The Levittowners; Ways of Life and Politics in a New Suburban
New York: Pantheon Books [ A Division of Random House, Inc.], 1967. Third printing [stated]. Hardcover. xxix, [1], 474, [4] pages. Frontispiece. Tables. Notes. Appendix. References. Index. Some cover wear. Ink notations inside front board and fep. Stamp on fep and second fep. Herbert J. Gans (born May 7, 1927) is a German-born American sociologist who taught at Columbia University from 1971 to 2007. One of the most influential sociologists of his generation, Gans came to America in 1940 as a refugee from Nazi Germany and has sometimes described his scholarly work as an immigrant's attempt to understand America. He trained in sociology at the University of Chicago and in social planning at the University of Pennsylvania. Although Gans views his career as spanning six fields of research, he initially made his reputation as a critic of urban renewal in the early 1960s. His book, The Urban Villagers, described Boston's diverse West End neighborhood, where he mainly studied its Italian-American working class community. The book is well known for its critical analysis of the area's clearance as an alleged "slum" and the West Enders' displacement from their neighborhood. His book The Levittowners was based on years of participant-observation in New Jersey's Levitt-built suburb in Willingboro, observing how a set of new homeowners came together to establish the community's formal and informal organizations. Demonstrating the inaccuracy of the depiction of the postwar suburbs as homogeneous, conformist and anomic, Gans showed that Levittown was a typical lower middle class suburb, the residents' class and other differences structuring the social and political life of the community. In 1955, Levitt and Sons purchased most of Willingboro Township, New Jersey and built 11,000 homes. This, their third Levittown, became the site of one of urban sociology's most famous community studies, Herbert J. Gans's The Levittowners. The product of two years of living in Levittown, the work chronicles the invention of a new community and its major institutions, the beginnings of social and political life, and the former city residents' adaptation to suburban living. Gans uses his research to reject the charge that suburbs are sterile and pathological. First published in 1967, The Levittowners is a classic of participant-observer ethnography that also paints a sensitive portrait of working-class and lower-middle-class life in America. This new edition features a foreword by Harvey Molotch that reflects on Gans's challenges to conventional wisdom. Levittown is the name of several large suburban housing developments created in the United States by William J. Levitt and his company Levitt & Sons. Built after World War II for returning veterans and their new families, the communities offered attractive alternatives to cramped central city locations and apartments. The Veterans Administration and the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) guaranteed builders that qualified veterans could buy housing for a fraction of rental costs. The first Levittown home sold for $7,900 and in a short period of time, 17,000 units were sold, providing homes for 84,000 people. In addition to normal family dwellings, Levittowns provided private meeting areas, swimming pools, public parks, and recreational facilities. Production was modeled on assembly lines in 27 steps with construction workers trained to perform one step. A house could be built in one day, with 36 men, when effectively scheduled. This enabled quick and economical production of similar or identical homes with rapid recovery of costs. Standard Levittown houses included a white picket fence, green lawns, and modern appliances. Sales in the original Levittown began in March 1947. 1,400 homes were purchased during the first three hours. Condition: Good / No dust jacket present.
Keywords: Urban Planning, Suburban, Quality of Life, Social Life, Community, Democracy, Decision-making, Levittown, Boredom, Class Structure, Heterogeneity, Homogeneity, Housing, Jews, Loneliness, Neighborhood, Participant-observation, Pluralism, Racial Integr
[Book #85030]
Price: $45.00