ABSTRACT
Rural housing in the twenty-first century raises a unique set of issues; some of which are common to urban and suburban housing but require an understanding of important and uniquely rural contextual differences. These include uniqueness with respect to ownership, physical housing attributes, demographic structure, income inequality, the hedonic role of natural amenities, and public policy tools. A recent analysis of rural development policy and programming in the United States argues that a 'managerial' turn has transformed it into a more market-oriented approach that is less comprehensive, suffused with the 'ethos of individualism and competition' that consistently underestimates 'the value of place'. One of the ways that many rural Americans have attempted to meet the affordability challenge has been through the erection of manufactured as opposed to more conventionally built housing. Rural counter-urbanizing phenomena and 'exurbanization' require new thinking, uniqueness in theory-building, and creative empiricism to test and confirm.
