A mobile home is an instant house. You wheel it in one day, hook up to the local utilities, and you’re home. Everything works—plumbing, wiring, heating. It was all assembled in one smooth operation at a factory out of light wood frame on a steel chassis, clad with aluminum sheeting. The roof of white-enameled metal reflects the sun and sheds rain better than most site-built roofs. Half of all mobile homes are in specialized parks, among the last real communities in America, drawn together in part by physical closeness, in part by the need for political solidarity against enemies.
