Practice Question

Levittown
1 Shortly after World War II, many changes led to the development of suburbs. Men returned home from military service, got married, and started families. They needed housing. William Levitt, an entrepreneur, started building look-alike houses in developments in rural areas using assembly-line techniques. His first site, located in Nassau County, New York, is now called Levittown.
2 William and his brother Alfred first gained experience in assembly-line techniques while building government housing for defense workers during World War II. After the war, the Levitts gambled on the belief that many veterans would want to work in the city while living in rural areas. They bought 1,000 acres of Long Island farmland 25 miles east of Manhattan. In 1947, they began construction on the first of what would eventually be 17,000 houses.
3 The operation was organized so that houses could be mass-produced. At a 20-acre facility on-site, cement was mixed and lumber cut. Carpenters, roofers, and tile layers worked in waves. There was even one team of painters for red and another for white. The Levitt brothers owned a forest, a saw mill, and a nail-making factory. This use of vertical integration, along with buying appliances directly from manufacturers, allowed them to keep costs down and maximize their profits. Houses sold for $8,000, which resulted in a $1,000 profit per house for the builders.
4 Even so, the success of Levittown depended not only on the efficiency of the Levitt brothers' process but also on the Federal Housing Administration, which guaranteed bank loans to builders. Moreover, a separate government program made low-interest mortgage loans avallable to returning military personnel. With this financing in place, more homes could be built and more veterans could afford to buy them. Thus, much of the baby-boom generation had well-constructed homes in which to grow up.