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?
The 2010s: The Decade of the Suburban Rental
Census data reveal a growing number of suburbs are home to a majority of renters. The data challenges the "very definition of suburban living," according to this article.
How to Define the Suburban: HUD Survey Sheds New Light
A new HUD survey could help change the way the federal government defines the "suburban"—a notoriously tricky proposition.
When Analyzing Suburbs, Definitions Matter
The definitions of suburban chosen by researchers tend to fall into three categories—and each has a significant impact and the results of academic inquiry.
Which Cities Are Upzoning?
A recent study surveyed 800 jurisdictions in 50 U.S. metropolitan areas to quantify the amount of change in zoning regulations throughout the 21st century so far.
RAISE Grants Announced: U.S. DOT Shifts to a Greener Vision for Transportation
News broke early this morning the U.S. Department of Transportation had announced the first round of funding for the Biden administration's new discretionary grant funding program.
Land Costs and Housing Costs
One common argument against upzoning is that it increases land costs—but land costs rose in the most restrictive markets as well as the least restrictive ones.
Arlington County Government
Jon Stover & Associates
University of California San Diego
HUD's Office of Policy Development and Research
HUD's Office of Policy Development and Research
City of Royal Oak, Michigan
City of San Carlos
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