Levittown/Concord Park: Utopia in Our Backyard

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Vox Media Podcast Network

History, Arts, Leisure, Home & Garden, Design

4.4 • 4.3K Ratings

🗓️ 13 June 2019

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Suburban developments built in the 1950s were idyllic communities and gave many people their first opportunity at home ownership, but typically excluded African Americans. While William Levitt used explicit racial covenants and other tactics to keep his famed Levittown developments white, one builder used racial quotas to create an integrated community — and succeeded, for a while. Can the suburbs be a utopia for all? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Every time someone asks me where I'm from, it's a bit of a routine.
0:04.1	The answer is the same and the reaction is the same.
0:07.7	First, I puff up my chest and I tell them, I'm from New York.
0:11.6	They excitedly ask me where.
0:14.4	And then I tuck my tail between my legs as I can see.
0:17.6	Well, just outside the city.
0:20.3	Um, I'm from Westchester.
0:23.6	It's the suburbs.
0:25.2	No doubt about it.
0:26.6	It's where the Manhattan commuter trains go.
0:28.7	And yes, that is how my dad got to his office and how I tried and failed to go out to clubs
0:33.7	when I was a teenager.
0:35.1	Such a cliche.
0:36.8	Lady Gaga once said that the worst rumor about her is that she's from Westchester.
0:42.0	It's not cool.
0:44.4	But throughout the 20th century, for many Americans,
0:48.6	Suburbia was the dream.
0:51.9	The American Dream of Home Ownership, your own little Utopia,
0:57.2	with all it entails.
0:59.2	And guess what?
1:00.5	This wonderful home comes with appreciation and equity.
1:05.2	This is Dorothy Brown, a professor at Emory University School of Law.
	...

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