DWELL Magazine re-evaluates "Trailer Parks"

For decades, trailer parks have been increasingly marginalized to a strict set of stereotypes. They might gleam as well-manicured retirement communities to some, but in their most iconic state they are perceived as the province of the unfortunate. The question of whether design can save or even improve trailer parks is preempted almost immediately by “Why bother?”

The latter question is easier to answer. Allan Wallis, author of Wheel Estate: The Rise and Decline of Mobile Homes and an authority on regional housing, calls trailer parks an undervalued, endangered resource. “Hundreds of thousands of living spaces” have been zoned out of existence, Wallis says, warning that “we are losing a certain niche in the housing market that the market left on its own would not really replace.” Trailer parks, he explains, put workforce housing where communities desperately need it. Drive these inhabitants to suburbia’s outer rings, and freeways get clogged while households become severely strained by car and gas payments. Wallis welcomes innovative design: Trailer parks could use a face-lift. “You need to create a visually attractive package,” he says. “I would ask the designers of the iPod, ‘Could you do that for a mobile home?’”

For the rest of the story go to: http://www.dwell.com/articles/upwardly-mobile-homes.html