A CityLab article takes a trip to Levittown, Pennsylvania for a lesson in how places change, even when some places stay the same.
Jake Blumgart returns to the "archetypal post-war suburb" of Levittown (this one's located in Pennsylvania, not New York), to examine the history of the city as well as speculate on its future direction.
After explaining that the Levittown in Bucks County, Pennsylvania was a more fully realized version of the vision of William Levitt than the more famous example in Long Island, Blumgart provides a brief history of the community from its inception in the early 1950s through its quick growth in population and as a location for industry and employment to its initial declines in the 1970s. According to Blumgart: "It is almost too easy to draw parallels between the story of Levittown and the arc of the postwar middle class. Both have fallen from their heyday, when the economy was surpassingly kind regardless of education (if mostly to white men)."
The article includes more anecdotes from the city's history as well as more assessment of its current situation as both an archetype and an outlier among the suburban landscape.
FULL STORY: What Will Become of Levittown, Pennsylvania?
Oregon Passes Exemption to Urban Growth Boundary
Cities have a one-time chance to acquire new land for development in a bid to increase housing supply and affordability.
Where Urban Design Is Headed in 2024
A forecast of likely trends in urban design and architecture.
Savannah: A City of Planning Contrasts
From a human-scales, plaza-anchored grid to suburban sprawl, the oldest planned city in the United States has seen wildly different development patterns.
Washington Tribes Receive Resilience Funding
The 28 grants support projects including relocation efforts as coastal communities face the growing impacts of climate change.
Adaptive Reuse Bills Introduced in California Assembly
The legislation would expand eligibility for economic incentives and let cities loosen regulations to allow for more building conversions.
LA's Top Parks, Ranked
TimeOut just released its list of the top 26 parks in the L.A. area, which is home to some of the best green spaces around.
City of Rochester
Boston Harbor Now
City of Bellevue
HUD's Office of Policy Development and Research
Mpact Transit + Community
HUD's Office of Policy Development and Research
City of Birmingham, Alabama
City of Laramie, Wyoming
Colorado Department of Local Affairs
Urban Design for Planners 1: Software Tools
This six-course series explores essential urban design concepts using open source software and equips planners with the tools they need to participate fully in the urban design process.
Planning for Universal Design
Learn the tools for implementing Universal Design in planning regulations.