Family+Culture

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CHE- This is an aerial shot of Levittown, NY in the 1950s. These "Levittowns" erupted in other states, such as Pennsylvania, with William Levitt's introduction of the American suburban neighborhoods. Levitt was able to create an assembly-line type of home building; there were four different floor-plans of houses to choose from. This unified assembly led to these houses being erected in very little time, the twenty-six step process allowed for a production rate of about one house every sixteen minutes. The affordability of these houses also led to an expansion of the emerging middle-class. Despite the affordability and availability due to rapid construction rates, the suburban towns received many criticisms and had some downsides. Although suburbs provided the middle class an escape from living in the city (many families had increased in size as a post-war result, and needed more space to raise children), the roads between suburbia and the city were not built to provide for heavy traffic. Similar to the criticisms of emerging homogeneity with department stores during the nineteenth century, the neighborhoods were looked down upon as stripping Americans of individuality; after all, there were only four different models, and they looked the same from the inside out. Another con to these suburbs was the racial discrimination. Levitt and Sons refused to sell homes to African-Americans. When interviewed, William Levitt defended himself by saying, “ As a company, our position is simply this: We can solve a housing problem or we can try to solve a racial problem, but we cannot combine the two." Overall, the father of suburbia greatly impacted the United States in that he provided for an emerging middle class and contributed to the perpetually changing American society.