Suburbanization

1. PLAN 3022: Planning History & Theory
Week 07: Fordism, Suburbanization and Urban Renewal
Anuradha Mukherji
Assistant Professor of Urban and Regional Planning

2. POSTWAR CITIES: FOUNDATIONS OF SUBURBIA
1. Major planning initiatives – Combination of federal, state and local efforts
• Funding and some legislative guidelines by the federal government
• Must of the initiative, detailed planning, and implementation from state and local
governments
2. Expansion of Municipal planning
• Prosperity of post-war period meant more funds
• Suburbanization process stimulated by federal government: federal grant, urban
renewal, and other programs that triggered the expansion of planning agencies
POSTWAR PERIOD

3. 3. New roads to open up land outside the reach of the old trolley and commuter rail
routes
• 1956 Interstate and Defense Highways Act marks the beginning of freeway
suburbanization
• Huge public works program - $41 billion for 41,000 miles of new roads
• Planners argued: New roads should penetrate central cities, not bypass it. Create
new corridors of accessibility from city centers to potential suburbs
4. Zoning of land uses
• To produce uniform residential tracts with stable property values
• Began in New York city to secure investment in property.
• Historic Supreme Court decision (Village of Euclid et al vs Ambler Realty Co.)
confirmed validity of zoning – ‘Public welfare served by zoning was the
enhancement of the community’s property values’
POSTWAR PERIOD

4. 5. Government guaranteed mortgages
• To make possible long-repayment low-interest mortgages that were affordable by
families of modest incomes
• Previously, typical US mortgage was for 5-10 years at 6-7% interest.
• HOLC (Home Owners Loan Corporation) created to stem farm foreclosures,
introduced the long-term mortgage
• The FHA (Federal Housing Authority) established soon after, given powers to
insure longer-term mortgage loans by private lenders for housing with down
payment of 10% at 2-3% interest for a period of 25-30 years
6. Postwar baby boom
• A sudden surge in demand for family home where young children could be raised
POSTWAR PERIOD

5. POSTWAR PERIOD
8. Housing Shortage
• Accumulated shortage of housing at end of WWII
• About 2-4.4 million families sharing and another half million in non-family quarters
9. Industry Response
• New breed of builder: Large-scale, economy and efficiency conscious, capable of
building houses like any other consumer product
• Levitt & Sons created suburb based on new techniques: Flow production, division
of labor, standardized designs and parts, new materials and tools, maximum use
of prefabricated components, easy credit, and good marketing
• Levitt & Sons created more than 17,000 homes housing 82,000 people, largest
single housing development in history

6. POSTWAR PERIOD
10. G.I. Bill of Rights
• Benefits program for WW II veterans
• Also know as Marshall Plan for
America, A Magic Carpet to the
Middle Class

7. POSTWAR PERIOD
BENEFIT ONE
• College education for returning WW II
veterans

8. POSTWAR PERIOD
BENEFIT TWO
• Loans to buy homes an start businesses

9. POSTWAR PERIOD
BENEFIT THREE
• A year of unemployment compensation
IMPACT
• By 1951, 8 million returning veterans
received the benefits

10. POSTWAR HOUSING
LEVITTOWN PLANNED SUBURBAN
COMMUNITY
• Levitt & Sons
• Long-Island, New York, 1947
• Housing for returning WWII veterans
• At the end of 1945, the US needed about
5 million houses
• In 1947, about 6,000 home were built
(2,000, then 4,000)

11. POSTWAR HOUSING
LEVITTOWN PLANNED SUBURBAN COMMUNITY
• Mass produced suburban tract housing
• Re-opened an abandoned rail line to bring construction materials to site
• Built new homes on concrete slabs, used precut and shipped lumber from own
lumbar yard
• Eliminated basements
• Use non-union contractors

12. POSTWAR HOUSING
• Community services: Own schools, phone service, streetlights, and postal
delivery service within the community

13. POSTWAR HOUSING
LEVITTOWN PLANNED SUBURBAN COMMUNITY
• In 1949, more choices of modern houses
• By 1951, total of 17,447 homes in Levittown and immediate areas

14. POSTWAR HOUSING
OTHER LEVITTOWN COMMUNITIES
• Long Island success led to the development to two more Levittown communities
in Pennsylvania and New Jersey
• An iconic suburban development: the best and worst of post-war America
• Symbol of innovation
• Rigidly segregated

15. POSTWAR HOUSING
Levittown houses have today either expanded or remodeled

16. PROBLEMATIC ELEMENTS OF FHA
 FHA took over from HOLC the appraising of neighborhoods, redlining those
deemed to be undesirable, in practice, the whole of American inner cities
 Central objective of FHA identical to that of zoning – guarantee the security of
residential real-estate values
 Mechanism of exclusion employed to divert investment massively into new
suburban house building at the expense of the central city
 Segregation and racism institutionalized in federal policy
CONCLUDING POINTS