Dec 31, 2009

The War Against the Trees | Historical Context

When World War II ended in 1945, some ten million American soldiers were discharged from the armed forces. To shelter them, housing developments were built outside the city. Though suburbs existed in America before the fifties, they were nothing like those to come. The most infamous and influential plan for suburbia was Levittown, located on Long Island, New York. On July 3, 1950, William J. Levitt appeared on the cover of Time magazine in front of a row of identical boxlike houses on freshly bulldozed land. The caption read: “House Builder Levitt. For Sale: A New Way of...