From Levittown to Las Vegas

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The creation of Levittown in 1947 fueled Nassau County’s growth from 672,000 people in 1950 to 1.3 million in 1960. Similarly, the suburbs of Las Vegas ballooned the population of Clark County, Nevada, by 576,000 from 2000 to 2010. The suburban journey from Levittown to Las Vegas is now a competition, and we aren’t winning.

On the one hand, we’re competing against New York City and other “cool” urban areas that attract our young college graduates. We’re also competing against brand-spanking-new suburbs in warm-weather climates, which have more affordable housing, a lower cost of living, central air conditioning, pools, sprinkler systems and job growth. We need to adapt or die.

Long Island is still great, but every day we hear about a friend’s son or daughter, a recent college graduate, who’s moving to Brooklyn, or a cousin or acquaintance who’s leaving for North Carolina or Florida or Arizona. I’ve mentioned the pressure of property taxes and the allure of the city for young college graduates who are postponing marriage and looking for a fun environment to rent an apartment.

I don’t think it’s affordability that makes Brooklyn or Manhattan or Boston more attractive to 20-somethings. I think it’s about lifestyle and rental apartments. I do think, however, that’s it’s all about affordability when it comes to the competition from other suburbs that have been growing over the past 20 years.

When Bill Levitt built the Levitt homes, they were billed as “affordable housing” for veterans returning from World War II. Cheap land on former potato fields and standardized, mass-produced houses with new appliances and garages were something that had never been available to the masses before. Nassau saw explosive residential home building from 1947 to 1960, and natural growth from 1960 to the county’s peak population of about 1.5 million in the mid-1970s. (Today we number about 1.4 million.)

We also had explosive commercial construction to service this new population in the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s. Then the growth stopped.

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