Perfect Communities: Levitt, Levittown, and the Dream of White Suburbia

The rise and fall of William J. Levitt, the man who made the suburban house a mass commodity

Two material artifacts defined the middle-class American lifestyle in the mid-twentieth century: the automobile, which brought gas stations, highways, commercial strips, and sprawl; and the single-family suburban home, the repository of many families’ long-term wealth. While the man who did the most to make the automobile a mass commodity—Henry Ford—is well known, few know the story of the man who ...