Why is that whenever residents of mobile homes and trailer parks appear on television (scripted or not) is seems as though they always have family members “just a few trailers away” or nearby?
Is there a reason why members of the same family would want to live in such close proximity to one another? Is this an actual occurrence or just stereotyping? Does the way ownership is structured somehow incentivize living close?
7 comments
It’s a plot point. It’s convenient to the story to have those family members live close by.
Those family members in the show are all poor or barely getting by. They can’t afford to live elsewhere and don’t want to live together, so they live next to each other at a trailer park.
Trailer parks aren’t that common in towns so if you can only afford to live in a trailer park, you’re living in one close to others, or you’ll find one in another town though that’s expensive to move across town.
Generally speaking, TV is not like real life.
In this case, family members usually do not live in the same trailer park. Trailer park living is not as common as TV makes it seem, and it’s also generally considered not desirable as you’re normally paying rent on the land your trailer sits on, so generational trailer families aren’t really a thing.
1) People who live in trailer parks tend to not come from affluent families. IE, trailer parks tend to be populated by poor people.
2) Poor families tend to NOT be able to move all over the place as nobody pays relocation for the low wage jobs that such people have. This means that the entire family probably lives within 10 miles of each other.
My grandmother, aunt and Mom all live in the same senior mobile home park. They are close and all take care of each other, and they were cheap purchases.
It’s relatively common at least where I live for lower income people, if they have a parent or willing relative, to move a trailer home onto their property. Say mom and dad own a little bit of land. Bobby gets married and brings in a trailer basically lives for free. I know several instances where there are numerous family members living in trailers or on a single property.
Part of it is just affordability and I think part of it is living together they got each others backs. There are usually a lot of barking dogs on those types of properties as well.
Trailer parks are typically in poor rural places. The kinds of places people just remain. A small town may have the one trailer park, those who are poorest all end up living there. And the mechanisms that trailers get sold or get new tenants is going to be unsophisticated, word of mouth type transactions in many cases.
There’s a really insightful [documentary](https://www.netflix.com/title/70153385) on the subject that might offer some clarification