Why do so many Americans live in mobile homes? pg3
Continued.......,
....It's inevitable that a world largely hidden from view would suffer from misconceptions, says John Fraser Hart, co-author of The Unknown World of the Mobile Home, but they are nicer and more spacious than people realise. He thinks their image as dens of sex, crime and hard drinking is partly due to television.
The Canadian series Trailer Park Boys is one example, and in films like Boys Don't Cry, bad things happen in these places, which aren't just on the edge of town, they're on the edge of civilisation. This seedy image has been further enhanced by depictions in pulp fiction novels.
And such negative representations are expressed in one insulting term - "trailer trash". But interestingly, some of the residents at Oak Haven think there's some truth in the stereotype.
"A lot of the trailer parks, there's a lot of trouble, they're so cramped together, and you have a lot of low income people moving into trailers," says John Dimmick, who has recently moved into a rented mobile home with his partner Sue and their terrier Wilbert.
"With that comes other problems. They don't want to maintain their properties. That's where the term trailer trash comes from. But we don't consider that [applies] here, this is just like a park.
....It's inevitable that a world largely hidden from view would suffer from misconceptions, says John Fraser Hart, co-author of The Unknown World of the Mobile Home, but they are nicer and more spacious than people realise. He thinks their image as dens of sex, crime and hard drinking is partly due to television.
The Canadian series Trailer Park Boys is one example, and in films like Boys Don't Cry, bad things happen in these places, which aren't just on the edge of town, they're on the edge of civilisation. This seedy image has been further enhanced by depictions in pulp fiction novels.
And such negative representations are expressed in one insulting term - "trailer trash". But interestingly, some of the residents at Oak Haven think there's some truth in the stereotype.
"A lot of the trailer parks, there's a lot of trouble, they're so cramped together, and you have a lot of low income people moving into trailers," says John Dimmick, who has recently moved into a rented mobile home with his partner Sue and their terrier Wilbert.
"With that comes other problems. They don't want to maintain their properties. That's where the term trailer trash comes from. But we don't consider that [applies] here, this is just like a park.
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