The paradigmatic post–World War II American suburb and
product of a $50 million housing development constructed
by Abraham, Alfred, and William Levitt.
Levittown was a development of mass-produced housing
built beginning in 1947 in the Hempstead Plains of Long Island about 50 miles east of Manhattan. At first only returning World War II veterans and their families could purchase
homes in the development. The town’s progenitors, developer William Levitt and his architect brother, Alfred, capitalized on the housing crunch of the immediate post–World
War II years and on their own mass-production know-how,
learned from their father Abraham, to make home ownership
a reality for the growing ranks of middle-class families. The
planned community consisted of assembled homes, mostly
Cape Cod and ranch-style single-family detached houses,
along curvilinear drives off the parkways leading from New
York City. Each unit included a 12-by-16-foot living room
with a fireplace, one bath, and two bedrooms, with room for
expansion upstairs or outward into the yard. Detractors
ridiculed the raw, unfinished quality of Levittown’s landscape
and the homogeneity of its dwellings. But young, middleincome families responded enthusiastically to the prospect of
home ownership made possible by the Levitts’ novel approach to home building and new, more active government
housing policies, such as mortgage guarantees by the Federal
Housing Administration. The first 1,800 houses in Levittown
were available only as rentals with an option to buy after a
year’s residence. Because the mortgage and taxes combined
were less than the rent, almost all of the original Levittowners opted for purchase. After 1949, the developers sold all additional units. Levittown ultimately encompassed more than
17,400 separate houses and 82,000 residents. Levittown’s restrictive racial covenant barring African Americans from
purchasing homes stayed intact until the 1960s.
—Sayuri Shimizu
References
Gelfand, Mark I. A Nation of Cities. New York: Oxford
University Press, 1975.
Jackson, Kenneth T. Crabgrass Frontier. New York: Oxford
University Press, 1985.
Kelly, Barbara M. Expanding the American Dream: Building
and Rebuilding Levittown. Albany: State University of
New York Press, 1993.