Singlewide

Sonya Salamon, Katherine MacTavish

Description

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.

Sujets

• Sociologie, société et politique
• Types of rural communities

Informations

• Publié par: Cornell University Press
• Date de parution: 15 octobre 2017
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781501709685
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 6 Mo

Extrait

SINGLEWIDE

SINGLEWIDE ChasingtheAmericanDream in a Rural Trailer Park

CORNELLUNIVERSITYPRESS

SonyaSalamonand Katherine MacTavish

ITHACA AND LONDON

Copyright © 2017 by Cornell University Allrightsreserved.Exceptforbriefquotationsinareview,thisbook,orparts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850.

Firstpublished2017byCornellUniversityPress Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data Names: Salamon, Sonya, author. | MacTavish, Katherine, date, author. Title:Singlewide:chasingtheAmericandreaminaruraltrailerpark/Sonya Salamon and Katherine MacTavish. Description:Ithaca:CornellUniversityPress,2017.|Includesbibliographical references and index. Identifiers:LCCN2017007546(print)|LCCN2017008749(ebook)| ISBN 9781501713217 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781501713224 (pbk : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781501712326 (epub/mobi) | ISBN 9781501709685 (pdf) Subjects:LCSH:Mobilehomeliving—UnitedStates.|Mobilehomeparks— United States. | Rural poor—Housing—United States. | Housing, Rural— United States. | United States—Rural conditions. Classification:LCCHD7289.62.U6S362017(print)|LCCHD7289.62.U6(ebook)| DDC 333.33/8—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017007546 CornellUniversityPressstrivestouseenvironmentallyresponsiblesuppliers and materials to the fullest extent possible in the publishing of its books. Such materials include vegetablebased, lowVOC inks and acidfree papers that are recycled, totally chlorinefree, or partly composed of nonwood fibers. For further information, visit our website at cornellpress.cornell.edu.

For my sons, David and Aaron, and For my sister, Carla Blank, my loyal cheerleader —Sonya Salamon

For my father, Cameron J. Mactavish (1932–2016), who got me in the starting gate. Miles down the road, I am here. —Katherine MacTavish

Contents

Introduction:GalvanizedGhettos?

Par t 1MOBILE IN A RURAL TRAILER PARK GOING 1.  The Mobile Home Industrial Complex 2.  Making Ends Meet: Park Family Finances

Par t 2 CHASING A HOUSING DREAM ACROSS THREE RURAL REGIONS 3.  The Illinois Park: Closer to Middle Class 4. The North Carolina Parks: Near Ties That Bind of Kin and Church 5.  The New Mexico Parks: Rooted in Place

Par t 3 IS THE HOUSING DREAM REALIZED BY TRAILERPARK FAMILIES? 6.  Youth and TrailerPark Life 7.  Reforming the Mobile Home Industrial Complex

Conclusion:FamilyDreamsandTrailerParkRealities

Acknowledgments AppendixA:TheStudy,Methods,andSample AppendixB:NorthCarolinaandNewMexicoPark  Population Details Notes Bibliography Index

1

13

41

63

93

123

147

173

185

201 205

223 229 245 267

SINGLEWIDE