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For every Levittown there are also hundreds of neighborhoods that never got any better after they were built. I would argue that Levittown can't be disentangled
by MrTonyD 11y ago
For every Levittown there are also hundreds of neighborhoods that never got any better after they were built. I would argue that Levittown can't be disentangled from the economic period in the United States - and it reflected the improving economic position of the working class. That ended in the 1970's for the United States (the GDP kept rising but it has gone to the rich. And home ownership is the same percent right now as it was in the mid-1970's.)
- CullingTheHerd 11y agoGoing out on a limb, I think yourapostasy pointed to Levittown not to attempt to explain the entire economics of housing for the U.S.A. during the 70's (because hey, if we're taking the issue to that level we have to talk globally about inflation, oil, etc), but rather they were simply suggesting that, given the (in yourapostasy's ,i think correct and understated, words) "complex" issues surrounding affordable housing, Levittown is a helpful example in as far as providing a cookie cutter foundation which lends itself to indiviualisation over the long term, which is actually a more complex concept (much like building mountains or clouds out of simpler fractal shapes) than it first seems.
- yourapostasy 11y agoOn point. The complexity of the overall land affordability issue isn't amenable to deconstructing in this forum's format, but yes, individualization is cheaper to accrete over time than build in from the start (especially if the labor input costs to generate the "individual differences" in the initial designs and operational implementations is driven by land costs themselves).