Understanding Informal Housing in the Mississippi Delta: Lessons from Latin American Informal Settlements

Abstract

Housing informality in the United States has received relatively limited attention, except for the southern border Colonias. Recent literature shows a growing number of informal housing practices in the U.S., highlighting its distinctive characteristics that in some cases result from informal subdivision of land, housing non-compliant building codes, lack of building code reinforcement, or hybridized forms of informal housing with formal land ownership. This essay aims to explore and challenge the ways in which informal housing is studied in the U.S. Exploring case studies of informal housing in rural America, specifically in the Mississippi Delta, this essay challenges common assumptions among academics and practitioners that informal housing practices are issues that only affect metropolitan cities in the Global South. As a result of socio-economic inequalities, barriers to affordable housing, and a lack of enforcement of building codes and zoning regulations, informal housing practices using manufactured mobile homes and accessory dwelling structures in the form of “sheds” spaces are examples of affordable housing solutions in the Mississippi Delta. The study of informal dwelling structures in the Mississippi Delta unveils the complexities and multidimensional aspects of housing informality present in many American cities and rural towns, and how informal structures are utilized to accommodate habitable spaces and small business enterprises. Finally, drawing on successful and failed experiences of architectural interventions on informal housing in Latin America, this essay aims to contribute to the current international debate on informal housing.KeywordsInformalityRuralMississippi DeltaHousingTypology