Levittown and Urban Revitalization
“Planned communities had been around for a long time before the Levitts arrived.” Said Terry McNealy for Bucks County Town and Country magazine, ”William Penn had planned the city of Philadelphia with a regular grid of streets and squares specifically to avoid the kind of disorder and congestion that he had experienced in London.”
Every depiction of Levittown is exactly the same. Levittown is orderly, planned, organized, and sectioned into perfectly portioned neighborhoods. Levittown feels like a “suburban city;” nestled in the armpit of Philadelphia and Princeton, Levittown is near enough to Philly to enjoy the accent second hand. In the book, Urban Revitalization, contribution author, Peter Marcuse penned, “The suburban city of the traditional family, suburban in tone if not in structure or location, is sought out by better paid workers, blue and white collar employees, the “lower middle class,” the petit bourgeoisie. It provides stability, security, the controlled world of consumption.”
McNealy continues, “Levitt was a man with a vision. The times brought together the perfect set of circumstances, and he saw the opportunity. The end of World War Two suddenly brought back from the fronts a literal army of men and women eager to marry, settle down, get a job and start a new life.” Compare McNealy’s Levittown to this except from Urban Revitalization:
The “American Century” has dawned, and the standard bearer of the global ambitions of the United States is the International Style scyscraper… In the white middle-class households to whom the new suburban settlements are consecrated, the nesting instinct flourishes. Returning from battlefront to home-front, G.I. Joe resumes his anointed role as patriarch. The fifties are a great period for home and family, for getting and spending, for cultivating one’s garden. But the escape is illusory.
“Levitt knew what he was doing. In the war he had gained experience in erecting pre-fabricated buildings in a hurry where they were needed.” McNealy is right on target here. Levitt was known for his confident delivery and also a certain degree of hyperbole; his product was always right on time and tailored perfectly for the consumer. Urban Revitalization tells us this is typically of the sellers of consumer goods, “…confidence and spending are the handmaidens of an expanding economy.”
It’s funny how little has changed in Levittown since its establishment. It’s been more than 50 years, and from the sounds of it, we still struggle with the same issues. “Touted as the “Most Perfectly Planned Community in America,” the new town suffered at first from a few problems. There was a shortage of medical facilities, highways were still under construction, and new schools were not ready as soon as they were needed. Even shopping presented difficulties,” says McNealy, “some people complained that they had to go to Trenton or Philadelphia to make some kinds of purchases.”
Levittown, although stigma-fied, is still “the suburban dream come true” to many. “To own one’s own house, with a yard and a garage, in an attractive neighborhood with safe streets, was the ideal of multitudes of young families.” Relatively clean and quiet, McNealy sketches Levittowns appeal: a one-class homogeneous community.
What’s next for Levittown? Perhaps we have to look over our shoulders to see what’s coming. McNealy said:
Some people in Bucks County were appalled by Levittown, seeing it as destroying the very qualities that made the county special. Their ideal of the county was the rolling farmland, the old stone farmhouses and barns, the narrow country roads, the little general stores and crossroads villages. But the realities of 20th-century life, put off longer, perhaps, in Bucks County than it had been in Montgomery or Delaware County, had made their inevitable entry. The passage of time does not always bring progress, but it does bring change. And change came in a big way to the southern portion of Bucks County in the 1950′s.
..yes racial segregation at its finest.
I think Levittown embodies the paradigm that has to be overcome in urban planning if the profession is to have a notable influence in efforts moving toward sustainability. While the arrangement and planning style certainly presents an aura of safety and personal privacy, it is the archetypical expression of sprawl. The question revolves around how a development can be created in a dense urban setting while achieving the same planning noteriety that Levittown has enjoyed.
White Flight.
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