July 21, 2016
By Erick Trickey
The nation’s most competitive congressional race (click here) is playing out in a placid slice of the Philadelphia suburbs.
Pennsylvania’s 8th District has swung from red to blue to red in the past 10 years. Now, the popular Republican incumbent is retiring and with a turbulent presidential race casting confusion over this battleground state, Democrats are salivating at the chance to flip a seat that could even help them retake control of the House.
Whether they succeed might well come down to what Levittown thinks of Donald Trump.
Levittown is the working-class heart of Bucks County, northeast of Philadelphia. Built in an assembly-line frenzy in the early ‘50s, its master-planned streets lined with Jubilee-model Cape Cods and Levittowner-model ranches became synonymous with American suburbia. The houses might look cookie-cutter, but its residents don’t vote alike.
Diane Dembinski, a grandmother of 16, lives on Levittown’s Harmony Road, a swing neighborhood in the swing district. Terrorists are her biggest concern this election year, but Trump is a close second. “Just the fact that he’s running is an embarrassment to me, and for our country,” she said recently....
Levittown, Pennsylvania History:
In 1951, (click here) Levitt and Sons promoted their new development outside Philadelphia as "the most perfectly planned community in America." Shortly afterwards, America's leading urban critic, Lewis Mumford, quipped that "Mechanically it is admirably done. Socially the design is backward."
The second of three "Levittowns," Pennsylvania's Levittown was a massive project for a single builder. Using mass-production techniques, the Levitts pioneered the creation of affordable housing for thousands of families.
Intrigued by their huge residential developments, journalists, novelists, sociologists, and planners exaggerated both their novelty and normality, using the term "Levittown" to invoke the best and worst of suburban living. Their mass-produced housing came to symbolize both the conformity of American post-war consumer society and its promise of upward mobility and home ownership. Indeed, after World War II, pent-up demand, returning veterans, and favorable government loan guarantees fueled a booming market for affordable, single-family housing and spurred an unprecedented surge of suburban development across the nation....
The Korean War started in 1951 and ended a few years later. The GI BILL would provide for low cost loans to our veterans. Levittown was one of the towns that provided more than a home to the GIs, but, a place where Middle Class values were shared and became a way of life.
The Middle Class. Heroes to the economy of the United States of America.
Levittown, Pennsylvania History:
In 1951, (click here) Levitt and Sons promoted their new development outside Philadelphia as "the most perfectly planned community in America." Shortly afterwards, America's leading urban critic, Lewis Mumford, quipped that "Mechanically it is admirably done. Socially the design is backward."
The second of three "Levittowns," Pennsylvania's Levittown was a massive project for a single builder. Using mass-production techniques, the Levitts pioneered the creation of affordable housing for thousands of families.
Intrigued by their huge residential developments, journalists, novelists, sociologists, and planners exaggerated both their novelty and normality, using the term "Levittown" to invoke the best and worst of suburban living. Their mass-produced housing came to symbolize both the conformity of American post-war consumer society and its promise of upward mobility and home ownership. Indeed, after World War II, pent-up demand, returning veterans, and favorable government loan guarantees fueled a booming market for affordable, single-family housing and spurred an unprecedented surge of suburban development across the nation....
The Korean War started in 1951 and ended a few years later. The GI BILL would provide for low cost loans to our veterans. Levittown was one of the towns that provided more than a home to the GIs, but, a place where Middle Class values were shared and became a way of life.
The Middle Class. Heroes to the economy of the United States of America.
