Rural Housing, Exurbanization, and Amenity-Driven Development

Contrasting the 'Haves' and the 'Have Nots'

Mark Lapping, David Marcouiller

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317060840
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Local & Regional Planning Public Policy
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Rural America is progressing through a dramatic and sustained post-industrial economic transition. For many, traditional means of household sustenance gained through agriculture, mining and rustic tourism are giving way to large scale corporate agriculture, footloose and globally competitive manufacturing firms, and mass tourism on an unprecedented scale. These changes have brought about an increased presence of affluent amenity migrants and returnees, as well as growing reliance on low-wage, seasonal jobs to sustain rural household incomes. This book argues that the character of rural housing reflects this transition and examines this using contemporary concepts of exurbanization, rural amenity-based development, and comparative distributional descriptions of the "haves" and the "have nots". Despite rapid in-migration and dramatic changes in land use, there remains a strong tendency for communities in rural America to maintain the idyllic small-town myth of large-lot, single-family home-ownership. This neglects to take into account the growing need for affordable housing (both owner-occupied and rental properties) for local residents and seasonal workers. This book suggests that greater emphasis be placed in rural housing policies that account for this rapid social and economic change and the need for affordable rural housing alternatives.

PART I
The Context of Twenty-first Century
Rural Housing

Chapter 1
An Introduction

David Marcouiller, Mark Lapping and Owen Furuseth

Introduction

Rural America is progressing through a dramatic and sustained post-industrial transition. For many, traditional means of economic sustenance gained through food and fiber production, mining, and rustic tourism are giving way to large-scale corporate agriculture, footloose and globally competitive manufacturing firms, the rise of the service sector, and mass tourism on an unprecedented scale. The implications of this transition for sustaining rural peoples involve an increased presence of amenity migrants and retirees in concert with an increase in low-wage, seasonal work. While maintaining traditional roots provide incentives to those whose ancestors settled in rural America, there remains both persistent poverty and a continual drain of young people to urban areas.

This said, contemporary rural structure is complex and difficult to characterize with simple generalizations. While standardized definitions of the rural United States (USDA, 2004) allow initial distinctions to be made that reflect remoteness and population size, others focus more on economic structure and dominant activity (Lapping et al., 1989). This latter definition begins to sort out important rural characteristics that reflect underlying issues of rural welfare and community development. Directly to the point of rural welfare and based on work from the National Rural Assembly, Duncan (2007) has proposed that it is useful to consider three rural Americas that distinguish between amenity rich areas, declining areas, and chronically poor areas. Doing so distinguishes the simple fact that there clearly exists classifications of rural America marked by the “haves” and the “have nots”. While rural areas with high levels of natural and developed amenity resources are being steadily fragmented for high-end single family residential developments catering to urban audiences, lower income rural residents are being steadily pushed to either migrate away or move to rural areas with considerably lower levels of amenity resources. In addition, many rural areas remain in persistent economic decline with little hope of future growth or development. This has been attributed to several related issues including a general lack of natural and/or developed amenities, remoteness due to poor infrastructure, race (and associated environmental injustice), and dominance of corporate ownership; to name a few. Specific regions suffering from persistent poverty include rural Appalachia, resource dependent communities in the Intermountain West and Great Plains, and the Black Belt of the southern United States.

Further complicating the challenges facing many high poverty areas has been a rapidly changing demographic profile. Since the late twentieth century, Hispanic immigrants, native and international, have made up the largest stream of new settlers in non-metropolitan America (Kandel and Cromartie, 2004). Often, these newcomers are drawn to communities where declining economic fortunes and outmigration represent opportunities for low-skilled workers (HAC, 2001; Furuseth, 2009). In turn, housing choices and shortages frequently present continuous issues that commonly split communities along class and racial or ethnic lines.

Across the United States, amenity-driven development and tourism have had an increasingly significant impact on the rural housing market. Often characterized as cottaging or second home development, the progression of recreational homes has transformed the housing stock of amenity-rich rural regions (de Vane, 1975; Coppock, 1977; Hall and Müller, 2004) placing upward pressures on land values and housing costs. While there are implications for local taxing authorities, there are also spillover concerns that focus attention on the availability of housing for local residents, low-income workers, and inflows of migrant workers.

In a similar fashion, rural regions in close proximity to metropolitan America continue to experience dramatic change in housing condition. Continual agglomeration pressures and improvements in infrastructure and transportation technologies have converted once sleepy rural agricultural communities into bedrooms for commuters working in urban centers. Often characterized as “sprawl”, this continual outward pressure along the urban to rural continuum has dramatic impacts on land use, economic change, and the social fabric of communities in transition. Looking to the near-term future, rapid progress in broadband and cellular technologies combined with the rise of the internet as a means of communication, economic transaction, and social networking provide for a continued breakdown in both economic and geographic distance; implications for rural regions and housing condition relate to a diminution to what we currently think of as remoteness.

While rural America continues down a path toward exurbanization, problems in the structure of rural housing are persistent. Despite rapid in-migration and dramatic changes in land use, there remains a strong tendency for communities to maintain the idyllic small town myth of large-lot single-family homeownership. This exists despite a growing need for affordable housing options (both owneroccupied and rental properties) for local residents and seasonal workers (Ziebarth, 2000). This latter element of housing opportunities for seasonal workers takes on increased importance with the rapid rise of mass tourism, globalization of labor markets, and free trade among countries in North and South America; indeed, the migrant housing issue in rural America remains a persistent problem (HAC, 1987, 2001; Benden and Wiener, 1999).

Project Synopsis and an Overview of the Contributions

We embarked on this book project in early 2007 with rather ambitious goals and solicited contributions from a variety of leading academics and policy experts. Our overarching goal was to develop a contemporary presentation of rural housing that builds on a rather impressive literature. Rural housing has been a topic of academic discussion dating back to the early twentieth century (Savage, 1915; Anderson, 1923). Most recently, the topic of rural housing affordability, homelessness, inclusive communities, and amenity migration has been dealt with separately in a variety of recent books (Marantz et al., 1976; Dunn et al., 1981; Benden and Wiener, 1999; Balchin and Rhoden, 2002; Golland and Blake, 2004; Hall and Müller, 2004; Bratt et al., 2006; Imrie, 2006; Schwartz, 2006 to name just a few). In addition, there is a fairly rich and growing academic literature on rural housing in the peer-reviewed literature (van Dam et al., 2002; Satsangi and Dunmore, 2003; Jones and Tonts, 2003; Barcus, 2002; Morton et al., 2004; Cho et al., 2005 again to name just a few).

We were struck, however, by the general lack of a single source that provided a comprehensive assessment that spans rural housing in the developed world that included both the “haves” and the “have nots” (hence our interest in compiling this volume). This edited volume is broadly organized into three parts. The first part begins with an overview of the rural housing context with this introduction and four subsequent chapters. In Part II, leading scholars identify and expound on a variety of contemporary conditions associated with rural housing from the perspective of amenity-driven development. Part III provides an overview of the rural “have nots” and includes a discussion of persistent rural poverty, current foreclosure issues pertinent to the working poor, and rural homelessness. Finally, the last section contains two chapters on contemporary policies to affect change in rural housing for the twenty-first century.

While the geographic scope of our contributions is decidedly rural and American (U.S.), there are generic global elements that can be discerned. These include exurbanization processes for second homes and cottages throughout the developed world and the tensions that exist between long-term rural residents and urban newcomers. We must sadly recognize the uniqueness of disparities between the rich and poor that evidence suggests is rather uncommon among our developed world neighbors. Growing income inequality in the United States places the “have nots” in rural America more in common with counterparts in rapidly developing and less-developed geographic contexts.

Our primary audiences span academic and public policy interests. This includes those whose work addresses the uniqueness of rural areas and the phenomena of post-industrial economic development. Given the topics addressed in the book and the scholarship contained in the chapters, this volume is well-suited for use in upper division undergraduate and graduate courses on housing, public policy, community development, and rural planning. Professionals, practitioners, and policy analysts working in public sector planning, housing agencies and non-profits will also find practical value in the research approaches and findings contained within.

The Context of Rural Housing in the Twenty-first Century

Following this introduction, the context section begins with a contribution from Carol Roskey that identifies several unique characteristics of rural housing that differentiate it from housing within an urban context. First, while rural housing values are typically lower than their urban housing counterparts, rural homeownership is significantly higher than urban homeownership. Further, rural homeowners are more apt to own their homes free-and-clear relative to urban homeowners. From a physical perspective, rural housing is dominated by single family detached housing units, is newer than urban housing, and has significantly higher proportions of mobile or manufactured home origins. This said, Roskey further identifies key issues of affordability that affect rural homeownership and outlines public programs to address issues of import to rural housing. She concludes with a section that discusses the future of rural housing and relevant public policy.

Chapter 3, by Adrian Esparza, outlines the process that drives rural housing markets. In addition to some creative conceptualizing, Esparza presents a comprehensive literature review that brings the reader through the evolution of thinking with respect to rural housing and exurbanization today. Interestingly, he notes that the rural housing markets are far more complex than urban and suburban markets in terms of both composition and causal processes. This complexity may well explain the lack of more formal and conceptual models of exurbanization, studies which focus on the impacts or outcomes of exurbanization and factors propelling the exurbanization process. Spillovers versus counterurbanization are compared and contrasted both by the type of rural housing and causal elements associated with the exurbanization process. This chapter responds to the void by presenting a conceptual model of exurbanization in the United States (and, again, is a great summarization of extant thinking!).

Holly Barcus provides two case studies which help in our understanding of the variety of conditions and issues that define rural American housing post-2000. These include quality, availability, affordability, and the degree to which the existing housing stock matches the needs of the current population. Barcus provides an overview of the role of demographic restructuring in shaping the housing needs and conditions in rural communities. Key here are the changing economic contexts of rural areas and the importance of migration in influencing overall population growth or decline and the changing composition of rural population profiles. Barcus also succeeds in highlighting the importance of local history in shaping rural housing markets. Two contrasting rural growth communities provide case studies; an amenity-recreation-retirement community, Bayfield, Wisconsin, located in the upper Great Lakes region, and a university community, Rowan County, Kentucky located in Central Appalachia. Each community has faced a range of challenges in trying to balance growth, demographic change and housing demand.

The elderly and rural housing is outlined by a team of sociologists led by Bradley Nash. These authors identify issues relevant to housing occupied by those who either age-in-place or migrate. They point to an interesting typology of the latter elder; namely, elderly migrants exist as either younger amenity seekers or provincial return to birth place migrants. Transitions in migration take place as health declines (termed “assistance” and “disability” migrations). The authors point to direct economic effects of an influx of elderly amenity migrants including: (1) creation of jobs for younger workers, particularly in the service sector; (2) generation of tax revenues for local governments, without a corresponding demand for many expensive public services such as education; and (3) the transference of significant amounts of monies from outside the region (e.g. private pensions, lifetime savings, transfer payments, and federal government entitlements such as Medicare payments), which circulate through and stimulate the entire regional economy. On the negative side, however, older in-migrants also place increased demands on some community services, notably related to transportation and sanitation infrastructure, medical facilities, and protection services (fire and police).

Rural Amenity-Driven Housing: The “Haves”

The amenity basis for rural housing is dealt with in Chapter 6 by Christine Vogt where she provides key linkages between natural amenities present in rural America and rural residential development. Her chapter clearly argues that rural and exurban housing is inseparable from its surrounding environmental and natural resource context. Communities experiencing exurban sprawl or amenityled growth face the challenge of finding the right path forward that does not trade away the beauty and eco-services provided by the underlying natural resource base. This chapter covers historic and contemporary transitions of the natural landscape and surrounding communities while focusing on the role of consumer choice in selecting where to live. Recent trends show households moving into exurban and rural areas, particularly areas with recreational sites and surrounding natural amenity assets. Increased affluence and the purchase of vacation homes, retirement, and technological infrastructure have enabled people to move away from metropolitan areas. Sense of place and sustainable communities are two frameworks to guide future planning and development and the delivery of qualityof-life services and amenities.

Rural tourism and housing issues are outlined by C. Michael Hall who focuses on the spatial dimension of tourism and its relationship to various forms of visitor accommodation. This is regionally significant as tourism has different effects in different rural areas depending on the overall characteristics of those areas. Three different categories of rural destinations are identified in terms of their relative accessibility from metropolitan regions: peri-urban, resort-periphery and non-resort-periphery. These three categories are then discussed in terms of tourism and rural housing relationships. The chapter concludes by noting that the contribution that tourism makes to rural housing and exurban processes if often far more nuanced than is often portrayed.

Gundars Rudzitis and his colleagues outline the high-end of rural America, namely the rural rich. While initially approaching the topic from the standpoint of housing as a positional good, they identify the potential for negative effects on surrounding communities. In particular, the tendency in resort regions to experience the “Aspenization” effect (spatially mismatched labor markets and housing opportunities) is presented as an important local dilemma. They provide recent data on the spatial distribution of wealth, corresponding housing value, and the second home phenomenon with a particular focus on rural regions that attract geographically footloose affluence. This is presented from both a “between regions (inter-regional)” and “within regions (intra-regional)” perspective. The latter perspective is forwarded as a surprising historical switch. Within-region income inequality has traditionally been an urban and suburban issue; it is increasingly becoming a rural issue.

The Rural Housing “Have Nots”

Sally Ward writes about chronic poverty and the decline present in communities using a typology of rural places. Dr Ward outlines a curious complexity of rural housing; how rural American housing is simultaneously marked by high levels of homeownership and high levels of poverty incidence. Results of her work suggest that there are important variations across communities that fall in the broad category of “rural” places, and efforts to deal with housing or other community-based issues need to incorporate an understanding of different types of rural communities. In this chapter, Ward analyzes housing indicators and resident perceptions about housing and community growth issues across three types of rural places including (1) chronically poor, (2) declining, and (3) amenity-rich rural communities. The data suggests that not only do traditional housing indicators vary across these types of places, but resident perceptions and experiences also vary significantly depending on the type of their rural community. Chronically poor places have, in the long-term, high poverty rates, low educational attainment rates, and few opportunities for upward social mobility. Declining places, formerly dependent on agriculture and other natural resources have lost population over time, particularly young adults. Ame...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• List of Contributors
• About the Contributors
• List of Abbreviations
• Part I The Context of Twenty-first Century Rural Housing
• Part II Rural Amenity-Driven Housing: The “Haves”
• Part III The Rural Housing “Have Nots”
• Part IV Policies to Affect Change in Rural Housing
• Index