This is a case study about policy responses to a specific form of gentrification at the urban fringe: the closure of manufactured home parks in Oregon.The study analyzes the following research questions: (a) What factors affected the quantity and distribution of manufactured home parks? (b) Why did parks close? (c) How did the state legislature respond and why? (d) What are the likely impacts of the state response? A wide variety of sources (e.g., key informant interviews, observations of meetings and public hearings, focus groups of park residents, archival materials and secondary data about manufactured home parks) are employed to investigate a phenomenon imbedded in its context.Parks subject to development pressures, as evidenced by their location in an area experiencing population growth and within an Urban Growth Boundary, were significantly more likely to close than other parks. Manufactured home parks were replaced by compact, mixed-use development in urban or urbanizing areas--smart growth. Based on this evidence, this study concludes that gentrification, in the form of park closures, is integral to Oregon's process of metropolitan restructuring.In the wake of mounting publicity about park closures, the 2007 Oregon legislature adopted legislation that supported two ameliorating strategies: (a) reduce the harm caused to displaced manufactured homeowners through financial assistance, and (b) preserve parks where possible through enabling resident purchases from willing sellers. Who pays for the costs of this legislative package and preemption of local ordinances were the most contested issues.This research is one of the first to analyze gentrification in urban fringe areas. To understand the economic dynamics, it applies rent gap theory to the special case of divided asset ownership. It explores the likely efficacy of two types of policy remedies. Finally, by establishing park closures as a form of gentrification related to metropolitan restructuring, this case study raises the question of whether policies could support a kind of metropolitan restructuring that does not take the toll on people and places exacted by gentrification.

Au croisement de la sociologie des classes populaires et de la sociologie urbaine et du logement, cette thèse porte sur l’une des formes de logements non ordinaires qui a connu un développement massif en France dans les territoires ruraux et périurbains au cours de ces dernières années : le camping résidentiel. Combinant immersion ethnographique dans plusieurs campings de la région parisienne, entretiens, archives et statistiques, elle montre l’existence d’une véritable stratification interne à cet habitat, eu égard à l’hétérogénéité des situations résidentielles, des trajectoires, des ressources, des expériences et des styles de vie des habitants. Le camping résidentiel est de fait apparu comme remplissant trois grandes fonctions sociales segmentant la population qui le pratique : il peut représenter une alternative à la maison individuelle inaccessible, figurer un déclassement subjectif et objectif ou encore s’apparenter à une solution qui pallie la pénurie de logement abordable et évite le dénuement extrême de la rue. Inscrite dans une approche à la fois contextualiste et dispositionnaliste des manières d’habiter, la thèse rapporte ces trois fonctions du camping – qui constituent également trois styles de vie distincts – aux caractéristiques particulières de cette forme d’habitat non ordinaire mais aussi à des ressources, des trajectoires et des socialisations résidentielles différentes articulées à des dispositions populaires relativement homogènes. Elle identifie enfin les causes, les dynamiques et les conséquences des pratiques de délogement en documentant « de l’intérieur » un cas de fermeture de terrain de camping, exemple de concrétisation du risque associé au statut juridique de cet habitat. / This thesis finds itself at the intersection of the sociology of the working classes and urban sociology, with a special interest in housing. It focuses on one of the forms of non-ordinary housing that has seen massive development in France in recent years: residential camping. Combining an ethnographic immersion in several campsites in the Paris region, interviews, archives and statistics, it shows the existence of a real internal stratification within this habitat, taking into account the heterogeneity of residential situations, trajectories, resources, experiences and lifestyles of the inhabitants. Residential camping has in fact emerged as fulfilling three major social functions which segment the population that practices it: it may represent an alternative to the inaccessible single-family home, or stand as a subjective and objective downgrading or even be a solution that makes up for the shortage of affordable housing, thus preventing the extreme destitution of living in the streets. Illustrating a dispositionalist-contextualist approach to ways of living, the thesis connects these three functions of camping - which also constitute three distinct lifestyles - with the particular characteristics of this unusual form of housing. It also links it to different resources, trajectories and forms of residential socialisation corresponding to relatively homogeneous popular dispositions. Finally, it identifies the causes, dynamics and consequences of eviction practices by documenting "from the inside" the case of a campground closure, an example of the risk involved in the legal status of this habitat.

A new nomad society is colonizing the desert landscape of the American Southwest. It is a leaderless seasonal swarm, dispersed but densely connected socially, able to form and disband agile urban communities the size of large American cities. It consists of highway bound leisure hunters driving extremely wasteful vehicles that while parked are able form a dense and resilient pioneer society. They are predominantly retired and constructing a new American dream, an informal utopia created from potlucks, social media, satellite dishes and mobile homes. This frontier society of urban flexibilization, decentralization and total urbanization is a product of the complexity and uncertainties of cities being amplified by technological and social disruption, climate change and economic crises. In a mobile future, informal and temporary uses will be important drivers of development and the urban periphery a breeding ground for new forms of urbanism. How do we govern, plan for and understand this development? The nomad cities are poorly documented and understood, especially in academia. With this thesis I aim to change that. I have conducted extensive field studies, including both quantitative mapping and semi-structured qualitative interviews. The data has been analyzed using a theoretical framework consisting of network theory of Castells, spatial analysis ideas of Lefebvre, Venturi, Friedman, Deleuze and Guattari, and social theories of Bourdieu, Foucault and Standing among others. The basic building block of the nomad city are recreational vehicles (RVs); trailers, motorhomes and camper vans. The RV is in itself a hybrid phenomenon that embodies conflicting ideals of the American society: total freedom of movement, the reinvention of the self on the frontier and the American dream. It is both individualistic and community based, and it’s urban forms are highly adaptable to societal changes, mirroring society’s development as well as the changing landscape it inhabits. It recreates itself and revises its citizens’ common habitus with every iteration. The RV world contains multiple layers of meaning for our increasingly urbanized society. It is a frontier for the expansion of exurbia and a physical manifestations of the network society. It creates small initiatives that create ripple effects and thereby a transformation of the urban fabric. To encourage these practices the role of planning needs to be revised. It should not primarily be to decide what is built but to enable the emerging practices that are there. Instead of presenting a grand plan we should allow a multitude of bottom up processes to lead development. In the words of Cedric Price: “The primary aim of planning is not to specify an ideal state but to open up to new possibilities”.