, the rows of parallel-parked mobile homes, positioned hitch-- end out, are a pronounced structural feature of the park. Most park streets run straight east to west, spanning the full length of the park and exiting onto a busy county road. A single back street circles around the rear perimeter of the park and serves as the only inpark link for all the streets. A ball field, playground, and swimming pool are located off this back perimeter street. At the south end of the park, a newer and smaller adult-only section is separated from the larger mixed residential section, and is home mostly to retirees.

Upkeep of the park's public spaces could be much better, according to residents. A single mother and two-year resident explains, "The tennis courts and basketball courts they talk about [are] filled with glass. The swing sets are down. It's bad around there." On the whole, however, River Terrace amenities seem to meet residents' expectations. Residents uniformly insist, "As trailer parks go, this is one of the better ones." Comparatively, then, River Terrace appears to be a good deal for residents. A majority (81 percent) of households rate the park as "somewhat" or "very satisfactory" as a place to live; 71 percent say they would recommend the park to a friend.

Park Families

Our sample (N = 85), drawn from both the mixed and the adult-- only sections, reveals the park residents' homogeneity as to race, class, and rural background. When we compare our sample with the census tract of River Terrace, we see differences in educational attainment (88 percent of our sample have attained at least a high school education, as compared with 82 percent for the tract) and income levels (our sample's median income, $25,700, is lower than the figure of $31,288 reported in the census data). A much more marked difference occurs in household type: our sample includes 60 percent with children, while the census reports that 85 percent of the households include children. Our use of daytime hours for the survey, in which retirees are more likely to be at home, could explain our oversampling of adult-only households. On the other hand, recent expansion of the park's adult-only section may have resulted in an actual increase in the proportion of these households. In any case, the higher proportion of older residents in the sample probably explains the income differences between our sample and the census findings. Even so, the random selection process assures that the sample is representative of River Terrace households. Thus we use percentages and cross-tabulations reported from the sample to refer to the park population as a whole.

Virtually all (99 percent) of the park's households are of white, European descent, matching the resident composition of Prairieview, a more upscale community (U.S. Bureau of the Census 1990). Employment rates are high: 94 percent of adults in households with school-age children are employed full-time outside the home. Educational levels, job types, and earnings reflect blue-collar status. The median level of education is grade 12. Only 10 percent of park adults have earned a college degree, as compared with 27 percent of Prairieview residents (U.S. Bureau of the Census 1990). As stated earlier, the median household income is $25,700. For half (51 percent) of the households, this income derives from dual earnings. While River Terrace's median income places households, on average, well above the 1998 poverty level of $16,450 for a two-- adult household of four, it is far below Prairieview's current median income of $75,000 as reported by the local Chamber of Commerce ("Prairieview" 1999). With less than half the median annual income of the adjacent town, River Terrace households occupy a position of relative or subjective poverty (Jensen 1997).

Among households with children, a two-adult family structure is most common (69 percent). When a second adult is present, the majority of such adults (86 percent) are spouses. Single-parent households account for 16 percent of the households with children; another 15 percent contain more than two adults. Extended-family members in households, although rare, include grown children, a parent's sibling, or a grandparent. Extended kin living nearby are common: half (51 percent) of River Terrace households report that close relatives (parents or siblings) live either in or near the park. Most adults in River Terrace (61 percent) were raised in a rural area or a small town, and a majority (82 percent) identify rural settings or small towns as their ideal community type. Statements such as "The city's not for me. There's too much crime and too many people" or "Small towns are just more friendly" are common in River Terrace, and reflect the community ideal of small-town rural people in general (Hummon 1990).

Our Illinois mobile home park population, then, resembles rural America as a whole. The residents are white, working-poor households with a strong preference for rural or small-town life (Rural Sociological Task Force 1993). We now examine whether and for whom, in this representative rural population, River Terrace Mobile Home Park conveys a sense of community. Such a sense is based on membership in a larger social unit that is integrated by overlapping social networks sustained by mutual trust, a collective identity, and shared norms for reciprocity (Coleman 1990; Gusfield 1975).

[RuthlessMan]

Sense of Community in a Mobile Home Park

The manufactured-home industry has long promoted trailer parks as functional communities. In the words of one industry publication from the early 1950s, "Rarely does any neighborhood attain the intimate friendliness, the camaraderie of a trailer park" (Wallis 1991). Today, "We Build Communities" is the slogan of one industry trade journal.

River Terrace Mobile Home Park, which a board member of the Illinois Manufactured Housing Association referred to as "the Cadillac" of Illinois parks, appears to satisfy the structural preconditions necessary for a sense of cohesive community. "The Park," as residents refer to River Terrace, occupies a distinct territory that is home to a homogeneous rural population. Separated from the upscale neigh*****g village by housing type, name, zoning regulations, and a distance of two miles, River Terrace is a clearly bounded territory for its residents (Suttles 1972). The park's population of white, working-class, rurally oriented families suggests that residents share a common way of life (Elder and Conger 2000). Because of their shared status as homeowners, it is more likely that they will be socially committed to place (Perin 1977). Further, River Terrace residents, with their common rural roots, are likely to hold an ideology akin to that described by Bell (1994) and Hummon (1990), linking rural life sentimentally with neighborliness, safety, familiarity, and traditions.

Yet although River Terrace satisfies the structural preconditions necessary for forming and maintaining a cohesive community, residents' comments such as those quoted at the beginning of this paper call into question whether the park functions as such a community for everyone.

Recalling the two women who seem to experience community in River Terrace so differently, we explore whether all residents are similarly divided between those who feel a sense of community and those who feel isolated and lack such a sense. According to our theoretical framework, a household achieves a sense of community by being embedded in strong social networks based on a sense of trust, a collective identity, and normative expectations for supportive reciprocity (Coleman 1990; Elder and Conger 2000; Putnam 1993).

To determine whether a household perceives itself as embedded in such a social structure, we examined responses to survey items intended to quantify social relationships, sentimental ties, and expectations for support in the park. In these items, residents were asked to identify (1) the household's relationship with neighbors (best friends, friends, acquaintances, or strangers); (2) the household's residential status (temporary or permanent); and (3) the household's ability to count on neighbors for everyday support, such as help with an errand (ranging from "always" to "never"). Households designated as embedded in River Terrace were those with responses identifying neighbors as either best friends or friends; referring to themselves as permanent park residents; and reporting that they were always or sometimes able to count on neighbors for day-to-day support through help with an errand. Those who reported weaker ties to neighbors, a transient view of the park as a place to live, and less reliable daily support from neighbors were classified as isolated from the community.

Using these criteria, we separated households into two groups: (1) those who appeared to be embedded in the neighborhood and (2) those who appeared to be socially isolated from the park. As a result of our sorting, 21 percent of the households were classified as embedded and 79 percent as isolated or lacking a strong sense of connection to the park.

Residents' statements, as recorded in the field notes, amplify the different residential experiences of embedded and isolated households. The experience of an embedded household is typified by a middle-aged female resident of 16 years:

As soon as we moved in, [the neighbors] adopted our kids. Our boys grew up together. They're the best. Whenever one of us needs to talk, we are there for each other. We used to take care of their dog when they were out of town. It wouldn't eat at the kennel-you know how they do when you leave them anywhere they don't know-but he would with us. He would stay with us, and this was like his other home. We were like his other family ... they do the same with our dog.

The experience of household isolation, whether self-imposed or not, is described by a 32-year-old female resident of 10 months:

I don't know any of my neighbors. I just pretty much keep to myself. We work so much we're never around, and even when we are we just keep to ourselves. It's nice here 'cause ... we wave to each other, but nobody ever bothers you. We just wave and that's it. Nobody bothers you and we haven't had any trouble.

Thus the statements of the two women quoted at the beginning of this paper represent the divergent experiences of residents throughout River Terrace. Our findings, which show that only onefifth of park residents feel a sense of community, call into question whether River Terrace functions as a cohesive community for any of its residents. Still, one of the women quoted at the beginning, a part of the 21 percent, asserts that she has a strong sense of community in River Terrace, a sense that "everybody knows everybody."

Which households are most able to realize a sense of belonging through being embedded in the mobile home park community? Do they share specific social or demographic characteristics?

Household Characteristics

From the literature we know that specific characteristics such as residential stability, life stage, and socioeconomic position influence whether a household is socially embedded in a community (Kassarda and Janowitz 1974). In an effort to uncover characteristics associated with the embeddedness of park households, we tested variables related to each of these characteristics against those defining the embedded and the isolated groups. We constructed a variable for residential tenure, using the median length of residence to divide households into shorter-term (three years and less) and longer-term (four years and more) residents of this 30-year-old park. We constructed a life stage variable by using the age of the adult interviewed to divide households into older (55 years and over) and younger (54 years and under) categories. We were unable to construct a variable for socioeconomic status because many households (18 percent) refused to disclose income levels. On the basis of these constructed variables, 44 percent of the households were longer-term residents, and 56 percent were shorter-term residents. In regard to life stage or age, 18 percent were older households and 82 percent were younger.

Next we conducted cross-tabulations between (on the one hand) the variables for residential stability and life stage, and (on the other) the variable indicating embedded or isolated households. Both residential tenure (chi-square = 7.109, df = 1, p = .008) and life stage (chi-square = 4.194, df = 1, p = .041) are significant for household embeddedness (see Tables 1 and 2). That is, respondents who reported that they were embedded in the park community tend to belong to households with longer-term residence and older adults. Further, cross-tabulations between residential tenure and age support a strong, direct relationship between these variables (chi-square = 23.921, df = 1, p =.000; see Table 3).

River Terrace thus provides a sense of community for the older, more residentially stable households. One older woman typifies the sense of community among these households, particularly in the adult-only section:

I know everyone out here. This is a close-knit neighborhood. It's hard to explain .... You can go for a walk here and it takes forever because everyone is so friendly. They all stop and talk, and it takes a long time to get anywhere. We don't camp on each other's doorstep. . . .It's just friendly.

For younger households, those more likely to have children and to need most strongly the supports of a cohesive rural community, it seems more difficult to find a sense of community in River Terrace. A mother of two young children describes her residential experience:

We all seem to be intensely private around here-the people across the street, those people there, the people across the street that way, the woman behind me. We're all civil in that when we see each other we stop, we speak, we say, "Hi, how ya doin," but there is no neighborhood interaction per se.

Similarly, the more transient park households, those likely to be most economically pressed (see Fitchen 1991), are also less likely to sense community. River Terrace does not appear to function as a cohesive rural community for the younger and more residentially mobile households who most commonly make use of this affordable housing form.

[RuthlessMan]

A Mobile Home Park Community

River Terrace superficially resembles a small town, but as a mobile home park it differs fundamentally from other rural communities of similar size. First, it lacks a main street, public parks, and other social centers common to a small rural community; typically it offers few public spaces for social interactions vital to building community (Oldenburg [1989] 1999; Wallis 1991). Second, because it is affordable and accessible, a mobile home park brings together a homogeneous population of poorer, younger families (Wilson 1987). In contrast, the typical small town, although also racially and ethnically homogeneous, tends to be somewhat more diverse in household economic status. Finally, if only because of the wheels underneath the homes, a mobile home park is viewed by residents and outsiders alike as a temporary rather than an enduring place of residence (Wallis 1991). Such sharp differences in the fundamental conditions of community-territory, homogeneity, and stability-lead us to ask what factors in the mobile home park create barriers which prevent more than three-quarters of the residents from constructing the social networks that provide them with a sense of community.

Territory. The intense interactions needed to create a cohesive community require public spaces that invite frequent, repetitive social interaction (Wilkinson 1991; Williams 1988). Planners have long known that a spatial design can support a sense of community by providing such spaces (Lynch 1981). Sidewalks, public spaces, and "third places" such as a post office or a cafe are crucial to regular social interaction that unites neighbors and builds a sense of community (Oldenburg [1989] 1999; Southworth and Owen 1993).

Residents' daily interactions are structured by the physical layout of space in River Terrace. The streets span the width of the park; they do not connect with one another but create long, unbroken blocks. Residents travel almost exclusively up and down the single long street on which they live, and rarely venture further into the park. Consequently they have no need to become familiar with other areas (Suttles 1972). No sidewalks edge these long blocks; thus adults travel by car. Only children and youths navigate the park streets on bikes or on foot. A post office in the park provides a central public space but is little more than a dimly lit, narrow hallway behind the park office. When residents stop to pick up their mail, they typically leave the car running and hurry in and out of the post office. They rarely stand around and talk casually, as is typical small-town post office behavior. A laundry room, another potential arena for social interaction, offers well-maintained machines. Most households, however, have a washer and dryer; thus the laundry room stands unused. A pool and a recreation area, including a ball field, basketball and tennis courts, and a playground, offer additional public spaces, but these are limited in use as well. The pool is only 10 by 20 feet, the tennis courts lack nets, and the swing sets are without swings. The pool and recreation areas are popular in the warmer months, but are used solely by park youths rather than by adults or families.

Among households in the park that reported feeling a sense of community, 72 percent locate it either on their street or directly adjacent to their home. The long unbroken blocks that limit travel to a single street seem to restrict social interaction to the same limited space. This narrow focus of interaction is typified by the comments of a 34-year-old mother of three, a 13-year resident of the park: "I know everyone on this street down to about halfway. I don't know anybody at the other end [of the street]." Echoing this pattern of localized interaction, a 64-year-old male resident of six years says, "I know most of the people on this street. I know the guy behind. We stand in the yard occasionally and discuss our problems. Right now it's a pretty good neighborhood." Thus, when a River Terrace household feels that it is embedded in a social network, the reference point is the street rather than the community or a larger area of the park. Because the area of interaction is so tightly circumscribed, the park is a fragmented mosaic of small pockets of neigh*****g, which together do not constitute a larger social unit integrated by overlapping networks (Coleman 1990).

Because streets form the social boundaries, networks are not only small but also limited. Repeatedly families reported that a move of just a few streets away severed what they once thought were important social ties. A young mother who has lived in the park for six years relates, "I was real good friends with her mother [indicating a child visiting in the home] but they just moved to the other side of the park. We used to do a lot together, but now she's over there and we never see each other." Although these small networks are clearly salient, they are neither resilient nor enduring.

As an unintended consequence of the owner's layout of the park, the physical space inhibits social interactions other than those bridging one or perhaps two streets. Further, only minimally attractive or accessible third places are offered within the park. The lack of welcoming third places restricts social interaction and network formation. At the street level the long, unbroken blocks without sidewalks discourage foot and in-park travel, and isolate residents further into small neighborhood clusters. As one six-year resident explains, "A neighborhood is a street. You don't qualify as a neighbor if you live more than one street away." The limited and fragile networks that develop on these streets, though obviously important to residents, bear little resemblance to the widely overlapping and resilient social networks of an ideal rural community (Elder and Conger 2000). Thus the layout of River Terrace acts as a physical barrier, preventing its working-poor residents from forming a sense of community larger than their immediate neighborhood. That is, these residents do not feel as if they belong to some larger social structure with a shared history and identity-the type of structure representing a type of community that benefits children and families.

Homogeneity. A shared class and occupational status typically creates similar daily household rhythms, and thus supports neighbors and forms a sense of community (Suttles 1972). Yet such a rhythm among rural working-poor households is broken by work that often takes adults away from home for most of the day (Bokemeier and Tickamyer 1988). Further, the working poor typically are employed in jobs that offer little self-direction: the jobs follow erratic or variable schedules, and thus reduce opportunities and motivation for community social engagement (Granovetter 1985; Wilson and Musick 1997).

In River Terrace, as stated earlier, virtually all adults (94 percent) in households with school-aged children work full-time. Only one in five (20 percent) works near the park. Most (80 percent) commute daily to various metro areas, where they work as waitresses or construction laborers, or on the line in a factory. In effect, then, daily life in River Terrace means that mothers, fathers, and schoolage children are absent from the neighborhood for long periods.

Comments by residents make it clear that for River Terrace families, work pressures influence both the daily time and the motivation for face-to-face interaction with the neighbors. Throughout the park, 75 percent of households report having "no interest" or being "too busy" to participate in social and recreational activities in the park or adjacent community. A 37-year-old mother of two young children reflects on the dilemma of working-poor families in forming ties that might enhance their daily existence:

I know [my neighbors] by name. I know nothing about their particular personal lifestyles. There are no weekend barbecue get-togethers. There is very little over-the-fence visiting-obviously, we don't have a fence to visit over. We're all fairly busy people. By the time we get free time, all of us are probably just ready to fall into the bed and get a few Zs. We're not lax people. You won't ever see us sittin' out on the patio with our big bellies hangin' out, and a beer in our hand. You know, it's the general attitude [about] a mobile home park that you walk through and there's a bunch of lazy people hangin' out, fallin' all over the place. These particular houses-the ones that I know about anyway-everyone is busy. They all have jobs to go to, they all have children to raise.

Thus, both the commute to the workplace and the job situation typical for the rural working poor leave few hours at home for meeting neighbors informally. In River Terrace, because of the large proportion of households that share this life, opportunities for social interaction seem to be reduced. In River Terrace, as in poor inner-city neighborhoods, a dense concentration of poorer, younger families inhibits the formation of a sense of community (Wilson 1987).

[RuthlessMan]

Stability. At the individual level, length of residence typically predicts both social and sentimental ties to place (Kassarda and Janowitz 1974). At the community level, however, overall residential stability is vital to forming a collective history, a shared culture, and a sense of belonging indicative of ideal community (Gusfield 1975; Salamon 1992). When generations of the same families live in the same place, strong attachments to place and enduring social bonds develop (Elder and Conger 2000).

Residential patterns and sentiments in River Terrace reflect a fundamentally provisional rather than an enduring commitment among residents. Half of park households (54 percent) identify themselves as only temporary residents. One-third (32 percent) have been in their current mobile home for one year or less; thus the median length of park residence is three years and the modal length is less than one year. Even so, a core of residents (27 percent) have lived in their current home for seven years or longer, and thus have achieved the longer period of residence associated with stronger ties to place (Kassarda and Janowitz 1974).

Residentially mobile households, we found, are less likely to have a sense of community resulting from being embedded in local social networks. On average, households identifying themselves as temporary residents of the park are younger (with a modal age of 28 for the adults interviewed) than households that regard themselves as permanent residents (with a modal age of 64). These temporary households tend to focus on future dreams rather than on their current residence as the pathway to achieving the American dream. The quest for a "stick-built" house shapes the desires of one-- third (31 percent) of such households to move out of the park. Expressing this common goal, a young mother of three says, "We hope to buy a house in the next year. I've always had this dream of a house with a white picket fence and all that." Owning the land on which their home sits is another common (21 percent) goal for park households that want to move. A resident with the dream of land ownership comments, "I figure it this way: for what we pay in lot rent we could be buying a piece of land." A single mother says that although she owns her home, park residence is still settling for "second best":

I don't like living in a mobile home park. It's better than an apartment. I won't live in an apartment. I don't want to come home and find someone on my steps. I need a yard. It's second best but a single parent can't get together a down payment until the kids are gone.

Thus, for temporary households, park residence does not fulfill the American dream of a stand-alone home on a piece of land. Such residents regard River Terrace as a place to live until they can achieve "real" homeownership, with land included. Half (51 percent) of the temporary residents confirm their plan to move out of the park and realize this dream in two years or less.

Because of high rates of residential turnover, in which 25 percent of the residents move each year, park households' neighbors change continually. Although two-fifths (40 percent) of residents describe the treatment of newcomers as "warm and friendly," almost one-quarter (23 percent) feel that treatment is more cautious because residents "take a while to warm up" to newcomers. Only a few households reported being treated "suspiciously" as newcomers, but the need to be watchful and cautious about neighbors was a common theme (39 percent). A middle-aged male resident of six years explains:

When you move in, neighbors do wonder, what will they be like? They judge them ... I do too. Do they leave at a certain time every day? Do they have a job? You look for these things. You watch them and see what kind of people they are, how they are going to be. You have to know.

Being watchful toward neighbors does not necessarily involve social interaction. A mother of three who has lived in River Terrace for four years offers a typically heard description of social relations in the park: "Some people come over and introduce [themselves], but there are a lot of people that come and go, and so people just kind of stick to [themselves]." More than one-quarter (27 percent) reported that park neighbors most typically "mind their own business."

Even the more residentially stable households find it difficult to stay abreast of the neighborhood turnover or to maintain social relationships. A 37-year-old mother of two who has lived in her home for 11 years related an experience typical of River Terrace residents:

[RuthlessMan]

We used to know everyone around us, but a lot has changed in the last year. It was not even a year after [the people next door] bought the place that she died. Her son lives there now. The guy across the street moved. We were friends with him, but we don't even know who lives there now. Over the years we've seen a lot of people come and go from this park.

Unlike the ideal rural community, River Terrace is clearly a temporary rather than a permanent place for many residents (Hummon 1990). Regarding the mobile home park as second best among affordable options, the temporary residents focus their commitments on achieving the full American dream rather than on forging strong social ties within the park. Thus the view of a mobile home park as less than the ideal residential form creates a social barrier to formation of a cohesive community. Continual residential turnover creates another barrier: when residents move on, the social context is unstable. The result is a fluid social structure that bears little resemblance to a cohesive rural community typified by enduring, overlapping social networks that foster resilient families and youths (Elder and Conger 2000).

Discussion

River Terrace tells us much about whether a mobile home park, as a residential context, shapes a sense of community among its residents. As suggested by the statements of the two women quoted at the outset, River Terrace Mobile Home Park provides multiple residential experiences: some residents experience a sense of community, and others do not. Even though some households report being embedded in local social networks, these households are attached to the immediate neighborhood cluster rather than to a larger, cohesive community. We uncovered pockets of neigh*****g rather than overlapping social networks with the capacity to integrate community. When present, these neighborhood clusters tend to be fragile or erratic rather than resilient and enduring. The neighborhood clusters that exist are more likely to be centered on older, residentially stable households rather than among the younger families with children. The latter appear to be outside such networks and thus most often lack a sense of community in River Terrace.

Because rural mobile home parks are increasingly common as residences for families with children, our findings have policy implications for rural governments. If, as our findings suggest, families with children find it more difficult to form resourceful networks in a rural mobile home park-networks that lead to a better quality of life-should family residence there be encouraged?

Our response must be "maybe." Although we find that specific structural features of mobile home parks discourage network embeddedness among family households in particular, such features are not a given. First, our findings show the importance of the built environment in shaping structural opportunities to form the strong networks fundamental to a sense of community. River Terrace, as a typical mobile home park, challenges residents' efforts to engage in the repetitive, intense social interaction that a cohesive community requires (Williams 1988). Low-cost structural changes, such as adding sidewalks and creating links between streets, would encourage families to take a walk around the block and might facilitate face-to-face interaction among residents (Lynch 1981). Adding welcoming shared or third places, or increasing households' use of existing places through improved maintenance, would accomplish similar goals by making this and other mobile home parks feel more like a small town filled with familiar faces (Oldenburg [1989] 1999).

In addition, our findings show that a concentration of working-- poor families, a population typical of rural mobile home parks, creates a daily rhythm of park life that disperses family members for most of the day (Bokemeier and Tickamyer 1988). Households with older adults, who have a sense of community, tend to lead daily lives that are centered in the park because of retirement or an "empty nest." In River Terrace, as in other parks, many older adult households are residentially segregated in an adult-only section rather than being scattered throughout the main area of the park. Changing a park's structure to include older households in the general section would foster the regular cross-generational engagement so important to a cohesive community (Elder and Conger 2000). Residentially stable households that regard a mobile home park as their permanent home thus could anchor the neighborhood social networks and create a more diverse residential community, although many retirees are attracted to adult-only parks. For children in particular, the presence of fictive grandparents in their daily life enhances the cross-generational interactions that are a large part of the rural community experience.

Finally, our findings indicate the importance of residential stability to community functioning. The high levels of satisfaction with River Terrace suggest that residents are not dissatisfied with their homes nor with life in a trailer park. Yet the dream of owning a piece of land, a common rural goal, seems to spur a desire to move on (Perin 1977). Allowing land ownership in River Terrace and other land-lease mobile home parks would help anchor residents. The latest trend in the mobile home industry is toward subdivision development, in which residents own both their home and the land on which it sits. In such a context, land-lease residents would be likely to feel a more enduring commitment to place-a sentiment essential to an ideal form of community (Perin 1977).

Tales about years past in River Terrace suggest a time when people felt a greater sense of community. In every case, such experiences hinged on the community-building efforts of a single resident. A long-term resident recalls:

We used to have a newsletter that [he] made up and had printed. We had community then. That took care of it. Me and my kids and my ex-wife used to deliver it. Now nothing is going on out here. We're not informed of anything unless the rent goes up.

This and other stories of neighborhood rituals, such as a Fourth of July parade and an annual picnic, make it clear that the potential for a more ideal, more effective form of rural community exists in River Terrace, as an example of other, similar rural mobile home parks. Households in parks like River Terrace across America have made a substantial investment through the purchase of a home. Structural changes in these parks would allow owners of half the American dream to realize the dream to its fullest.

[Reference]

References

[Reference]

Allen, G. 1994. Development, Marketing, and Operation of Manufactured Home Communities. New York: Wiley.

Bell, M. 1994. Childerley: Nature and Morality in a Country Village. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Bennett, L. 1991. "Rethinking Neighborhood, Neighborhood Research, and Neighborhood Policy: Lessons From Uptown." Journal of Urban Affairs 15:245-57.

Bokemeier, J. and A. Tickamyer. 1988. "Sex Differences in Labor-Market Experiences." Rural Sociology 53:166-88.

Bott, E. 1971. Family and Social Network (2nd Edition). New York: Free Press.

Coleman, J. 1990. Foundations of Social Capital Theory. Camb*****, MA: Harvard University Press.

Denzin, N. 1970. The Research Act. Chicago: Aldine.

Dillman, D. and K. Tremblay. 1983. Beyond the American Housing Dream: Accommodation to the 1980s. Lanham, MO: University Press of America.

Elder, G. and R. Conger. 2000. Children of the Land: Adversity and Success in Rural America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Fitchen, J. 1991. Endangered Spaces, Enduring Places: Change, Identity, and Survival in Rural America. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

Furstenberg, F., T. Cook, J. Eccles, G. Elder, and A. Sameroff. 1999. Managing to Make It: Urban Families and Adolescent Success. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Geisler, C. and H. Mitsuda. 1987. "Mobile-Home Growth, Regulation, and Discrimination in Upstate New York." Rural Sociology 52:532-43.

Goudy, W. 1990. "Community Attachment in a Rural Region." Rural Sociology 55:178-98.

Granovetter, M. 1985. "The Strength of Weak Ties." American Journal of Sociology 81:1287-1380.

Gusfield, J. 1975. Community: A Critical Response. New York: Harper and Row.

Hawley, A. 1950. Human Ecology. New York: Roland Press.

Hummon, D. 1990. Common Places. New York: SUNY Press.

[RuthlessMan]

Jensen, L. 1997. "Poverty." Pp. 572-75 in Encyclopedia of Rural America: The Land and People, edited by G. Gorham. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO.

Johnson, H. 1976. Order Upon the Land. New York: Oxford University Press.

Kassarda, J. and M. Janowitz. 1974. "Community Attachment in Mass Society." American Sociological Review 39:328-39.

Lynch, IL 1981. Good City Form. Camb*****, MA: MIT Press.

MacTavish, K. 2001. "Going Mobile in Rural America: The Community Effect of

[Reference]

Mobile Home Park Residence on Child and Youth Development." PhD dissertation, Department of Human and Community Development, University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana.

Meeks, C. 1988. "Mobile Homes as a Viable Alternative in Rural America." Rural Development Perspective, February, pp. 29-32.

1998. Manufactured Home Life: Existing Housing Stock Through 1997. Arlington, VA: Manufactured Housing Institute.

Oldenburg, R. [1989] 1999. The Great Good Place. New York: Marlow.

Patton, M. 1990. Qualitative Evaluation and Research Methods. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Perin, C. 1977. Everything in Its Place. Princeton: Princeton University Press. "Prairieview" Chamber of Commerce. 1999. "Demographics: Potential Service Popu

lation Areas." Retrieved October 23, 1999 (from "Prairieview" village website).

Putnam, R. 1993. "The Prosperous Community: Social Capital-and Public Life." The American Prospect 13:35-42.

Rubin, L. 1994. Families on the Fault Line: America's Working Class Speaks Out About the Family, The Economy, Race, and Ethnicity. New York: HarperCollins.

Ruditsky, H. 1994. "New Life for Old Mobile Home Parks: Investing in Parks Through Real Estate Investment Trusts." Forbes, November 7, pp. 44-45.

Rural Sociological Society Task Force on Persistent Rural Poverty. 1993. Persistent Poverty in Rural America. Boulder, CO: West-iew Press.

Salamon, S. 1992. Prairie Patrimony: Family, Farming, and Community in the Mid-West. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

Southworth, M. and P. Owen. 1993. "The Evolving Metropolis: Studies of Community, Neighborhood, and Street Form at the Urban Edge." Journal of the American Planning Association 59:271-87.

Suttles, G. 1972. The Social Construction of Community. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

[Reference]

U.S. Bureau of the Census. 1990. Census of Population and Housing. Washington, DC: U.S. Bureau of the Census.

U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. 1998. "Factory and Site-Built Housing: A Comparison for the 21st Century." Retrieved October 15, 2000 (http://216.167.103.115/DR-factory_vs_sitebuilt/index.html).

Wallis, A. 1991. Wheel Estate: The Rise and Decline of Mobile Homes. New York: Oxford University Press.

Webber, M. 1970. "Order in Diversity: Community Without Propinquity." Pp. 791 in Neighborhood, City, and Metropolis: An Integrated Reader in Urban Sociology, edited by R. Gutman and D. Popenoe. New York: Random House.

Weissbourd, R. 1996. The Vulnerable Child. What Really Hurts America's Children and What We Can Do About It. New York: Addison-Wesley.

Wellman, B. and B. Leighton. 1979. "Networks, Neighbors and Communities: Approaches to the Study of the Community Question." Urban Affairs Quarterly 14:363-90.

Wilkinson, K 1991. The Community in America. New York: Greenwood.

Williams, B. 1988. Upscaling Downtown. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Wilson, J. and M. Musick. 1997. "Work and Volunteering: The Long Arm of the Job." Social Forces 76:251-72.

Wilson, W. 1987. The Truly Disadvantaged: The Inner City, The Underclass, and Public Policy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Ziebarth, A., K Prochaska-Cue, and B. Shrewsbury. 1997. "Growth and Locational Impacts for Housing in Small Communities." Rural Sociology 62:111-25.

[Author Affiliation]

Katherine MacTavish

Oregon State University

[Author Affiliation]

Sonya Salamon

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

[Author Affiliation]

*This research was funded by U.S. Department of Agriculture National Research Initiative Grant 9801645. The Illinois Manufactured Housing Association (IMHA) generously provided the research team with in-kind support of an office unit in the park. The park owner supported our research efforts in many ways including an inkind contribution of a site for the IMHA unit. This paper was presented at the annual meetings of the Rural Sociological Society, held in Chicago in 1999. Marni Basic provided invaluable support through her fieldwork, organization, and insights. Fellow class members Jeff Stueves, Ani Yazidjian, and Carmen Vergara assisted in the pilot study of the park. Address communications to Kate MacTavish, 325C Milam Hall, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR 97330; (541)737-9130; kate. mactavish@orst.edu

[RuthlessMan]

hahahaha that's all you fucking have to say? and i doubt that's the complete article fyi...probably complete with spyware and the such if it is.

No spyware, and yes it is the complete article, I decided to go ahead and share it.

That's all I really have to say, I was really intrigued by the article, and sort of at a loss for words at the moment.

[MotherRussia]

wow. im actually fucking proud. you can stay on this site as long as you want