Trailer Park

A trailer park is a semi-permanent or permanent area for mobile homes or travel trailers. The main reasons for living in such trailer parks are the often lower cost compared to other housing, and the ability to move to a new area more quickly and easily, for example when changing jobs to another part of the country taking the mobile home/trailer with them. Ironically, this type of housing is very profitable for the manufacturers.

Trailer parks, especially in American culture, are stereotypically viewed as lower income housing whose occupants live at or below the poverty line, have low social status and lead a desultory and deleterious lifestyle. Despite the advances in trailer home technology, the trailer park image survives, as evoked by a statement from Presidential adviser James Carville who, in the course of one of the Bill Clinton White House political scandals, suggested "Drag $100 bills through trailer parks, there's no telling what you'll find"," in reference to Paula Jones. It is also seen in the Canadian mockumentary Trailer Park Boys.

Tornadoes and hurricanes often inflict serious damage on trailer parks, usually because the structures are not secured to the ground and their construction is significantly less able to withstand high wind forces than regular houses. However, most modern manufactured homes are built to withstand high winds as well as a mainstream home, using hurricane straps and proper foundations.