When was levittown pa created

Early suburban development had been incremental, custom-oriented, and expensive, which limited life on the metropolitan periphery to a wealthy few. Levitt and Sons, however, were at the forefront of the trend toward mass-producing smaller housing units in large subdivided communities.

Standardized houses were built on concrete slabs using precut components. Subcontractors would move from house to house, performing their single task with such great efficiency that, at the height of production, a Levittown house was completed every 16 minutes.

By Levitt and Sons had risen to become the largest homebuilder in the country. The developer chose this site because U. The Levitts built slightly more than 17, homes of only six different models between and in this second Levittown. The community was partitioned into four master block areas, which in turn were divided into smaller neighborhood sections of between houses. Each section was assigned a general name, and streets within that section were given names beginning with the first letter of the section name.

Sections were kept intimate to encourage community interaction while master block areas were separated by larger through streets such as Levittown Parkway. Community amenities were part of the package with space set aside for a shopping center and places of worship, an elementary school in each master block, and the inclusion of baseball fields, neighborhood parks, and five community swimming pools managed by the Levittown Public Recreation Association.

Levittown, Pennsylvania, is a Census Designated Place in Bucks County that was carved out of farmland that had been incorporated into existing municipalities well before Levitt bought the land. Levitt would have preferred to secure incorporated status for Levittown as a separate township; however residents refused to support the proposal fearing it would increase their tax bills.

The first family moved into Levittown, Pennsylvania, on June 23, , an arrival captured in this photograph by Howard Hamburger of the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin. Levittowns were notorious as all-white communities. A year of racist harassment and sometimes violent provocation against the Myerses led religious groups like the Quakers to join with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People to try to force local police to protect the Myers family.

With the construction of his third Levittown, William Levitt could realize to its fullest extent his vision of a comprehensively planned community.

In the mids the company used straw purchasers to buy farmland in Burlington County, an area within easy commuting distance to Philadelphia, Camden, and Trenton. Levitt used seemingly unrelated buyers, as he had previously done in Pennsylvania, to discourage sellers from delaying the sales in the hopes of getting higher prices per acre. In New Jersey, Levitt was determined that his new development would not repeat his earlier mistake in Pennsylvania of crossing municipal boundary lines, which had forced him to deal with conflicting zoning and subdivision regulations.

In the end, Levitt acquired about 90 percent of all the land located within the borders of the single township of Willingboro. There he built 11, homes, selling the first in June The township was officially renamed Levittown in by resident referendum.

The mix of housing types at different prices was intended to draw more middle- and upper-middle-class buyers than had been attracted to the earlier Levittowns. Gans documented subtle but important variations in class, religion, lifestyle, and political orientation among early Levittown, New Jersey residents.

As Levitt was building Willingboro, his company was already under legal assault for the whites-only policy in its Pennsylvania development. Since the New Jersey location was close to several military bases, it drew interest from military personnel including an African American Army officer, Willie R. James, who integrated the new community by winning a lawsuit against racial exclusion.

The legacy of the policy lingers as even today Levittown has a very small percentage non-white, which is perhpas surprising considering that the houses are still among the most affordable in the county. As the article notes and other histories confirm, housing discrimination was widespread and practiced by all the those involved in real estate government agencies, lenders, realtors, homeowners, etc. What the Levitts did was perhaps more notable because of size of their remarkable housing development and the clarity of their discriminatory policy.

Especially not in areas that were predominantly white, and where more white people would be living. This actually helped to create the slums, the rapidly deteriorating communities in the inner cities, because without heavy amounts of money to invest in upgrading or even just maintaining these communities, they go to heck in a handbasket. Without a source of money to use to buy homes and create communities of middle class homeowners, you get large areas of deteriorating rentals that landlords will not invest their OWN money in to keep them up, because they know that they can charge whatever they want for their rundown, badly maintained hovels because nobody in the black communities had any better options to turn to.

Unless of course, your credit was trashed, or you had a long list of arrests and convictions, or some other reason they could find on paper. And boy, they checked you OUT too! The Federal Housing Administration allowed developers to justify segregation within public housing. The FHA only offered mortgages to non-mixed developments which discouraged developers from creating racially integrated housing. In accordance with this policy, the buying agreement signed by all those who purchased homes in Levittown stated that the property could not be used or rented by any individuals other than those of the Caucasian race.

Before the sale of Levittown homes began, the sales agents were aware that no applications from black families would be accepted. As a result, American veterans who wished to purchase a home in Levittown were unable to do so if they were black. William Levitt attempted to justify their decision to only sell homes to white families by saying that it was in the best interest for business. He claimed their actions were not discriminatory but intended to maintain the value of their properties. The company explained that it was not possible to reduce racial segregation while they were attempting to reduce the housing shortage.

But the plain fact is that most whites prefer not to live in mixed communities. This attitude may be wrong morally, and someday it may change. I hope it will. They believed that potential white buyers would not want to buy a house in Levittown if they were aware that they would have black neighbors.

Just as a side note — the admonition about not hanging your wash outside in your backyard was not a seven day a week proposition.

They were certainly available, but rather expensive, especially for brand new homeowners who just exhausted their savings, cashed in all the War Bonds they possibly could, packed up, picked up, and moved themselves, bag, baggage, and baby carriage, to a brand new house in a brand new suburb! The appliance dealer had the answer for that too! But, it got you that brand new clothes dryer, and eliminated the need to do the laundry based on the rain forecasts, or to hang the wash upstairs inside the unfinished attic in the middle of frigid New England winters.

Thanks for expanding on the discrimination question. I have no insight into how much the Levitts lacked freedom to choose their discrimination policies. Regarding the s controversies over discrimination that the author mentions, my impression is that it was more of an issue in Levittown, PA, than in first Levittown on Long Island.

My recollection of the s is that public figures generally seemed eager to portray themselves as anticommunist patriots. Regarding dryers, many suburbs today have restrictive covenants banning backyard clotheslines. The original Levittown Cape Cod designs had a Bendix washing machine in the tiny kitchen with very little floor space for the owner to add an electric dryer!

As for the Bendix washers, I always thought they were something of a unique brand, as their later higher grade models combined the functions of washer and dryer into one machine! Not sure which carries more weight. I nave been looking at house plans at developments in Wales glad to see they are including closets now.

If so, what have they been using up until now? The old fashioned wooden wardrobes and chifrobes? I remember when a black family wanted to move in , someone went around with a petition and my dad would not sign it. Good for your Dad! Obviously, a petition to STOP them from moving in. What else could it be, given the subject matter that has already been covered?

What are you — 12? Reading comprehension — work on that, will ya? Why do you have a problem with questions? You work on that. This is an open forum; my views may be different from yours.

You are not here to police all posts and assure they are all in sync with yours. His hands were not tied. You are making excuses for a racist. Why would they? My parents did not discuss terms of their mortgage with their children; when we were children or adults. Again, why would they? I have no doubt plenty of people in those communities had no issues with that clause. If Levitt had decided to be a Social reformer at the time instead of a housing developer, he would have had NO sales whatsoever.

Banks, savings and loans, etc. Yes, it was written into the contracts, in very clear, non- mistakable black and white, in every housing development of the day. The banks and other lenders required it. They would not make loans to people of color in that time, and made that extremely clear, so that IT would be extremely clear in any court in the land.

Ahhh Shari. No need though. Between and , twenty million Americans moved from cities to the suburbs. It was the largest internal migration in the country's history, outstripping many time over the legendary westward migration of the nineteenth century. What made the Doughertys' journey newsworthy — and, in retrospect, historic — was their objective: to be the first official residents in the new development of Levittown in Bucks County. Levitt, Levittown, Pennsylvania was the largest planned community constructed by a single builder in the United States.