Levitt went on to build similar developments, which also beared his name, in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The first day they were offered for sale, more than one thousand were purchased. Levitt’s houses cost only $8,000 and could be bought with little or no down payment. One of the first developers to take advantage of this method was William Levitt, who purchased farmland in Nassau County, Long Island, in 1947 and built thousands of prefabricated houses. Employing these methods, developers built acres of inexpensive “tract housing” throughout the country. The roads were curved to prevent cars from speeding through the residential community that was home to many young families.Īnother element in the expansion of suburbia was the use of prefabricated construction techniques pioneered during World War II, which allowed houses complete with plumbing, electrical wiring, and appliances to be built and painted in a day. This aerial view of Levittown, Pennsylvania, reveals acres of standardized homes. Unused land on the fringes of American cities provided the perfect place for new housing, which attracted not only the middle class, which had long sought homes outside the crowded cities, but also blue-collar workers who took advantage of the low interest mortgages offered by the GI Bill and other programs for aspiring homeowners. Now that the war was over, real estate developers and contractors rushed to alleviate the scarcity. During World War II, the United States had suffered from a housing shortage, especially in cities with shipyards or large defense plants. Several factors contributed to this development. Although middle-class families had begun to move to the suburbs beginning in the nineteenth century, suburban growth accelerated rapidly after World War II. Many of these newly purchased homes had been built in the new suburban areas that began to radiate out from American cities after the war. In 1940, the rate of homeownership in the United States was 43.6 percent. Wishing to build the stable life that the Great Depression had deprived their parents of, young men and women married in record numbers and purchased homes where they could start families of their own. Even as many Americans remained mired in poverty, many others with limited economic opportunities, like African Americans or union workers, became more financially secure in the 1950s and ascended into the middle class.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |