Trailer park

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For Trailer Park, Inc, see Trailer Park, Inc.

For the Beth Orton album, see Trailer Park (album).

For the TV show, see Trailer Park Boys.

Trailer park

A trailer park is a neighborhood consisting of an area of land where travel trailers rest. The term may also be used in a derogatory manner to refer to mobile home parks or manufactured home communities.

In the United States, tornadoes and hurricanes often inflict their worst 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, using hurricane straps and proper foundations.

In some countries living in a trailer is the cheapest independent living accommodation, only a step above homelessness. As a result many stereotypes have developed regarding people who live in trailer parks, which are similar to stereotypes of the poor or people espousing certain political beliefs in general. On the other hand, it has become more socially acceptable in recent years to live in a trailer park. Substantial improvements in the size and amenities of trailers and other recreational vehicles, together with the development of the internet, have made a semi-nomadic lifestyle more popular among retirees, writers, consultants and others whose income is not dependent on a fixed location. The increased popularity of these vehicles for recreational use has also led to the improvement of many of the parks themselves.

In Europe, particularly in Germany and Spain, there are several trailer parks on squatted land in the midst of urban centres (Berlin, Hamburg, Barcelona). They are commonly known as Wagenburg, Wagendorf or Bauwagenplatz and people living there are often associated with the punk movement and DIY punk ethic.

In first world nations, the existence of trailer parks as long-term housing is usually indicative of a serious systemic failure of housing development policy, since the short term price benefits to governments of not providing adequate shelter are more than made up for by expensive consequences including generational poverty, crime, alienation and isolation.