Fulkerson & Thomas: Rural America’s Housing Vacancy Problem
In America’s Empty Homes: The Overlooked Rural and Nonmetropolitan Housing Vacancy Problem, Gregory M. Fulkerson and Alex R. Thomas (both PLACES Institute, SUNY Oneonta) examine housing vacancy across rural and nonmetropolitan areas of the United States. They focus on patterns of “structural housing vacancy,” meaning vacant housing units excluding those designated for seasonal, recreational, or occasional use. The study uses various factors like socioeconomic conditions, demographic characteristics, rurality and remoteness, and regional contexts to advance a more geographically nuanced understanding of housing vacancy in the US.
Fulkerson and Thomas start by reviewing the existing studies on housing vacancy, emphasizing that much of the literature focuses on metropolitan areas and measures vacancy using absolute counts of vacant units. By doing so, those studies place metropolitan areas at the forefront of the housing vacancy conversation. The authors argue, however, that treating all vacant housing units as equivalent obscures structural processes of disinvestment and risks mischaracterizing the nature of housing distress across regions, leading to policy interventions that are poorly matched to the local conditions. By contrast, this study places housing vacancy within broader processes of demographic change, economic restructuring, population decline, and migration.
The authors examine the effects of factors like income, housing value, age, rurality, and regional location on vacancy rates. Their findings indicate that structural vacancy is strongly associated with lower median incomes, lower housing values, and greater rural remoteness. The highest levels of structural vacancy are concentrated in regions like Appalachia, the Mississippi Delta, the Black Belt, and portions of the Great Plains. On the other hand, seasonal vacancy is concentrated in areas with natural amenities and retirement migration, which includes parts of New England and the Upper Midwest.
The study’s results suggest that structural vacancy is strongly associated with economic disadvantage, weaker housing markets, rural remoteness, and regional context, whereas seasonal vacancy is reflective of amenity-driven dynamics that are tied to aging populations, retirement migration, and second-home ownership. The authors conclude that structural and seasonal vacancy represent distinct housing processes. They call for wider recognition of rural vacancy as a significant aspect of the American housing system and for policies that address the structural problems driving housing inequity.
