While I enjoyed the photos and history lesson, some of the statements in the accompanying text show a serious and fatal lack of investigative reporting. While not outright wrong, they lead the reader to the absolutely wrong conclusion. For example:

Since it is a house on wheels, it can also be towed away. This is a key advantage, for although most mobile homes stay put, their movability means that house lots can be leased rather than bought, which brings down the cost of ownership.

This ludicrous statement is factually accurate, but wrong. While the houses CAN be towed away, the vast, overwhelming majority are towed away solely to the dump. I've yet to meet a mobile home owner who has moved his house from one lot to another. Because the lots are leased, rather than purchased, the home owner is at the mercy of his lot owner, generally a mobile home park. Rents can and are raised and the fact the house will unlikely survive a move, holds the home owner hostage to the increases. Many parks do not allow used homes to be brought in, so even if the house were to survive the move, they are few places to go. Worse, the cost of disassembly and re-connection often exceeds that of a newly purchased home. The so-called benefit here turns out to be the greatest burden. While the association with the poor doesn't help these homes image, the serious impractical nature of them is the fatal blow. Only under the most desperate of circumstances is this a viable way to own a home.

Another canard is:

since everything is precut, there is less waste

referring to the partial prefabrication. While there may well be less waste on site, the amount of waste is independent of the location where the items are cut. The waste is simply left behind at the factory floor. The materials come in standard sizes. When one cuts a 4' x 8' sheet of plywood down to 3.73" x 7.5", the amount of waste is the same wherever the cut takes place.

There have been successful modern design;, the Eichler, is a good example. As far as I know, they are still building homes and the homes have maintained a cache. The ones built today are different from the famous ones of the 60s and 60s, but they are descendants.

In regards to mobile homes, I thought photo array unfairly perpetuated the negative stereotype of manufactured housing as cheap and unattractive. The 'photojournalist' needs to get out and look at modern manufactured housing.

While they probably would never win awards for design, mobile homes haven't been metal roofed/sided tubes with cheap wood-look paneling for many years. The modern mobile has textured, plaster based wall board, plastered ceilings, open & airy designs, decent full sized appliances and large functional kitchens, energy efficiency, as well as vinyl siding and REAL shingled roofs. My last mobile was 1800 square feet on an acre and a half of property--it didn't lose value. Properly sited manufactured housing is virtually indistiquishable from site built.

Mobiles on property are a valid alternative to expensive, oversized stick built houses, financial over extension, and subprime lending. It allows lower middle class families the chance to have a piece of the American dream without breaking the bank