Singlewide: Chasing the American Dream in a Rural Trailer Park

by Sonya Salamon, Katherine Mactavish

In Singlewide, Sonya Salamon and Katherine MacTavish explore the role of the trailer park as a source of affordable housing. America's trailer parks, most in rural places, shelter an estimated 12 million people, and the authors show how these parks serve as a private solution to a pressing public need. Singlewide considers the circumstances of families with school-age children in trailer parks serving whites in Illinois, Hispanics in New Mexico, and African Americans in North Carolina. By looking carefully at the daily lives of families who live side by side in rows of manufactured homes, Salamon and MacTavish draw conclusions about the importance of housing, community, and location in the families' dreams of opportunities and success as signified by eventually owning land and a conventional home.

Working-poor rural families who engage with what Salamon and MacTavish call the "mobile home industrial complex" may become caught in an expensive trap starting with their purchase of a mobile home. A family that must site its trailer in a land-lease trailer park struggles to realize any of the anticipated benefits of homeownership. Seeking to break down stereotypes, Salamon and MacTavish reveal the important place that trailer parks hold within the United States national experience. In so doing, they attempt to integrate and normalize a way of life that many see as outside the mainstream, suggesting that families who live in trailer parks, rather than being "trailer trash," culturally resemble the parks' neighbors who live in conventional homes.

Genres: Sociology, Nonfiction

282 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 2017

Reviews

[Julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was interested in learning information about populations that reside in trailer parks as I know little to nothing about the topic. I had thought this would be more of a narrative non-fiction read, but it’s essentially a 200 page academic paper depicting the methodology and findings of a large scale study on hundreds of residents in large trailer parks in 3 states. The information was in general what I was looking for, and did a good job dispelling a lot of the myths and stereotypes about who lives in these parks, but it was presented pretty dryly. This is less for the general reading public and more for sociology/town planning college classes.

[Russell Watson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book starts out with a good overview of the manufactured home industry. The lives of residents in three very different parks are used to illustrate the issues faced in land-lease parks. I found the contrast between areas and their acceptance of manufactured home communities quite interesting. Also, the effects experienced by youth growing up in this environment. The book closes with a look at what might be improved.

[RYAN PHAM · Rating 4 out of 5]

So mobile homes are sort of ăn affordable housing stock that allows people not to fall into homelessness after disruptive events like a death in the family or divorce. Since it is affordable housing, the people there are generally seen as slow learners, dysfunctional, and poor, since often times mobile homes are the only housing stock accessible tô working class people

[Gwen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting; definitely and academic read. The New mexico location was clearly Socorro, although I'm not sure about the others. Anyone know where in Illinois the researchers worked?

[Lora Elliott · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book definitely falls on the more academic end of non-fiction writing, which made it a little hard to get through at times. I am fairly glad I stayed the course, though, since I was rewarded with a comprehensive overview of the history of manufacture housing, and frank discussions on the affects manufactured home parks have on the residents who live in them. And realistically, this book isn't about manufactured homes so much as it is about the communities formed by those who live in manufactured homes. I appreciate its focus on parks in rural communities, which is an area often overlooked in academia.

Despite its thoroughness, the authors did not shy away from letting their opinions about manufactured housing show through their writing, specifically with regards to the safety of the homes and their disdain for most people who make money off people who live in manufactured housing.

Overall, however, it was a fair assessment of manufactured housing, comprehensive and grounded in the reality faced by the people who live in these homes.