In 2022, mobile home park residents in Durango, Colorado, fought to keep their community from being purchased by an out-of-state corporate owner. The Westside Mobile Home Park had been Alejandra Chavez's home since she arrived from Mexico at 12 years old. In the fight to help her community, Chavez was caught between an instinct to keep a low profile and the need for her leadership.
In this episode of The Magic City of the Southwest, we tell the story of one immigrant neighborhood's struggle to belong in a city with diminishing housing options for working-class people. Along the way, we go down the rabbit hole of mobile home park investment and explore the psychic landscape of manufactured housing.
Hosted by Kirbie Bennett & Jamie Wanzek
Produced by Magic City Studios (Adam Burke, Kirbie Bennett & Jamie Wanzek)
Original score by Adam Burke
Additional Music:
History is under our feet and all around us. Old buildings, streets, statues and signs. We drive by remnants of the past every day,...
In the 1950's residents living along the Piedra and San Juan Rivers in southern Colorado and northern New Mexico learned that their communities would...
In 1881, an artist from New York visited Southwest Colorado when he created a print called "The Magic City of the Southwest." To the...
