Long Before Levittown, Brooklyn Boasted Mass-Produced Housing

Levittown, brainchild of the brilliant, doomed real-estate developer William J. Levitt, was the opening act of a great American tragedy—the postwar explosion of suburban sprawl that turned us into a nation of motorists and plunged our cities into a bitter cycle of disinvestment and decline.

Levitt, who served with the Seabees during World War II, foresaw a huge demand for housing once the war ended. In 1946, he and his family began buying up vast tracts of farmland in Hempstead, Long Island; the farmers were eager to sell due to a nematode infestation that ruined the potato crop. The land was soon carpeted with thousands of little Cape Cod houses designed by William’s bookish brother, Alfred, a self-taught architect. They went up fast. Within a year of breaking ground, about 3,000 houses were ready for occupancy; a decade later, 82,000 people were living where spuds once grew.