The Other Levittown

A vibrant, diverse community. A thriving suburb with big yards, good schools, and little crime. A robustly middle-class population with an African-American majority. Welcome to today’s Levittown.

William Levitt, the Henry Ford of home-building, changed the face of American communities. His mass-produced homes—built at a rate of roughly 40 per day—made homeownership affordable for middle- and working-class people. The largest builder in the eastern U.S., Levitt created (and recreated ad nauseam) what epitomized the post-war American Dream—a small mortgage, three bedrooms, and a big back yard. 

Over the last fifty years, Levitt’s three crabgrass experiments have followed different paths. His communities on Long Island and in Buck’s County, Pennsylvania still fit the Levittown stereotype. While many of their buildings have been personalized through additions and renovations, their resident populations remain largely homogeneous—New York’s Levittown is 94 percent white; Pennsylvania’s is 98 percent white.

Levittown, New Jersey, which has since been renamed Willingboro, tells a different story. Levitt’s New Jersey development officially opened to potential purchasers in June 1958 and dramatically transformed what had been sparsely settled farmland less than twenty miles outside of Philadelphia. Built as a “full-fledged community,” the complex includes more than 12,000 houses organized into neighborhoods with their own elementary schools, playgrounds, and swimming pools. The entire community shares shopping centers, parks, a high school, and a library.

When Levitt broke ground on New Jersey’s Levittown, substantial criticism already surrounded the first two Levittowns. Columbia University sociologist Herbert Gans called them “hair raising stories” about the uniformity of residents and lifestyles. Such concerns prompted Gans to move to the new complex for two years to study community as a resident-observer. Through his own experience, interviews, and observations, Gans concluded that, despite its bad reputation in academic and planning circles, the community was not at all a bad place to live.

Gans argued that a neighborhood’s sense of community is “determined more by the events which [take] place after its founding than by prior planning.” According to Gans, it was far better to focus on the interactions between the people, rather than the interactions between the buildings, within a community in order to understand the nature of a neighborhood. Diverse populations and community-oriented residents mattered far more to an area’s fabric than heterogeneous structures.

In few places is this observation more visible than in Willingboro—a town that experience has taken far from its planners’ and architects’ original expectations. In today’s Willingboro, the homes look the same but the faces have changed. And because the faces are different, the perception of the town’s condition and the level of its property values stand in stark contrast to the New York and Pennsylvania Levittowns—confirming that the link between race and real estate is alive and well decades after the judicial and legislative repudiation of exclusionary zoning and other discriminatory practices.

Racial Transition

In 1958, William Levitt announced at a press conference on his upcoming development in New Jersey that he would not sell any of its homes to African-Americans. Shortly after this pronouncement, New Jersey Governor Robert Meyner put the State Division Against Discrimination (SDAD) on the case, and U.S. Senator Clifford Case requested that the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) refuse to insure mortgages on Levittown homes.

At the same time, two African-Americans who were turned away from the development brought a suit against Levitt in the state courts. In 1960, to avoid public hearings on the case (and the negative publicity that was bound to accompany them), Levitt agreed to desegregate Willingboro. Well aware of the potential backlash—rioting had recently erupted in Levittown, Pennsylvania when black families moved in—Levitt followed a highly organized approach, complete with a hired expert consultant. One component of the integration plan, “Operation Hothead,” enlisted local ministers to implore known militant segregationists not to protest integration. The sale of homes to African-Americans was also carefully orchestrated, with staff giving these families their pick of homes in currently unoccupied neighborhoods. The only restriction on their selection was Levitt’s insistence that “under no circumstances should two Negroes be permitted to buy adjoining houses.” Getting first choice meant that most African-American households picked highly desirable lots, ones that white families were willing to move near. In fact, only a small minority of whites asked to select a different lot after learning their neighbors would be black. As a result of these efforts, by 1964 roughly 50 African-American families lived in Willingboro, up from just six four years before.

Throughout the late 1960s, Willingboro integrated significantly, with Willingboro’s African-American residents rising from less than one percent to 11 percent of the population, or just under 5,000 people. The number of non-white residents nearly doubled again between 1970 and 1973, reaching more than 8,000 people and representing nearly one-fifth of the town’s population by the mid-1970s.

Hoping to stem white flight, local officials instituted a ban on the posting of “For Sale” signs on real estate in 1974. The ban was meant to prevent “blockbusting,” in which one home sale would spur others, sparking a contagious string (typically encouraged by real estate agents) of “panic” sales by white homeowners who feared the negative impact of racial turnover on property values.

Whether or not the ban achieved its goals is debatable. The U.S. Supreme Court struck it down in 1977 in Linmark Associates v. Township of Willingboro. The Court, while making its decision primarily on First Amendment concerns, also pointed to the program’s mixed success. All witnesses agreed that the number of owners considering or actually selling their homes due to racial fears declined while the ban was in effect; however, several witnesses testified that the actual number of home sales did not decrease, and some real estate agents even reported seeing as much as 25 percent more business since 1974.

White flight continued through the 1980s, ironically due (at least in part) to a “well-intentioned but misused federal housing program,” according to Mark Fazlollah, a writer for the Philadelphia Inquirer who profiled Willingboro in 1993. Local real estate agents (seven of whom were eventually sent to jail) “helped” many in-migrating African-Americans purchase homes with mortgages—insured by the Federal Housing Administration—that were larger than they could afford. When owners defaulted on their loans, as many of them did, banks were protected against the loss and received repayment from the government. While the agents moved on to the next victims (and the next commission), the foreclosed homes typically stood vacant and boarded up, destabilizing the surrounding neighborhood. This further encouraged the outflow of white residents—between 1980 and 1990, Willingboro lost 9,000 white residents, or nearly 40 percent of its white population—and caused property values to plummet.

According to data from the U.S. Census, the overall and white population loss that threatened Willingboro’s stability in the 1980s slowed between 1990 and 2000. In 1990, 36,291 people lived in Willingboro, 56 percent of them African-American. By 2000, the town’s total population had fallen to 33,008—roughly three-quarters of its 1970 total—and was now 67 percent black. 

Neighborhood Change and the “Segregation Tax”

What does this type of transition mean for neighborhoods and communities? Scholars typically trace neighborhood change to individual households’ decisions related to buying and selling housing—moving in or moving out of neighborhoods—and the effects those decisions have on an area’s supply and demand for housing. When supply is greater than demand, prices fall to make whatever is currently over-supplied (or under-demanded) more attractive. Not surprisingly, what typically sets off neighborhood decline and disinvestment is sellers significantly outnumbering buyers.

David Rusk, a former mayor of Albuquerque and New Mexico state legislator, explicitly links race into this equation in The “Segregation Tax”: The Cost of Racial Segregation to Black Homeowners, a report for The Brookings Institution. Rusk does this by calculating a home value-to-income ratio for different communities. Comparing ratios, he found that they tend to drop “precipitously as the percentage of minority residents in a neighborhood” rises. The difference between the ratios for majority-white and majority-black areas represents his “segregation tax.”

Rusk highlights the experience of Willingboro, what he calls “the pre-eminent black suburb of metropolitan Philadelphia” in his analysis. “During the 1970s,” he writes, “there were seventy-seven white homebuyers for every one hundred black homebuyers; in the 1980s, only fifty-six white homebuyers for every one hundred black homebuyers; and by 1989, only forty white homebuyers for every one hundred black homebuyers.” Since Willingboro’s portion of black residents continued to increase throughout the 1990s, he concludes that there were clearly even fewer new white homebuyers interested in Willingboro in the 1990s than in the 1980s. “As more and more white homebuyers shunned Willingboro,” writes Rusk, “demand for housing and price competition were reduced, home values were depressed, and the segregation tax grew.”

Building upon Rusk’s analysis, and incorporating data from the 2000 Census, it is clear that Willingboro residents continue to pay this “segregation tax.” Compared to the other two Levittowns, with similar housing stock and neighborhood design, Willingboro’s median house value was significantly lower even though its median household income was right in line with that of the other communities. Typically, household income and house values rise together. Willingboro residents get over $1 less in house value per dollar of income than residents of New York’s Levittown and roughly $0.60 less than residents of Pennsylvania’s (See Table 1).

The demand for Willingboro housing and the valuation of that housing are both largely dictated by the make-up of Willingboro’s population—a nationwide trend, as Rusk makes clear. While median home values increased more slowly in the Philadelphia metropolitan area than they did nationally throughout the 1990s, values still rose significantly—by 23 percent on the Pennsylvania side of the metropolitan area and by 13 percent on the New Jersey side (as compared to 53 percent nationwide). In Willingboro, home values rose by less than 1 percent (0.3 percent). One resident, profiled by the Philadelphia Inquirer, saw the value of her home remain constant from 1987 to 1998 despite several renovations. When adjusting these increases to reflect a rising overall cost of living, the median Willingboro homeowner actually lost 24 percent of the value of his or her home. Rusk concludes that these trends reflect both a minimal level of new construction in town as well as “the continued impact of the segregation tax.

Willingboro Today

Curt Miner, curator of an exhibit commemorating Levittown, PA, on its fiftieth birthday, explains how “Levittown at one time embodied the classic sense of nowhere. But people over time have established a strong sense of place.” This is even more true for Willingboro than for the other Levitt developments.

Despite, or even because of, its population shift, Willingboro has matured into a strong and stable community, one that residents treasure. A drive through town makes this clear, as banners hanging from thoroughfare streetlights proudly remind drivers where they are. Decorative signs identify the various neighborhoods off of Levitt Parkway.

An early-1990s profile of Willingboro referred to the town as a “model black suburban community with big back yards, good schools, and little crime.” Indeed, the town is strongly middle-class, with a median household income of nearly $61,000. Although Willingboro median house values have increased only slightly over the last decade, according to the 2000 Census less than four percent of the town’s housing units are vacant.

Willingboro’s “good schools” are no illusion either. The town boasts a significantly lower drop-out rate than the state—1.6 percent vs. 2.7 percent. In 2002, three-quarters of the school’s seniors reported that they planned to attend either a four-year (51 percent) or two-year (25 percent) college after graduation.

In addition, Willingboro’s main commercial and retail thoroughfare is currently undergoing something of a rebirth. According to Herb Simmens, Director of the Office of State Planning, it is the site of “one of the best regional planning efforts” in New Jersey. In 1995, Burlington County—along with twelve of its municipalities, including Willingboro—initiated the Route 130/Delaware River Corridor Project. The goal was to attract developers back to Route 130, the area’s commercial corridor whose reign ended with the construction of Interstate 295.

Thanks to “creative” zoning that allows for a variety of uses, and the availability of the payment-in-lieu-of-taxes (PILOT) tax abatement program for the site, a blend of housing, cultural, educational, retail, and commercial establishments is moving in. This new “Town Center,” which replaces the long-vacant Willingboro Plaza, is becoming a model for other brownfield redevelopment projects.

Some observers had blamed Willingboro’s supposed in-town distress for the decline of commerce and retail along Route 130. In fact, according to Robert Stang, the Managing Director of ReNEWal Realty overseeing the site’s redevelopment, it was the arrival of Interstate 295 in the 1970s that changed area traffic patterns and drew potential shoppers and workers away from Route 130. Conversely, many assumed the strip’s decline was spreading to nearby neighborhoods and destabilizing the area. However, with its low vacancy rate and exceptionally low percentage of properties with significant structural problems (less than 1 percent), Willingboro’s “decay” appears to have been by and large an illusion.

Integration and Diversity

That a place like Willingboro might be considered anything but thriving reveals a persistent problem. Many of America’s minority communities—from Levitt’s new suburban neighborhoods to downtown urban districts—have yet to escape the misperception of neighborhood decline.

Willingboro, with its current energy and vitality, and its residents’ strong sense of community and pride in their town, is successful by most standards. It is a beautiful town with housing in excellent condition, winding and quiet residential streets, nearby retail and commercial centers, and scores of neighborhood anchors (such as churches) that have been a part of the town for decades.

Yet Willingboro is an undervalued community whose perceived degeneration has translated into real implications for its residents. Housing values trail those of its neighbors as well as its Levitt-built counterparts, and little new development—residential or commercial—has taken place within its borders (exceptional efforts along Route 130 notwithstanding).

As faces change throughout the United States, and as more and more cities see their populations shift, the story of Willingboro should encourage us to rethink the assumptions we make about race and place. Anyone concerned about the future of our cities and neighborhoods should pay close attention—not just to the model of community building that Willingboro can offer, but to why it has been overlooked in the first place.