Singlewide : chasing the American dream in a rural trailer park Sonya Salamon and Katherine MacTavish explore the role of the trailer park as a source of affordable housing. Americas 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 beingtrailer trash  culturally resemble the parks neighbors who live in conventional homes.0 Introduction : galvanized ghettoes The mobile home industrial complex Making ends meet family finances The Illinois park : closer to the middle class The North Carolina parks : near ties that bind of kin and church The New Mexico parks : a dream rooted in place Youth and trailer park life Reforming the mobile home industrial complex Conclusion : family dreams and trailer park realities