Henry Ford believed that a growing industrial economy required more than transportation. It required affordable, dependable homes that could be built at scale.
In the winter of 1919, he walked through one of the least-remembered experiments of his career: a row of compact, factory-produced houses built for workers near his Michigan operations. Ford had already mastered the automobile assembly line. Now he wanted to apply the same discipline to housing. His engineers delivered standardized wall panels and pre-cut components by rail; workers assembled entire homes in days, not months.
The project never became the next Model T. However, it revealed a recurring theme in American economic history: when population growth outpaces traditional construction, the country turns to efficient, standardized homes and community-scale development. Whether driven by industrial expansion, wartime mobilization, or large-scale migration, small-footprint housing has repeatedly served as the backbone of new regional growth.
Nowhere is this more relevant today than in the Southeast, where manufactured housing is re-emerging to address the lack of affordable housing, especially for our aging population.
A Familiar Pattern
Ford’s effort was no anomaly. Throughout the 20th century, policymakers, industries, and local communities relied on modest, quickly deployable homes to support economic development.
The TVA Settlements
As the Tennessee Valley Authority electrified the rural South in the 1930s and 1940s, the agency needed to house thousands of workers near remote dam sites. It turned to semi-prefabricated homes, which were simple, durable, and fast to install. These small-footprint neighborhoods helped anchor communities that remain in Alabama, Tennessee, and North Carolina, among other states.
Wartime Housing Communities
During World War II, shipyards and military supply plants across Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, and Florida required substantial labor migration. The federal government responded by constructing entire worker villages using factory-built homes. These communities offered stable, efficient, and predictable boarding solutions during a period of rapid, dislocating change. Cities like Mobile, AL, and Savannah, Georgia, were two such locales that benefited from the sudden influx of people.
Company-Supported Towns
Pullman, Hershey, and Kaiser all relied on compact, standardized homes to house the workforces of these legendary brands that contributed to America’s industrial growth. While these towns varied in design and management, they shared a common problem: high-growth regions needed accessible, efficient homes to sustain economic momentum.
Today’s “Tiny Home” communities build on a construction tradition begun over 100 years ago, enabling low-cost communities to be established using smaller structural footprints.
The Southeast In Focus
The same dynamics that formed company towns now are accelerating across the Southeastern United States, helping regions to absorb population and sustain economic expansion. Migration to the South in the 2010s-2020s was driven by affordability, lower home prices, lower taxes, or lower cost of living. But the rise in post-pandemic housing costs has dampened the demand for traditional housing. Demographic trends, such as the rapid growth of single-person households and the number of Baby Boomers expected to downsize over the coming decade, are generating increased demand for MHCs.
Population in-migration, employer expansion, and rising construction costs have combined to create a structural housing deficit across the Carolinas, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, and Tennessee. New residents, working families, retirees, and mobile employees continue to arrive faster than conventional single-family or multifamily construction can respond.
Manufactured home communities represent the updated version of this trend. Land-lease community structures allow residents to own their homes while paying modest site rents with relatively predictable terms. Factory-built homes now meet strict federal construction standards with professional operators providing community management, infrastructure maintenance, and long-term stability.
The Next Chapter
Economic growth requires affordable housing where people want or need to live. Ford’s early housing experiments met the needs at the time by building housing near factories.
The Southeast, which continues to experience immigration and industrial investment, faces a shortage of affordable homes similar to factory towns of old. For real estate investors increasingly attracted to manufactured housing, they can participate in this historical asset class, with its lower construction costs, low turnover, and higher occupancy rates, which often can translate to positive risk-adjusted returns.
