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Late in the summer of 2005, two hurricanes—Katrina, then Rita—tore into the central Gulf Coast of the United States. The damage spanned hundreds of miles of coastline, from East Texas to the Southwestern tip of Alabama. Between 1 and 1.5 million people were displaced. Regionally available rental units, hotels, and motels quickly reached capacity. After months spent shifting between the homes of friends, relatives, and shelters, some 300,000 internally displaced persons were eventually housed in approximately 120,000 travel trailers supplied by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). These 250-square foot emergency housing units were deployed both to the driveways of homes-in-ruin, and to federally run trailer parks for those that possessed no real estate of their own. 1 Within a fortnight of the inundation of New Orleans and the ravaging of the central Gulf Coast, a single manufacturer, Gulf …