What was the Levitt approach to housing?
Interior partitions, roof trusses, and door and window units were cut to the required shape before they left the factory. In order to give young couples a chance to buy an affordable house, Levitt cut costs by eliminating basements and giving all houses in his development the same floor plan.
What was Levittown designed by William Levitt?
In 1947, William Levitt used mass production techniques to build inexpensive homes in surburban New York to help relieve the postwar housing shortage. Levittown became a symbol of the movement to the suburbs in the years after WWII.
How fast can a Levitt house be built?
AlamyConstruction of Levittown was famously quick: a home was built every 16 minutes.
How did Levitt simplify the home sale process?
Levitt bought appliances form Levitt subsidiaries, since the very idea of middlemen enraged him. And Levitt simplified the process of financing so people could purchase his homes much easier: no money down, and the price was the price, no debate, which was especially appealing to veterans.
How did William Levitt change house building?
Levitt revolutionized the process of home building with remarkable planning and brilliant control procedures. These techniques made it possible to provide inexpensive, attractive single-unit housing for ordinary citizens, people who had never thought of themselves as middle class before.
How was Levittown designed?
Production was modeled on assembly lines in 27 steps with construction workers trained to perform one step. A house could be built in one day, with 36 men, when effectively scheduled. This enabled quick and economical production of similar or identical homes with rapid recovery of costs.
What did Levittown offer?
Levittown, Long Island, the most famous American postwar suburban development, was a household name, the “Exhibit A” of suburbia. It came on the eve of the baby boom and just before the 1948 Housing Bill liberalized lending, allowing anyone to buy a home with 5 percent down and extending mortgage terms to 30 years.
Why was Levittown so important?
Levittown brought about a new post-war culture emphasizing conformity and uniformity, with many women returning from their manufacturing jobs during the war to a more traditional motherly role.
Why were homes in Levittowns so affordable?
Levittown’s very existence, in fact, owes to a rare act of American socialism: the 1948 Housing Bill, which loosened billions of dollars in credit and gave every American the chance to get one of those five-percent-down, 30-year mortgages in the first place.
How much did a typical Levittown home cost?
$594,821. The typical home value of homes in Levittown is $594,821. This value is seasonally adjusted and only includes the middle price tier of homes.
Who did Levitt refuse to sell homes to?
African-Americans
As late as the 1950s, he refused to sell homes to African-Americans. He once offered to build a separate development for blacks, but he would not integrate white developments, believing that integration would cause him to lose 90 to 95 percent of his white customers.
What were the two main styles of houses in Levittown?
THE PENNSYLVANIAN & THE COLONIAL Introduced during the last few years of construction, the Pennsylvanian and the Colonial were built in much smaller numbers and in only a few sections. Both styles reappeared in his third development in Willingboro, New Jersey.
Why is Levittown important?
Levittown was the first truly mass-produced suburb and is widely regarded as the archetype for postwar suburbs throughout the country. William Levitt, who assumed control of Levitt & Sons in 1954, is considered the father of modern suburbia in the United States.
Is Levittown still there?
But Levittown still has its original nine community swimming pools with playing fields and playgrounds, as well as remnants of the seven intimate shopping strips known as village greens. It also still has active VFW (Veterans of Foreign Wars) and American Legion posts.
What happened to Levittown?
In 1948, Shelley v. Kraemer struck down these racially restrictive housing covenants, as they violated the 14th Amendment, and the Levittown clause was eliminated. Even with this ruling, the area remained overwhelmingly segregated until 1954 after the Brown v. Board of Education cases.
Why don t houses in Levittown have basements?
“But I knew why people were so interested.” Levittown houses have no basements. Of the 17,311 homes built between 1952 and 1957, not one came with a basement. They were built on concrete slabs, laced with copper pipe for hot water radiant heating.
What’s the problem with Levittown?
Levittown’s history seems especially jarring, experts say, because the community was founded as segregation was beginning to crumble. While the first Levitt houses were being built, Jackie Robinson was breaking the color barrier in baseball. A year later, President Harry S. Truman integrated the military.
Why do Levittown houses not have basements?
In Bucks County, no basement construction came easier, since most of the four municipalities over which Levittown spreads did not have strong zoning. It was still farms and small towns.
Should you buy a Levittown home?
A number of initial buyers noted that they could purchase a new home in a Levittown with a cheaper monthly cost than they could rent accommodations elsewhere. Two additional thoughts about these floor plans: 1. A fascinating aspect of these basic house models is the number of modifications made to the homes over the decades. 2.
How many square feet is a Levittown house?
The two basic floor plans in the original Levittown. 2. The square footage of these new homes, roughly 1,000 square feet, is unthinkable today in new homes as the average new American home is now over 2,500 square feet.
Why were Levittowns so popular?
One important aspect of the influential Levittowns were the houses: simple, cheap for buyers, and could be efficiently built. The Levitts mass-produced these homes in a way that would become fairly standard among large builders.
How are Levitts homes made?
The Levitts mass-produced these homes in a way that would become fairly standard among large builders. The process involved manufacturing a number of the pieces off-site and having different crews tackle each home site at different points of the home’s construction.