Learning from Levittown

Attend any number of presentations on the subject of “sprawl” or read any number of articles denouncing it, and very often you’ll find the example of Levittown USA being used as a case study in what not to do. The 1950s era mass-produced housing development has been pilloried by designers, new urbanists, smart growthers and creative classists from the US to Europe to Australia. Admittedly, its design when first completed was far from inspiring. But the critics omit to mention some very important and enduring features of Levittown, some of which we could use more of today.

Figure 1 Levittown USA in the 1950s

What is Levittown? It’s the name given to a number of post World War II housing developments in New York and Pennsylvania. Developers the Levitt family sought to provide low cost detached housing, especially for servicemen returning from WWII and their families. Houses were manufactured using a Henry Ford assembly line approach, with construction teams devoted to particular components, allowing for an entire house to be built in as little as a single day. Houses with land came with appliances installed, lawns and of course a white picket fence. They sold like hotcakes.

Largely uniform designs on low cost land with efficient building techniques were the keys to making these homes affordable. Keep in mind, many residents were escaping cramped, unhealthy and relatively expensive rented accommodation in New York urban tenements. For them, the hope offered by a new home they could afford to own, with space around them, was a no contest compared with the lifestyles they and their parents’ generations had known.

Figure 2 Urban living was a dystopian nightmare for residents of New York in the 1920s and 1930s. Cramped housing, disease, crime - all were rampant.

Figure 3 The opportunity to own their own home, with internal room and external space, free from the conditions they and their parents had experienced, made Levittown an obvious and logical choice.

But for urban design critics at the time, Levittown represented everything they detested. The writer and urban critic Lewis Mumford had this to say in his 1961 booked “The City in History”:

“…a multitude of uniform and unidentifiable houses, lined up inflexibly, at uniform distances, on uniform roads, in a treeless communal waste, inhabited by people of the same class, the same income, the same age group, witnessing the same television performances, eating the same tasteless prefabricated foods, from the same freezers, conforming in every respect to a common mould.”

That set in train a repeating pattern of criticism over the decades that followed, all of which seems to have two things in common: first, the criticism is based on initial design (making next to no mention of the improved housing conditions it provided, liberating a generation of families, nor the affordable prices at which it could be purchased). Second, the criticism reflects mainly the early days of Levittown. Indeed, the opening photo in this article is the one I have seen used most in articles and at conferences where scorn is freely piled upon Levittown. The image is 70 years old people! Why not use a recent image to show what Levittown looks like today? Here’s one below for example -  which looks very much like any middle-class suburban environment anywhere. Criticising projects like Levittown in their very early days is a bit like criticising a 2 year old for their lack of literacy and numeracy skills. Give it a rest.  

Figure 4 Levittown today looks more like a bucolic scene of middle class suburban life.

Below is another image. Over time, owners have planted trees, the area has matured, schools filled, community facilities established, and transit connections improved. In fact, the demographic profile of Levittown today is that of a healthy middle class, middle income, well educated community with very high levels of home ownership (much higher than the Australian average).

Figure 5 A matured Levittown community that the suburb bashers never talk about

Levittown on opening day may not have been the most visually appealing landscape imaginable, but to the people who bought and settled there, they could no doubt see beyond the narrow view of wealthy urban critics like Mumford. They could see a future for their families and a lifestyle free from cramped and run-down housing, disease and urban crime.

Have we learned anything from Levittown? It doesn’t look that way. The prevailing view of new suburban master planned communities today has changed little from the ill-informed, jaundiced and smug denunciations levelled at Levittown. New suburban communities are regarded by the inner urban cognoscenti as some form of social aberration. This, they claim, is a condition that needs curing. This can’t possibly be what people want. It can’t possibly be good for them.

There are many modern-day versions of Lewis Mumford in Australia, generating a steady torrent of suburban disdain like this from Sydney Morning Herald urbanist and university professor Elizabeth Farrelly:

“The suburbs are about boredom, and obviously some people like being bored and plain and predictable, I’m happy for them … even if their suburbs are destroying the world.”

New suburban communities are wrongly accused of generating city bound congestion (though fewer than 10% of residents work in the inner city); they are accused of being environmentally irresponsible (yet they provide public open space and parkland at many times the levels available in inner cities); they are accused of being wasteful energy guzzlers (yet they are more likely to generate their own rooftop solar and dry their clothes without the aid of an electric dryer using instead the common clothesline); they are accused of consuming valuable farmland (though it is often marginal and the accusers have little understanding of farming realities); they are accused of catering for poorly educated, low income, fast food guzzling masses (though the demographic picture provided by the Census shows this to be entirely untrue); and they are accused of creating social isolation, loneliness and ill health (which even the most tortured methodology in the hands of the most ardent suburb hater couldn’t come close to proving).

Unattributed, unscientific, hearsay is accepted “wisdom” in so many circles that it is easy to despair. Evidence is out the window and in its place are unchallenged but fashionable belief systems. Faith over facts. It’s as if we are sick with urban prejudice but are only being able to choose between the witchdoctor, the anti-vaccer or the Chinese herbalist for remedies.

New suburban communities have much to offer Australia. If we simply sought to understand them better, we might begin to support them better too. Affordable housing in new suburban communities is surely an option people are entitled to aspire to? How many really aspire to a permanent life of renting in cramped conditions?

Levittown was popular with working and middle class Americans in post war America. It provided low cost homes and a better future for its residents, who busily went about planting trees and building their own community over time. It provided a start. 

New suburban developments deserve the same opportunity to provide these things to a generation of Australians. They can do without the moral guidance, partisan bias or professional snobbery of “experts” or the opinions of the inner urban cabal who wax lyrical on the need for affordable or social housing yet in the next breath reject models which could provide it.

The Suburban Alliance has commissioned some indepedent research into what mature masterplanned communities are really like, compared with the inner city. The report and two minute video summaries can be found here: https://suburbanalliance.com.au/causes/a-new-suburbia-case-studies-of-successful-suburban-expansion/

A new geography of urban wealth?

US based urbanist Richard Florida - once described as an “intellectual Rockstar” – shot to fame with his 2002 book The Creative Class. He was on a global speaking tour that took in many Australian cities, arguing that the secrets to economic development lay in attracting legions of creatively motivated progressives working in new economy professions. This was best done by enhancing inner urban “hipsterness” measured by a “bohemian index” with investments in public space, recreation, culture, and various other “urban chic” accoutrements. Many city leaders rushed for the Florida gospel, applying its preaching in the hope of out-hipping competing urban centres for precious jobs in the new economy. 

But Florida has since re-canted, admitting that the focus on inner urban “cool” may have worked for the wealthy and privileged but at the same time created city wide disadvantage. His latest book The New Urban Crisis suggests an alarming wealth divide is opening up between inner urban and suburban landscapes.

“Across nearly every metro area, middle-class neighborhoods are disappearing. Our cities and suburbs are being replaced by a patchwork metropolis, in which small areas of privilege are surrounded by vast swaths of poverty and disadvantage.  The rise of a winner-take-all-urbanism, with a small group of winners and a much larger span of losers, signals a profound crisis of today’s urbanized knowledge economy that threatens our economic future and way of life,” he now says. Talk about a change of heart.

While much of this may be true for major cities in the USA (where hipster havens like San Francisco or New York are losing millennials to lower cost of living centres in flyover country) is it also true for Australian cities? Are we seeing a concentration of wealth in inner urban suburbs while suburban areas languish? Certainly, the infrastructure and policy focus in most Australian cities has, for the past 15 years, been very much on enhanced inner urban amenity. But has this been enough to draw more high-income residents to the inner city and cause professionals to abandon the suburbs?

The evidence is revealing. Here’s a quick wrap of the picture across Australia’s capitals as of the 2016 Census.

Brisbane.

The household income difference between inner urban residents of Brisbane and those of the wider metro area have widened in the 2006-2016 period. Over that ten years, inner city residents (roughly within a 5 kilometre radius) have gone from enjoying incomes that were on average 13% higher than the wider metro average to now 23% more than the metro average. In dollar terms, inner Brisbane households earn on average $357 a week more than the metro average for the city.

However, the traditional patchwork quilt of high and low income suburbs remains a dominant feature. The suburb you live in still tends to define your household wealth status – be it high or low. Brisbane’s western suburbs (Fig Tree Pocket, Pinjarra Hills, Brookfield etc) are still among the highest income earners. South eastern suburbs (Carindale, Wakerley, Rochedale) are fast catching up. There are inner suburbs on the high income list (Bardon, Paddington, Bulimba etc) but there are others (like Kelvin Grove or Herston) which are well below the city wide average.

So while it is true the inner city is gentrifying, the preference among many high income households still appears to be for traditional suburban neighborhoods, many in middle to outer urban areas.

Sydney

Sydney is different. In 2006, household incomes in the Sydney city and inner south region were roughly the same as the wider metro average. By 2016 they were only 8% more. The North Sydney-Mossman inner city region actually went from being 56% more than the metro average to 37% more by 2016, while the Eastern suburbs north region stayed roughly the same – from 37% more to 38% more ten years later.

In dollar terms however, the differences are more stark: the average North Sydney-Mossman household in 2016 was pulling in $642 a week more than the metro average; and it was $667 a week more in the Eastern suburbs North.

So inner city residents of Sydney earn a lot more than the metro average in both dollar and percentage terms but it’s been that way for some time – hardly any surprise. This is entirely consistent with Sydney’s long term role as financial and business centre for Australia, which has arguably been the case for some decades now. Research would need to look back to the 1990s or earlier to find a turning point where inner urban income disparity began to widen significantly from the metro wide average – if indeed it did (or has it been so since the 1960s?)

However, proximity to the core does not preclude a number of middle and outer suburbs from joining the high income household list. Rouse Hill to the north west or Port Hacking to the south are two of several examples. In Sydney’s case, proximity to the core appears to have a significant relationship to high income households, but this has probably been the case since long before Florida published his first book.

Melbourne.

The household income gap in inner Melbourne compared with the greater Melbourne average widened from 5% more in 2006 to 10% more in 2016. The difference was greater in the Melbourne inner east area (14% more in 2016) but this was unchanged since 2006 (when it was 15%). In dollar terms, inner Melbourne households earn $155 more than the metro wide average and this rises to $213 a week more for the smaller Melbourne inner east area.

Overall, despite a widely reported acceleration of urban density programs in inner Melbourne over the past decade, this appears to have little impact on widening income disparity. In fact, it is possible to argue that Melbourne is more equitable in terms of inner urban versus wider metro household incomes than any other capital.

Melbourne also continues to exhibit a preference among high income households for a large number of middle and outer suburban areas. Any suggestion that high income professionals in Melbourne have abandoned the burbs for the inner city is not supported by the evidence.

Adelaide.

Households in Adelaide’s inner city (essentially its CBD) earned roughly 1% less than the metro average for the city in 2016 – which was down from 11% more in 2006. However, inner urban pockets such as Burnside inner (36% more in 2016) or Prospect-Walkerville (27% more in 2016) showed more disparity - but these differences seem for the most part unchanged since 2006 (when Burnside inner was 32% higher than the metro average and Prospect-Walkerville 19%).

So suburbs immediately adjoining the inner urban core of Adelaide appear to show more income differential compared with the metro average than the core itself, and these differences – 36% more in the case of Burnside – are substantial. But like Sydney, it would seem that this has been the case for at least the period since 2006 and there is no strong evidence of a widening income gap between inner and broader metro Adelaide - where the Adelaide Hills and foothills continue to be the preferred (suburban) environment for higher income households.

Perth

The gap between inner city household incomes and the wider metro area in Perth are widening – rising from 13% more in inner Perth in 2006 to 24% more in 2016. In dollar terms, inner city Perth households are now earning on average $386 a week more than the metro average for the city. At the time of the Census (August 2016) Perth was in the midst of a downturn in economic fortunes linked to the slowing resources sector.

You could speculate whether this had greater financial impact on inner urban or middle and outer urban households but without further study, this remains a topic of conjecture. For now at least, it remains the beachside suburbs north of the city that are home to the higher income households, much as it has long been.

So, what’s this all mean?

First, the Australian evidence runs contrary to suggestions that higher income professionals are abandoning the suburbs for “cooler, inner urban hipster” markets. Indeed, middle and suburban locations are where you are just as likely to find pockets of high income earning households (with the possible exception of Sydney where wealth does some more concentrated). The same, of course also applies to low income households but the point being that proximity to the core is not yet a key determinant for most cities – at least on the evidence. Larger homes and leafier environs remain for many a more powerful lure than higher density inner urban environments. There is evidence this may be changing and the gap widening, but the pace of change is not what some boosters have suggested. The suburbs have certainly not fallen from favour and remain very much desirable in the eyes of the higher income households that many inner urban markets covet.

It’s also fair to suggest that the income and wealth disparity Florida is now alerted to in cities like San Francisco and New York is of a scale that we are yet to see in Australian cities (again with the possible exception of Sydney). The enhancement of urban cores in many Australian city centres as so far mostly been insufficient to lure legions of high income creative class workers into those cores as places to live. Some will argue by pointing to anecdotal evidence (much of it owed to gushy headlines manufactured by eager boosters) but on the whole, Australian cities have avoided the problems that Florida now warns about.

For the time being at least.

Footnote: The maps used in this story came from a handy online tool published by The Guardian. You can have your own fun via this link.

Is heritage going too far?

The built form of cities reflects the demographics and economic structures of their eras. In the great age of rail, we built elaborate central train stations. In the age of mail, we built impressive post offices in central city and suburban locations. When cities functioned mainly as trading ports, we built wharves, warehouses and cargo handling facilities and CBDs effectively grew up around these functions. Many of these structures remain long past their economic use by date, and are often re-adapted to contemporary uses. The recent decision by Australia Post to sell its central GPOs for adaptive re-use is a case in point.

Re-purposing quality heritage structures ensures an ongoing economic role for these buildings, and in the process means they will be maintained and protected, as well as enjoyed by their tenants and the public. It allows cities to grow and develop and to adapt the built environment to the demands of contemporary economic life.  Preserving features of the past connects us all to our history and enhances the sense of place and belonging.

But is the drive to preserve past structures now going too far? Are we now locking down swathes of our urban landscape and preventing sensible adaption to modern lifestyles and economic change? Is it true that the notion of preserving anything ‘old’ has become so widespread that the merits of preservation go largely untested while any benefits of redevelopment are assumed to be nothing more than development profit for demonized ‘greedy developers’? Has it become, in the case of the preservation of built form, a matter of guilty until proven innocent?

This came into focus for me when some dilapidated pre-war homes in Highgate Hill – an inner suburb of Brisbane - which were approved for demolition suddenly became a cause celebre of a small but passionate and very vocal protest group. Yes, there was a local government election in the air but it’s a story that could be repeated in many Australian cities. Despite holding a legitimate license to demolish the properties in order to develop a five storey unit project - in line with the local plan for the area - the local and state governments succumbed to pressure and combined to issue a temporary stop order on any demolition.

Keep in mind these were dilapidated properties, allegedly riddled with termites and with significant amounts of asbestos. Any aesthetic value had long since disappeared after decades of being subject to multiple changes, partitions, and neglect. They had served their purpose for multiple generations of different types of occupants, but their use-by date was up.

They had sold in recent history to a developer with plans to follow the local planning scheme – a scheme endorsed by both local and state government. Evidently, when the properties were available for sale, our committed band of protesters did not buy the properties themselves. Concern for their protection did not extend to investing their own money in acquiring the properties and undertaking very extensive structural and design changes to restore them to some former glory.

What also became apparent from some media reports was that a number of the protesters, as nearby residents, were not ratepayers but renting houses or even just rooms in the area. You may think this too harsh, but it seems that not owning a nearby property (and hence not paying property taxes) is no obstacle to protesting that someone else’s property should be dealt with in a certain way. “No taxation without representation” was a slogan during the American Revolution. Now we have representation without taxation.  This group seemed to hold the view that a purchaser of these properties had some community obligation to undertake very extensive and costly renovations to restore derelict houses in line with what a small number of the nearby community believed should happen, irrespective of holding a valid license to demolish the properties and irrespective of the local community passing on the opportunity to buy the properties themselves.

And for what? Why this obsession with preservation even when it comes to structures that are clearly redundant or structurally deficient? We are not talking about highly significant heritage buildings of unique architectural or historic merit. We are not talking about public buildings in which the community has a legitimate say. We are talking about basic dwellings, privately owned, built of low cost materials available at the time and designed to suit a community and an economy that expired long ago.

The risk is that blanket preservation across swathes of our suburban and commercial centres prevents common sense rebuilding in line with contemporary needs. For starters, new housing tends to be more thermally and environmentally efficient. Anyone who has tried to cool, heat, or maintain an older style home will attest to that.  Further, modern housing is designed around the needs of today’s occupants – not households of more than 50 years ago. Plus, the local demography of many areas has entirely changed. Where once neighborhoods were busy with children playing in the street, some areas now house a large number of elderly who remain in homes that may no longer suit their needs because little is allowed to change (ie be redeveloped) in their neighborhood that might actually meet their needs. More important it seems to preserve dwellings that have outlived their purpose and insist that elderly relocate to somewhere else, than accommodate a changing community need.

Before you start sticking pins into a voodoo doll fashioned in my likeness, this is not advocating a ‘slash and burn’ of heritage properties. But it is trying to identify a clear difference between what constitutes a significant building or structure that is worthy of protection or adaptive reuse, and ones that are simply old.

It also raises a question about who should pay for this protection. Landmark public buildings are often paid for through adaptive reuse which identifies a new, alternate economic purpose. Failing this, taxpayers are generally willing to protect or maintain significant historic structures. But private homes are another thing. Only some are so significant that they have a market value which makes their preservation in private hands worthwhile to the owner. Run of the mill houses which are simply old may be more valuable for the land on which they sit than the structure above it. If these are to be preserved, unwillingly, by private owners – what compensation do we offer? None. Instead, the community is growing accustomed to the idea that they are entitled to have a greater say in what can and can’t be done with other people’s private homes in held in private hands for private use.

A city governed by excessive intervention in private property rights – all in the name of heritage protection – could find itself with large areas increasingly ill-suited to the modern world. We aren’t forced to keep driving around and maintaining old cars simply because they’re old – we are allowed to choose convenience and comfort and make fit-for-purpose decisions ourselves. Why is this increasingly not the case for the humble house?

In praise of accidental cities

Most of the built form we know as our cities of today was built before complex town planning regulations were developed. The irony is that it is the accidental parts of our cities – the parts developed during periods of the least regulation – that we now seek most to protect.

An increasingly urbanised world is placing pressure on governments and policy makers to more carefully control the use of land within recently defined urban boundaries. But this is, in terms of the history of our urban development, a largely modern construct. Regulatory town planning itself is largely a post-war concept, first notably embodied in the UK Town and Country Planning Act of 1947.  There had been previous ‘town planning’ Acts prior to this in the UK but the 1947 Act significantly overrode land ownership and required virtually all proposals to seek planning permission from the local authority.

Given the post-industrial state of much of urban Britain in the pre and inter-war period, it’s not surprising that regulators sought more control over how land was used and for what purposes. Well intentioned urban planners sought to segregate housing from industry and to carefully define and control how future urban expansion occurred. Higher standards of living, less pollution and the pursuit of a more equal society were among the motives. (The extent to which these hopes were achieved is open to much debate).

Fast forward some twenty or thirty years and to the antipodes, and Australia’s turn was to come. Our urban development history had largely been a free enterprise model until perhaps the mid 1970s but certainly by the mid 1980s regulators were having more say in land use policy and controls over private land. Prior to this, the 19th century had seen industrial and housing uses develop in close proximity, often centred on transport nodes such as sea or river ports. It was a walkable society back then because there was no other choice, expect the horse, which wasn’t so much needed when the factory or wharf was only a few blocks from home. Tiny workers’ cottages and terraces sprung up in amongst the tanneries, warehouses and factories of industrial pursuit.  

The 20th century witnessed a gradual transformation of work from blue to white collar. Australia by the 1960s was a very different nation – with a rising middle class, white collar employment and the post war baby boom in full stride (or should that be ‘crawl’ under the circumstances?). Suburban development took hold and an upwardly aspirant middle class quickly embraced the quality offered by modern brick homes with flushing toilets and fancy kitchens (by their standards), with yard space for children to play – all features which had largely been absent from the homes they and their parents had grown up in.  Land was developed for suburban use with minimal regulation or control. Cities expanded and entire city administrations had relatively small building divisions with perhaps a few city engineers to ensure what minimal standards existed were met. The notion of town planning departments was something new, and novel.

But as growth continued and society progressed, governments found themselves under increasing community pressure to control and regulate this growth. By the time comprehensive land use regulation took hold, most of the structure of our urban form - including major transport routes, suburban housing development, centres of industry, of white collar employment, the locations of hospitals and schools – all had largely been developed and delivered, as if by accident.

There is no question that modern town planning has helped deliver some very high quality outcomes. Witness in particular the large swathes of urban renewal projects which have leveraged private capital to transform brownfield and largely abandoned inner city industrial land into high quality (and high priced) inner urban housing and commercial developments. 

But the point should be remembered that there are limits to what regulation can provide and there are benefits of enterprise-driven development which are too quickly forgotten. ‘Accidental cities’ has become a derogatory term used by those who see benefit in increased planning control over public and privately held land. The price of not intervening through fine grained regulation, the argument goes, is inefficient cities which lead to inefficient economies.

For me though, this has a touch of Stalinism about it. There are huge sections of cities globally which are now feted for their character, and they are invariably parts which developed ‘by accident’ through free formation of common interests and private capital, unrestrained. Often messy, sometimes disorganised and invariably hectic, they are nonetheless the places that feature in tourist brochures. Think of Singapore’s Chinatown, or Hong Kong’s night markets. Think of Venice’s canals, New Orleans’ French Quarter, or New York’s many ethnic enclaves like Little Italy.

I struggle to think of many places elsewhere in the world which were created under the rigid guidance of regulatory planning, which we’d like to mimic or replicate. To me it seems very much the accidental parts of cities that are somehow more ‘real’ and less reconstituted. It’s as if we can tell the difference, without even really thinking about it.

So it should come as no surprise that it’s also these parts of our cities that we tend to want to preserve. They aren’t necessarily just historical structures or places – sometimes, like the laneways of Melbourne’s CBD – they can be uses which have sprung up as if despite of – or in defiance of - the regulator’s rule book.  

What this means for modern town planning is that the efforts to control and command in fine detail the nature of urban outcomes – even down to deciding what type of retail shop should be allowed in one place or another for example – is actually counter-productive. It stifles competition and smothers creativity. 

There is a balance between the planned and the accidental and to find where that balance lies first means appreciating that accidental cities, or the things that are allowed to happen without intervention, can have as much appeal as those parts which have been carefully planned, controlled and documented. 

Perhaps once we begin to appreciate the design dividend that is delivered through accidental aspects of urban development, we might as a community become less wedded to the idea that only more regulation can achieve the quality urban outcomes we most admire.