A friend and I were talking about this the other day, and I kind of laughed it off at the time. But the more I think about it, the more curious I get... Do countries other than the USA have Trailer Parks? It seems so... American to me. I just have a hard time visualizing a trailer park in the middle of Paris.
There are mobile home parks in Canada as well. Might be a North American thing. I haven't seen any in my limited travels elsewhere but then they wouldn't be part of the tourist map.
I only recently learned we have trailer parks in Britain (although I suppose they'd be called caravan parks. I differentiate caravan sites which would only be peopled in summer by people taking holidays from trailer parks in which people would live all year round.
There are permanant camp grounds in France. As far as I know some people live in them year round but they are mainly holiday homes - people own them, rent them out when they're not using them. It's not really the same as the impression I have of Nth American trailer parks. I've never heard of trailer parks in Ireland - there are holiday campsites with permanant trailers (mobile homes we call them - also called mobile home in France - but pronounced mob-ilom, with short o's). But in Ireland it really is just a holiday thing - the weather is too inclement for trailer living. There are of course 'travellers' - who live year round in caravans, camper vans and such, but they are their own thing altogether and have little to do with the settled community (socially, anyway) if they can help it. Not the same thing at all.
Caravan parks are what we have here. I think that kind of thing is also popular in Eastern Europe...gypsy places.
The OP is not an unusual question at all. Even though I don't live in trailer park country, I have wondered that as well -- especially with the beginning of hurricane season. Do other countries have people who have to worry about living in trailer parks as well during a storm season? odd curiosities ...
Trailer parks aren't allowed in Bahamaland. We are experiencing some rain from tropical storm Barry presently.:raincloud::umbrella:
But you can still find one posing as a Mobile home park on Staten Island (the forgotten borough of NYC) - http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990CE7DC1E31F93BA35753C1A963958260 --and parts of Florida where hurricanes are known to occur regularly.
Interesting question, Meg. I have done a lot of international trips and have never seen a trailer/caravan park - although I would not expect to see one while vacationing. I'd assumed that most of the housing in the countries I have visited was either apartment style, single family or condo/townhomes. Now that you have brought it up I suspect I will start making better observations.
