While traveling by train thru the Netherlands, I believe I saw a “trailer park.”
scr4, good points. In Europe as in Japan land is much more expensive and people tend to live in apartment buildings so they can share the land. You would have to be very rich to live in a trailer and not share the land.
You are probably right that the ones I have seen were never on wheels but rather transported by truck but, other than that, they are pretty much the same concept and could be used for temporary housing etc.
I do know there exist in Europe slums of shacks where gypsies or illegal immigrants live. Not many but they exist. For them a trailer home would be a step up.
In the UK the planning laws make it very tough to set up caravan sites.
They will grant a licence as long as the maximum continuous stay is less than a predetermned amount, x number of weeks per year.
This means you can own the caravan but can only live in it for set lengths of time, it can remain in place though.
Because holidays are seasonal many people have them at seaside resorts and the like and the sites themselves are usually closed for the winter months.
There are permanent sites but very few because locals tend to dislike the type of residents who they think might occupy them.
There is some confusion here as the portable units used as ‘temporary’ offices are called by their generic name of portakabins.(to add to the confusion some people will use a residential caravan as a portakabin).
I have seen some temporary accomodation(portakabins), one only a couple of hundred yards away in fact, and dammit but they are better constructed than my brick house.
I would doubt that we have much of a trailer society here but doubtless a small one exists.
Just another datum for the OP.
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20000721/wl/ecuador_stolen_house_1.html
It coulda happened right here in River City!