The Levittown Experiment

Levittown Experiment

08 .10 .2007

Introduction

Levittown project was taken up in the U .S . after the end of Second World War , with the aim of providing mass housing facilities to people in the wake of increasing urbanization and problems of accommodating large population in limited urban area (Friedman . 1995 . The first of Levittown apartments were constructed on Long Island , New York and they symbolized the modern trends of urbanization and housing developments (Clapson . 2003 . This shall study the impact of Levittown project on trends of further urbanization and analyze the

aesthetics of design and development involved in it

American urban housing system was not in a very good state at the end of Second World War . Hundreds of thousands of soldiers had started to return back to the mainland , filled with the dream of better and improved life (Baxandall and Ewen , 2000 . Euphoric and buoyed by a hard fought and historic win , where U .S had established its military supremacy in the world , these people had great dreams and aspirations to continue in the legacy of that supremacy . This aspiration manifested itself most prominently in their demand for housing infrastructure built with modern age planning , design , and latest infrastructure houses that could symbolize U .S 's great power stature and their own triumph in being a part of this transition . Meanwhile the Congress announced special housing loans for returning war veterans where they could get loans on zero down-payment and little mortgage . Suddenly there was a great boom in the demand of urban housing , compared to which the available apartments fell drastically short (Baxandall and Ewen , 2000 Millions of war veterans and citizens were homeless or living in makeshift houses looking expectedly upon government to provide them with affordable houses (Jackson . 1985 . However , the strong private construction lobby was pressuring Congress to get out of the housing business , but the past record of private housing industry was patchy and they were not expected to live up to demand of providing millions of houses on affordable prices in a quick time (Baxandall and Ewen , 2000 Clapson . 2003 . Abraham Levitt , a prominent builder , understood the importance of providing housing to people of every income range and he responded to the situation by constructing rows of identical four room apartments at Long Island , New York ,that were offered to veteran war soldiers for only 60 a month (Jackson . 1985 Clapson . 2003 . Levittown the mass housing facility designed and constructed by Levitts , was vehemently criticized by architects for producing homogenous and suffocating environment and being antithetical to lofted architectural principles (Jackson . 1985 . But the critics ignored the fact that Levitt could not incorporate the lofty and stylist architectural designs that were hallmark of most of Victorian style villas and bungalows and yet produce houses on mass scale , in quick time and provide them for sale at most affordable prices . His aim was to construct the best houses at least cost to provide most economical housing . The fact was that Levitt had successfully...