Rural Housing, Exurbanization, and Amenity-Driven Development: Contrasting the “Haves” and the “Have Nots,” edited by David Marcouiller, Mark Lapping, and Owen Furuseth
本书通过多篇论文，对比美国农村社区中因便利设施驱动的“有产者”与贫困的“无产者”在住房上的不同挑战，并探讨相关政策如何应对这些差异。
Rural Housing, Exurbanization, and Amenity-Driven Development: Contrasting the “Haves” and the “Have Nots,” edited by David Marcouiller, Mark Lapping, and Owen Furuseth . 2011 . Series: Perspectives on Rural Policy and Planning . Aldershot , U. K. and Burlington, Vermont : Ashgate . 280 + xx . ISBN 978-0-7546-7050-6, $99.95 . This collection of essays provides a look into the breadth of unique housing challenges experienced by rural communities in the United States. By shining a light on problems and policies in a time of social and economic change, the authors provide the language for discussing solutions. The editors have divided the essays into four well-focused sections: the context of twenty-first century rural housing; rural “haves,” in the sense of having amenity-driven housing; rural housing “have-nots”; and policies that will effect change in rural housing. The organization reminds readers that while rural housing issues are different from urban housing issues, rural communities also differ from each other in a number of ways. Different types of rural communities face unique challenges that cannot be addressed simply by dichotomizing rural and urban. The concluding chapters place particular emphasis on directing federal funding to local organizations familiar with the concerns of the populations they serve. In the introductory chapter, the three editors introduce three rural Americas, as described by Cynthia “Mil”Duncan (2007): amenity rich areas, declining areas, and chronically poor areas. In chapter 9, Sally Ward further describes this valuable typology for understanding the varying development of rural housing structure, which is used by the Carsey Institute (at University of New Hampshire). The editors reduce these distinctions to the haves and have-nots. Other contributors elaborate amenity-driven development of the haves with essays discussing tourism, natural resources, and the rural rich. One topic is the exurbanization process for second homes throughout the developed world. Few rural counties in the United States report growth; those amenity-rich counties that do experience growth often attract retirees and second-home owners, which increases class conflict between what the editors, in the concluding chapter, term the “served” and the “servants” (p. 274). Rural elderly choose either to age in place or to migrate. While inmigration of the elderly may improve a rural economy, it can also strain community medical centers, public transportation, and other services, and therefore a chapter (by Bradley Nash Jr., W. Edward Folts, and Kenneth Muir) is devoted to a discussion of elderly populations in rural areas. Understanding the twenty-first century context requires distinguishing rural from urban, but also understanding how exurbanization has affected the rural housing market. Exurbanization is a cyclical phenomenon in rural America, and the leading mode of land development nationwide. Adrian Esparza presents a conceptual model of exurbanization. He states that while rural housing shows societal, economic, racial/ethnic, and class differences from suburban and urban markets, it also ensures an added layer of complexity when environmental impacts are considered. His conceptual model demonstrates how spillovers and counterurbanization often drive development beyond metropolitan borders. Other authors present more on the ins and outs of affordability, habitability, and other concerns in rural locales. The section of the book devoted to the rural have-nots continues the dialogue of persistent poverty, current foreclosures for working poor, and alternative definitions of homelessness. Ann Ziebarth's essay centers on homeownership for working poor households. Using data from the American Housing Survey, she illustrates how housing affordability has decreased, as a greater proportion of working poor families have become housing cost-burdened, in part due to increasing numbers of subprime mortgages that have put rural borrowers at risk. Ziebarth goes on to hypothesize that working families have elected to move to the urban fringe in search of affordable housing. She emphasizes the benefits of ownership: regardless of cost burdens, “the majority of working poor homeowners rated the quality of their unit as a place to live extremely highly” (p. 185). Given that multifamily housing accounts for only a small fraction of all rural housing, this discussion of homeownership is highly relevant. Other chapters give attention to “doubling up” strategies to make ends meet. Policies must address the have and have-nots in the twenty-first century. Robert Wiener and Char Kaslow Thompson provide a typology of organizations addressing rural housing needs that distinguishes the characteristics and strategies of rural nonprofits from urban and suburban ones. Weiner and Thompson emphasize the utility of local nonprofits in providing solutions to rural housing problems. Their wish list for rural nonprofits includes federal commitment to programs offering direct loans and grant programs. The have-not communities need home construction, rehabilitation, rental housing and assistance, while even the amenity-driven communities may lack strong water and sewer systems in addition to capacity-building infrastructures. The authors’ conclusion highlights the importance of distribution of federal housing funds to local intermediaries that allows for program flexibility of nonprofits to tailor activities to best meet local needs. Given that we lack a single source that provides a comprehensive assessment spanning rural housing issues in the developed world, we have needed a volume like this one for some time. Developing a shared language with which to discuss rural housing problems is extremely important when much of housing policy has been defined by urbanormativecontexts. The editors note, “Rural housing tends to serve as a visible proxy for underlying economic disparities that exist across rural America” (p. 275). While rural places are haves and have-nots in varying degrees, there are common categories, defined in this book, which will make conversations surrounding this topic more meaningful. I strongly recommend the book for academic libraries.