3 ms·

It's funny how manufactured homes get a bad rap but the contemporary ones are actually quite good.

by DubiousPusher 9y ago

s_kilk 9y ago
It's all class signalling. As you say, the homes themselves are nice, but they're "for poor people" so...
dragontamer 9y ago
There's clearly a marketing problem at hand here. Some of the larger Modular Homes (built out of multiple "rooms") aren't bad. The main issue is that the US Society as a whole uses cost-of-living as a differentiator. Those who own $500,000 single family homes want to ensure that everyone around them also is paying ~$500,000ish for their homes, because money is a crude estimator for crime levels and educational opportunity. If you live in an area filled with $20k trailer homes, the assumption is that these areas are filled with criminals and drug lords. With that said: cost-of-living is a differentiator in reality, because taxes are ultimately collected from the area. Richer areas can afford better schools, while poorer areas with lower land values won't have the same infrastructure. And unfortunately, building "mixed income neighborhoods" always causes a mess because of NIMBY. The issue is one of societal expectations. Regardless, the question of "how to build cheap, dignified, affordable housing" is well solved in America. Trailer-park homes have power and running water. The main issue IMO, is marketing and figuring out how to build "mixed income" developments without without making rich people feel like they're living next to poor people. As silly as it sounds, if this problem can be solved we'd solve a lot of issues...
protomyth 9y ago
Its more the trailer park than the trailer that is hated. Anything that has observably lower income people will make other home owners mad. I've seen some really nice trailer parks (heck, better than the HUD housing areas I grew up in), but the NIMBY is pretty strong.

3 ms·

It's funny how manufactured homes get a bad rap but the contemporary ones are actually quite good.

by DubiousPusher 9y ago

It's funny how manufactured homes get a bad rap but the contemporary ones are actually quite good.

s_kilk 9y ago
It's all class signalling. As you say, the homes themselves are nice, but they're "for poor people" so...
dragontamer 9y ago
There's clearly a marketing problem at hand here. Some of the larger Modular Homes (built out of multiple "rooms") aren't bad. The main issue is that the US Society as a whole uses cost-of-living as a differentiator. Those who own $500,000 single family homes want to ensure that everyone around them also is paying ~$500,000ish for their homes, because money is a crude estimator for crime levels and educational opportunity. If you live in an area filled with $20k trailer homes, the assumption is that these areas are filled with criminals and drug lords. With that said: cost-of-living is a differentiator in reality, because taxes are ultimately collected from the area. Richer areas can afford better schools, while poorer areas with lower land values won't have the same infrastructure. And unfortunately, building "mixed income neighborhoods" always causes a mess because of NIMBY. The issue is one of societal expectations. Regardless, the question of "how to build cheap, dignified, affordable housing" is well solved in America. Trailer-park homes have power and running water. The main issue IMO, is marketing and figuring out how to build "mixed income" developments without without making rich people feel like they're living next to poor people. As silly as it sounds, if this problem can be solved we'd solve a lot of issues...
protomyth 9y ago
Its more the trailer park than the trailer that is hated. Anything that has observably lower income people will make other home owners mad. I've seen some really nice trailer parks (heck, better than the HUD housing areas I grew up in), but the NIMBY is pretty strong.