Levittowns revisited

In my lecture on the Top 10 Shapers of the American Landscape, I talk a little about the Levittowns and their impact on American suburbia. Celebrating the 60th anniversary of Levittown NY, Joel Kotkin looks back at the Levittowns, fairly fondly, and reflects on their contribution and where they have ended up.

Today's Levittown, N.Y., is still only 10% nonwhite, but Willingboro, N.J., another Levittown development (in the Philadelphia suburbs), is now majority black. Indeed, more than one in four suburbanites nationwide is a minority-group member. Along with immigrants and their offspring, African-Americans have been consistently moving to the suburbs; the percentage of blacks living in the periphery has risen to well over one in three.