In Post-WWII America, the Levittown House Was a House For All — as Long as You Weren’t Black

Levittown, built approximately 40 miles from New York City on Long Island after World War II, became America's first completely planned suburb with over 17,000 mass-produced homes. Developer William Levitt utilized assembly-line construction methods at an unprecedented scale to address the severe housing shortage facing returning veterans, who eagerly purchased these modest two-bedroom houses with federal mortgage backing. However, Levittown and similar developments were explicitly closed to Black families through discriminatory federal mortgage policies and restrictive covenants that prevented resale to Black buyers.