Redneck Bar B Que

While this place is called "Redneck", the sign graphics promised a tidy themed restaurant. That's exactly what we found inside - a fresh, well decorated experience. The food was delicious (though I was ready to eat my napkin by the time it made it out)...

I did get a bit cold though and went to my car - it is then that I noticed that there were two single-wide trailer homes adjacent to the parking lot. Deducing from the surrounding area, I presume the proprietors of Rednecks lived there. That, or they were purchased for ambiance. You can just make out one of the trailers in the picture.

While I maintain that this is amusing, some may criticize my disdain for trailer homes. Allow to me to expound on my feelings. I believe in the need for affordable houses - so anyone can have a home that is their own. What I disagree on is the need for such houses to be made of paper mache.

To be fair, I took a break in writing this to research "manufactured homes". They were re-named because when's the last time you heard of someone putting the wheels back on and relocating one of these? So having read some, I can see why these are appealing - the average single-wide is 1,000 square feet and costs around $24,000 _new_. This means you can buy a two bedroom home for about he cost of a new car. And from experience, it is easier to live in just about anything than your car.

I tried to look up a cheaper, better solution - geodesic/monolithic domes - concrete - cinderblock - anything. The best you get is a superior home for about the cost of an average stick-built home (if note a shade _more_ expensive). But look at the manufactured home technology - the whole thing is built (almost mass-produced) indoors on an assembly line. The efficiencies of process and scale are mind-boggling compared to building something on-site. If you could build it a bit sturdier perhaps - but alas, it isn't cheap to ship concrete walls.

So, frustratingly, I don't have a better answer to affordable housing - but I still can identify the downside to manufactured homes... I get most of these from my mother because as an infant I lived in one for a while evidently.

• How do you make a trailer sound like a dog? Ever seen a house on fire? Now picture that structure made lighter, with more plastic, with a really good draft under it.
• Mobile homes - while lighter - do not float in a flood. I have seen this first hand.
• Speaking of natural disasters - trailers seem to be magnets for the wrath of god. This is probably not because they are statistically more likely to get hit by something - it's just that they are more likely to blow away. (Though in the name of science we should do a study on sinner percentages in manufactured vs. standard homes before drawing conclusions)