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Home in a Can: When Trailers Offered a Compact Version of the American Dream
- vonnik 9y agoThere's an odd moment in Steinbeck's Travels with Charley, his book about a 1960 roadtrip across the US, where he encounters a couple living in a mobile home and sings the praises of it. Modern, mobile, allows the inhabitants the freedom to follow their dreams and the job market. Truly another time. https://schlemielintheory.com/2014/06/18/the-restless-ones-and-uneasy-permanence-steinbeck-on-america-mobile-homes-and-rootlessness/ https://schlemielintheory.com/2014/06/18/the-restless-ones-a...
- philwelch 9y agoTrailer living used to be a lot less stigmatized than it is now. Even as recently as the late 70’s, the officers in “CHiPs” lived in trailers; something you never see heroic television leads do anymore.
- dlbucci 9y agoI think a lot of people who would be satisfied with a small, cheap home such as a trailer. I mean, I felt like I had the space of trailer in my first apartment, but it sure as hell wasn't as cheap. It's just a shame they have such a negative connotation (with pretty good reason).
- mod 9y agoThey've been rebranded "tiny homes" and now they're all the rage. Granted, you are expected to build your own if you want it to be cool, but it has all the hallmarks of a traditional trailer. I'm not knocking tiny homes nor trailers, to be clear. I think they're a great solution for folks wanting to own a home on a budget.
- j2bax 9y agoI’m sure there are a large range of mobile home building quality but the many that I have ever been in have had thin walls and cheap finishes inside. Maybe it’s because of the price point they need to hit for their target market. Most tiny homes I’ve seen have had high quality materials and finishes. Maybe people convert the cost savings of building themselves to building with higher quality materials (for tiny homes). It’s also worth mentioning that most tiny homes I’ve looked at were far lower square footage than a typical mobile home. All this to say tiny homes are not imho rebranded mobile homes. They are a different beast altogether.
- thaumasiotes 9y ago> Maybe people convert the cost savings of building themselves to building with higher quality materials (for tiny homes). Building your own construction project is generally not a cost savings, in the same way that growing your own food is not a cost savings.
- walshemj 9y agoDIY House building can save a lot of money and a higher quality build at least in the uk
- creeble 9y agoTrailer, RV, and mobile home living is experiencing a huge resurgence, largely because of the 10k baby boomers a day entering retirement. Unfortunately, while many of those boomers are just wanting to check out the experience, many have found that their "retirement plans" aren't able to include a regular home. This is partly the subject of this book: Nomadland: Surviving America in the 21st Century http://a.co/htj0AfR http://a.co/htj0AfR
- a3n 9y agoI took one for the team, and clicked. It goes here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/039324931X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_ep_dp_t7NrAbC0JXDVZ https://www.amazon.com/dp/039324931X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_ep_dp_t7... Interesting that the shortened link is http, while the destination is https. Is that usual? Ah, and I just noticed that a.co goes directly to amazon.com, so I suppose it's their own shortner. Of course I didn't know that before I clicked.
- gruez 9y agoit's shortner that adds the poster's affiliate link.
- mikestew 9y agoOr a shortener that hides the referral link, depending on one’s perspective.
- ceejayoz 9y agoThere's no affiliate link in that shortened URL, unless AWS has changed the parameter lately. ref= in an Amazon URL isn't a referral, it's something internal - referrals are all done via a tag= URL param.
- banderman 9y agoYou can also use a URL expander, such as http://urlex.org/ http://urlex.org/
- a3n 9y agoThese days trailer parks are disappearing, because the land is too valuable. I've thought about renting a small trailer in a trailer park, if it saved enough cash, but buying one risks not having anywhere to park it. Times change.
- mlinksva 9y agoLand isn't too valuable, rather there's very little zoned to allow for trailer parks, which can be very dense and thus a great way to use land that's valuable but not so valuable as to support skyscrapers https://oldurbanist.blogspot.com/2014/05/mobile-home-impediments-and.html https://oldurbanist.blogspot.com/2014/05/mobile-home-impedim...
- jpindar 9y agoThat depends on where you are looking... there are at least six parks, and a number of trailers on their own land within a few miles of me (southeast NH).
- cornholio 9y agoTrailer living is stigmatized because it's what poor people can afford. With poverty, come all it's correlated afflictions: substance abuse, limited employment, low education and family planning, lack of role models, each determining the other and trapping multiple generation into the same cycle. I.e "trash" people, those who just don't seem to get ahead. Trailer trash is a largely american stereotype because US had a car-centric culture and early economic development that allowed even the poor to buy an RV, while locking them out of the traditional property market. But the stereotyping is against poor people and it's practiced in any society that values material gain.
- encoderer 9y agoWhat a $300k trailer looks like in Mountain View: https://www.trulia.com/property/5033711929-325-Sylvan-Ave-28-Mountain-View-CA-94041 https://www.trulia.com/property/5033711929-325-Sylvan-Ave-28...
- mythrwy 9y agoYou'll have to be 55+ to buy it though (I think.. it's in a 55+ park).
- SN76477 9y agoWhen I was young living in South Carolina there were the trashy trailer parks, but there were also nice tidy trailer parks for working class families. It was probably a bit nicer than this 30 years ago https://www.google.com/maps/@34.897915,-82.4379351,3a,68y,283.7h,84.57t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sfIfcXKJ22LpGy30RcRlt2w!2e0!7i13312!8i6656 https://www.google.com/maps/@34.897915,-82.4379351,3a,68y,28...
- cglace 9y agoI grew up right down the road from you, Spartanburg, SC.
- SwellJoe 9y agoWeird. I grew up literally walking distance from that spot on the map, in this house: https://goo.gl/maps/d2idrNkE3Zw https://goo.gl/maps/d2idrNkE3Zw At least one of my friends lived in that very mobile home park.
- SwellJoe 9y agoI didn't really do the math when I replied before, but if you lived in or near that mobile home park and were a kid ~30 years ago, we almost certainly went to the same schools at around the same time, which is pretty surreal. I don't really run into many folks from my hometown in nerd circles (or anywhere, really).
- SN76477 9y agoLakeview, probably in '88 I didnt go there long, we moved around a lot when I was a kid.
- SwellJoe 9y agoOK, nope, mine was Berea; same era, though. I knew a girl who lived on Longforest Drive who went to Lakeview, and everyone who lived on Plano Drive went to Berea, so I guess the line was somewhere in between the two. That's wild as hell. Howdy, distant-past-teenage-neighbor.
- Xeoncross 9y agoI built my own trailer, a "tiny home": http://tinyhousemansion.com/ http://tinyhousemansion.com/ I filmed a several how-to videos and put them up on youtube. Not the most economical (cost/resale-wise), but a great experiment and real-world break from full-time programing. My Tiny House is super insulated and energy efficient. The only leaks are from windows. I wrapped the whole thing in rigid foam panels and lifted the metal roof up an inch to keep the roof from ever getting hotter than the ambient air temperature.
- aculver 9y agoJust watched the video on your site and this is by far my favorite Tiny House project I've seen yet. It's the first one I've seen that I felt like I could actually live in that with two kids. Great job! Thanks for taking the time to document the experience and share it with all of us!
- Xeoncross 9y agoThanks, I couldn't have done it without others who shared their ideas. Building energy-efficient, non-toxic homes is important. Many of the ideas I used for this Tiny House I plan on implementing on more traditional housing structures. Regular homes are supper-sloppy when it comes to conserving energy and there is a lot of room for improvement (with little added cost) if the ideas are implemented during the initial construction.
- kingmanaz 9y ago800 through 1000 square foot Aladdin or Sears Roebuck-style kit homes would do far more to affordably beautify the typical America neighbourhood than 1960s style trailer homes replete with turn signals up top and flattened tires chocked below. A visit to the outskirts of the average mid-sized American city will soon cure anyone of nostalgia for trailer-laden communities. IMHO, homes should be smaller and designed by architects rather than efficiency experts and with an eye toward past stylistic precedents (gothic, craftsman, prairie, stick, etc.)
- SwellJoe 9y agoI think about RV/trailer parks a lot, as I live in an RV and travel a lot. It's a really fascinating part of the American experience, and it is pretty uniquely American, as well. There are, of course RVs and trailers and mobile homes in other places, but America's reverance for the "freedom of the road" or whatever gives the whole community around RVs and trailers a different vibe (even compared to Mexico, where a lot of the RV parks are owned by US ex-pats, and Canada). The part I find maybe most interesting, and most troubling, is the way classism plays out even among the set of people that live in RVs. I've noticed a distinct set of phrases rich/white people who travel in RVs use in reviews to describe parks that are inhabited by poor people or people of color, which is a subtle bit of red-lining among RVers. And, this reinforces the division; parks that want good reviews from the wealthy travelers take steps to prevent poor people from staying in their parks. Imposing a trailer age restriction is the most common and most effective; poor folks can't afford a new RV. It's maybe even more pronounced among RVers because the rich ones don't want to be associated with "trailer trash", even though they have a lot in common with them. But, I think the explosion of housing costs have led to an interesting shakeup in the market. RV manufacturers that historically targeted the high end, where retirees would sell their house (or use the equity in their house) to buy a monster luxury motorhome, a few years ago started making lower end trailers again. Winnebago even makes trailers again, which they didn't do for a couple of decades. There's also a strong bit of nostalgia in the market that's somewhat new. Manufacturers are looking backward for design ideas; partly to make low-cost options again, and partly because the industry got lost in the woods for a long time just making the biggest and most expensive thing they could because that's where the money was. I'm pleased to see the change because old RVs were often beautiful or charming in ways that modern fiberglass rectangle boxes distinctly are not. One thing I've also noticed: RV park prices in major cities have gone through the roof, while availability has gone way down, in the ~9 years I've been traveling. I used to be able to arrive in a city and get a spot in a park within a reasonable distance, without a reservation. No longer is that true. Austin is maybe the most pronounced difference. It was always a favorite landing place for me because it's a major city with a couple of RV parks in easy biking distance to downtown. Those parks have doubled their rent and have months-long waiting lists now. It's not as pleasant to travel in an RV as it once was, even just a few years ago, if you like visiting bigger cities. And, I think that's because so many people have been pushed out of houses/apartments and into RVs. That's an alarming trend, I think.
- bungie4 9y agoTechnology needs to be refocused into making homes more affordable to the working class instead of creating more profitable McMansions.
- naskwo 9y agohttp://kipcaravans.nl/en/model/kip-shelter/ http://kipcaravans.nl/en/model/kip-shelter/ This has been a staple of Dutch stereotypes for decades.
- hasbot 9y agoMany of the active outdoors people I know (mostly mountain bikers) are superkeen on converted Sprinter vans. I think as more active boomers retire, there will be a resurgence of small RVs.
- chiph 9y agoWinnebago just introduced a new model - the Revel - for people looking to travel/live like this. I'm not sure how Winnebago is getting enough 4x4 Sprinters to build them, as Mercedes apparently wasn't prepared for how many of them Americans are buying. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOQzZo00kYw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOQzZo00kYw I don't really care for the floorplan, but the concept is attractive - being able to travel off the beaten path, irregardless of the weather conditions.
- RickJWag 9y agoCan't have a conversation about trailers without mentioning James Carville's famous double-wammy. "Drag a hundred-dollar bill through a trailer park, you never know what you'll find." With that one quote, he smeared one of the victims of Bill Clinton's predatory sexual attacks AND insulted low-income Americans. https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/James_Carville https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/James_Carville