Stealth Camping or Layovering

fulltimedaniel wrote:

westernrvparkowner wrote:

Boon Docker wrote:
Western is just PO'ed because you are not wasting your cash at his establishment. :B

I couldn't care less where the guy spends or doesn't spend his money. But people who supposedly live the lifestyle the guy describes are one of the reasons there are incessant rules and regulations in and around the RV industry. Why do you think there are laws against living on the street? Why there are laws limiting the time a vehicle can be parked in one spot? It's because of people like the OP.
It is nearly impossible to get approval to build a new RV park. Local opposition will intense. Many of the objections will be about neighbors not wanting the homeless living close by. There are many areas where RVs cannot remain on a site for a period of time exceeding 180 days. For some people who want to just leave the rig during the off season at their seasonal site this presents a hardship. But the locals fear of trailer trash living full time in the area brought on that compromise.
Every time someone condones people living in their cars, they re-enforce that belief. With the internet, we no longer live in a vacuum. Somewhere, sometime a thread like this will be presented as evidence that RV parks are nothing more than homeless camps. I think it is safe to say that most everyone who has posted in favor of the guy living in his car would be opposed to it if he chose the street in front of a daycare center or their grandchildren's home as his base of operations. NIMBY is alive and well when it comes to people living on the streets. And unlike certain other things like prisons, drug rehab centers, half way houses, garbage dumps, airports, and all the other things we need but don't want near our homes, places for people opting to live in their cars are not something that is needed. Support it if you feel you must, but be aware it will lead to less actual choices for RVs and more rules and regulations that will effect true RVers as local entities try to eliminate the loopholes that allow people to live on the streets.

While a lot of what you say in this post MAY and I emphasize MAY be true about peoples perception of RV parks and their customers. I think your linkage from that to the person who DOESN'T use RV parks and the OP is shaky at best. If not downright wrong.

To also link the OP's behaviour to any percieved increase of Local, State and Federal regulations across the entire RV industry is just well unsupportable.

Once again sweeping generalizations, accusations and not a shred of supportable evidence is waved like a red flag. I am sorry but I just don't see most of the connections you are trying so hard to make.

And though you deny it at the very bottom of your argument it is essentially economic.

These posts are in an RV forum. That would be direct evidence that at least some people link living in a car and RVing. I never deny that there are economic drivers at play. One of the reasons cited for banning overnight parking of RVs in residential areas is that it drives down property values. If I was a business owner, I wouldn't want a car resident using my restrooms, my dumpsters or my parking lot because each of those activities cost me money. When these activities get out of hand, what you see is things like "restrooms are for paying customers only". No matter what the driver, people living in cars is not welcomed in any community of which I am familiar. What you won't see is anyone posting they would welcome a bunch of people living in their cars into their neighborhoods. People who are championing that lifestyle are just pushing the costs, both social and economic, onto other people knowing they won't have someone living in their car take up residence near them..