PLAYING HOUSE
I spent weeks combing through histories of architecture to find an example of the quintessential suburb. I had the image in my head: a collection of indistinguishable homes, complemented by sprawling lawns and suffocated by next door neighbors. Then, I stumbled upon Levittown. The “perfect” suburb.
Levittown, New York
And the first. Levittown was a post-war proposal fathered by the Levitt & Sons corporation. Their concept was simple: low-cost housing for veterans returning home from World War II. To ensure affordability — $8,000 per lot — they built homes via an assembly-line technique. Builders followed a series of 26 steps to create one-story homes: Levitt & Sons could spit out 30 of these a day. The mass production of real estate provided people in need a place to call home.
Rows and rows and rows of identical houses. Barren of individuality and devoid of personality.
Would walking into your neighbor's house feel jarring? Or would it be impossible to tell you were in the wrong place? I can't answer these questions; I haven’t had the opportunity to make my way down to Long Island. But the concept of Levittown intrigues me. How would a building operation like this fare today? For a generation that no longer equates alienation with uniqueness and individuality, what would it mean for one’s home to be exactly like everyone else's?
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I have to note my own limitations in the pursuit of this topic. Do I think that, if given the chance, people in need would jump at the opportunity to have affordable housing? Yes, absolutely. In January of 2020, roughly 590,000 Americans were unhoused. The questions of aesthetics and individuality seem pointless when considering the reality of the housing crisis.
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And yet, even the suburban expectation that middle class Americans once held is no longer as viable. Higher rates of poverty continue to be found in suburbs. Suburbia no longer functions as the equalizer that Levitt & Sons envisioned. Instead, a demarcation in the suburbs now exists much more expressly: You are wealthy or you are poor.
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When did this shift occur? And, why do I care?
When I dreamed about my future, I imagined myself as an architect. Pencil in ear, sleek wide flared trousers, and a smart blazer; I would be the chic curator of people’s entire lives. I have since changed my career aspirations and settled for the much less creative goal of being a lawyer. But, as a kid, all I wanted to do was design houses. Infatuated might be the right word to describe how I felt when I visited different people’s homes. Of course, as a child, I couldn’t recognize all the math and planning that went into the structure, but I could recognize how I felt inside these homes. Whether it’d been feelings of jealousy, discomfort, or excitement I remained conscious of the effect that the spaces had on me.
My architecture dream was not just a silly childhood urge. I joined a demanding three-year program offered by my high school that included “Intro to design,” “Architecture 1,” and “Architecture 2: Urban planning.” While juggling typical English and Science coursework, I was also learning to draw buildings in perspective and prepare floor plans. In my second year of the program, after having learned all the design elements required, I was tasked with drawing and then constructing my first model of a home. The instructions were frustratingly open-ended: The house must be 1,500 square feet and it must be functional. That was all I had to work with.
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Without assigned confinement, I felt the need to confine the project myself. I wanted my house to mean something. So, I decided to build a house influenced by music. The focal point of the home would be a grand piano centered immediately after the entry. To flesh out the theme of musicality even further, I challenged myself to build the structure of the home so that it would mimic the curvatures of a piano lid.
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In envisioning the final product, I assumed that whoever would choose to live in this imaginary creation would inevitably be forced to love and appreciate music. By manually installing elements that simulated an instrument, I played a role in the way one would be forced to move around the home. I wanted to puppeteer an experience within the space. My authority exercised in my high school architecture class is not a unique phenomena, but rather reflects a greater trend in home design today.
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To understand how homes transformed from standardized blocks in Levittown to our current version of living, I needed to do more research. A wise teacher once told me, “your google searches are too complicated; dumb it down and you’ll find your answer.” With limited expectations I typed in: “When did houses get so big?”
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He was right.
It’s natural to think that houses in America have gotten big because the country itself has the room to allow such a commodity. Sure, when comparing America to Malta (a particularly small country) we have the liberty to expand audaciously. But when comparing home sizes to those in Russia — which by no means is strapped for land — homes in America still remain larger on average.
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Possessing more land, and more real estate, has practical benefits. To inform both myself, and you the reader, I did a deep dive into home-ownership. Over time, the average home appreciates in value. The exact value is dependent on aspects like location and our volatile economy, but as a rule of thumb: if you are in the position to afford to buy your house, owning property allows for considerable financial stability.
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Beyond the sensible reasons for owning a larger home, what is the driving force behind the desire for the excess amount of space?
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Owning a big home feels quintessentially American. In fact, “US Homes Today are 1,000 Square Feet Larger Than in 1973 and Living Space per Person has Nearly Doubled” (AEI, 2016.) In a survey published by BankRate, 74% of Americans said that owning a home is a vital part of fulfilling the elusive “American Dream.” The American Dream, conceived by James Truslow Adams, underlines the idea that all Americans should be capable of upwards mobility and enough success to live a comfortable life.
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It seems that our understanding of comfort has transformed over time. The housing project in Levittown delivered on all of the necessities: A roof over one’s head, a place to sleep, a place to eat, and a place to call one’s own. Checking the boxes on every foundational human need undoubtedly fulfills Adam’s perception of the American Dream. And yet, I cannot imagine myself living in Levittown. The monotony would make me uncomfortable; the lack of personalization would stifle me. Levittown and standardized housing projects alike set the groundwork for achieving the American Dream. Only now, the American Dream has transformed to include more.
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More and more and more.
Los Alto Hills, California
To give you an example of the suburban opulence I have been considering, let’s look at a community in my home state of California. Just about a 40 minute drive from San Francisco, Los Alto Hills is a suburb in Santa Clara County. The census data from Los Alto Hills is impressive, if not a bit frightening. The median family income sits at about $250,000; $180,000 more than the average American family income. The median home price in America is around $458,000. In Los Alto Hills? The median property value is an imposing $2,000,000. What’s more, the home-ownership rate in Los Alto Hills is 92%; These homes are not just pretty to look at but also decisive investments.
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An aerial view of Los Altos Hills is a far cry from an image of Levittown. Just by the shape of the roofs one can easily tell that each home is different from the other. The California suburb also allows for a greater degree of privacy. Where Levittown neighbors are separated by a small strip of grass, those in Los Altos Hills utilize excess shrubbery and winding driveways to individuate from those around them.
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Though the houses in Los Altos Hills are not as homogenized as the ones in Levittown, they still appear eerily similar. The view of the properties from the image above radiates regulation. This seems to point to a Homeowner Association.
A Homeowner Association (HOA) is a group that creates and enforces rules within a specific jurisdiction. An HOA can issue fines for its community members when standards set by the organization are not met. Grass too long? Fined. Trash left outside the bins? Fined. The Homeowners Association not only keeps the aesthetics of its members' houses in check, but they also uphold the manicured behaviors typical to a suburb.
Interestingly, Los Altos Hills is not directed by any group like the HOA. How does their suburb seem so uniformed? Without prying eyes from an HOA, it is up to the residents of Los Altos Hills to manage themselves. The regulatory measures taken can be considered through the lens of taste. Two necessary elements for having "good taste," is the recognitions of proportions and balance. If one house in Los Alto Hills appeared proportionately larger than all the other houses, would that signal taste? No, in fact, being the outlier in Los Alto Hills would come across as tacky. When an entire community shares the high median income like in Los Alto Hills, aggrandizing ruins a mutually accepted balance. That balance centers around the idea that one is able to show off their wealth; but not show it off too much.
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As we've seen, Los Alto Hills maintains a level of uniformity in their suburb for a very different reason than in Levittown. What else separates these modern suburbs from the ones of the past?
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Suburban homes today are no longer about fulfilling basic needs. Instead, they represent a shift in the understanding of home. Exclude those who believe that "home is where the heart is," or "home is wherever i'm with you;" sayings like that will always hold true to people who find little value in material objects. But, to those who do subscribe to materialism, a home now acts as an opportunity to showcase personality. Homes reflect the self-interest aspect of egoism; a departure from collective neighborhoods into isolated personalized compounds.
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An implicit paradox exists in suburban home-ownership. The contradiction lies in the perception of control.
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Once you purchase the home on your ideal suburban street, you may feel as if the battle is over. You have made the down payment and you are now the proud owner of a physical demarcation of wealth. Congrats! In reality, control is far from your grasp.
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Home design today is over inundated with options. There are a plethora of decisions that need to be made as soon as you collect the keys, from the stain on the hardwood to the embellishments on the cabinets. Consider Levittown, where all appliances in the home were fitted by General Electric. While the standardized design limited opportunity for individuality, it also made it so that residents could make experiences in the home — the home itself wasn't the experience. Now, however, something as simple as a stove acts as a further reflection of opulence. Do you buy a basic four burner stove with an oven attached for less than $1,000? Or, do you opt for the same function but with a more reflective stainless steel for $3,000? Very few people will recognize a flashy stove, but you will, and the fact that a choice must be made shows the elusiveness of control.
Once your home is designed in a way that you appreciate, you must also consider how other people are going to experience your choices. Thinking back to my own awareness as a kid in people's homes, I did not hold back from having hypercritical thoughts. Some were purely about stylistic choices; I never appreciated Mediterranean inspired design. Too much beige and too much stone. And, some thoughts were about the dynamic of the home. Being allowed to eat on the couch or wear shoes beyond the entry point indicated a level of ease that reflected on the home-owners themselves. I envied my friends who could leave their rooms in a state of disarray; to someone else, however, a messy room could stir up feelings of disapproval. Ultimately, no matter how you decide to curate your space, you will never be able to manage how people feel once they are inside.
You may counter with, "well if I like it, then why does it matter how other people feel?" And to that I answer: Think about the HOA and what it stands for; others' perception of home is the hallmark of modern suburbia. If truly apathetic to other peoples experience, then there would be no need for all the additional square footage and endless bedrooms. Yet, standardized home design no longer suffices. As such, a need for appreciation is inherent in current home design.
Appreciation or even admiration most often arises when one possesses something that the others do not. And that is the final piece in the puzzle of suburbia. In the past, suburbs centered around the idea of community. Neighbors on the street formed relationships with the knowledge that they had equal footing in an expansive middle class. Their houses looked the same and so too did their financial circumstances. In today's suburbia, it's impossible to be sure who lives around you. The house to the left could act as someone's fourth vacation home while the house to the right could be the culmination of an entire life's savings. The colossal divide in economic standing in modern suburbia points away from collectivism towards individualism. You got to suburbia on your own, and you will use all the gates and hostile design to keep it that way.
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So, why have houses gotten so much bigger? Why has interior design become so extravagant?
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Houses have moved away from being homes and have grown into the emblem of prosperity. Play house all you want; it's the front door you walk into that defines who you are.
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On second thought, Levittown isn't sounding too bad.
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Sources
Borrman, Kristina. “One Standardized House for All: America's Little House.” Buildings & Landscapes: Journal of the Vernacular Architecture Forum, vol. 24, no. 2, 2017, p. 37., https://doi.org/10.5749/buildland.24.2.0037.
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Churchwell, Sarah. “A Brief History of the American Dream.” George W. Bush Presidential Center, 21 Nov. 2022, https://www.bushcenter.org/catalyst/state-of-the-american-dream/churchwell-history-of-the-american-
dream#:~:text=No%20less%20an%20authority%20than,%2C%20determination%2C%20and%20initiative.%E2%80%9D.
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Kollar, Jessica Semega and Melissa. “Income in the United States: 2021.” Census.gov, 13 Sept. 2022, https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2022/demo/p60-276.html.
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Lerner, Michele. “Suburbs Still Hotter than Cities for Home Buyers.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 18 Dec. 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/12/23/suburbs-still-hotter-than-cities-home-buyers/.
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“Los Altos, CA.” Data USA, https://datausa.io/profile/geo/los-altos-ca.
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New US Homes Today Are 1,000 Square Feet Larger than in 1973 and Living ... https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/new-us-homes-today-are-1000-square-feet-larger-than-in-1973-and-living-space-per-person-has-nearly-doubled/.
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Quinn, Shannon. “McMansion Hell: When Bigger Isn't Better.” Home Addict, 3 Mar. 2023, https://homeaddict.io/mcmansion-hell/.
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Saraniero, Nicole, et al. “The Controversial History of Levittown, America's First Suburb.” Untapped New York, 1 July 2021, https://untappedcities.com/2020/07/31/the-controversial-history-of-levittown-americas-first-suburb/.