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If Levittown epitomized postwar culture, what does Denver's Stapleton development say about America today?
By Eric Demby
The Metropolis Observed
April 2003
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Levittown, 2003
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Stapleton, 2003
Top, courtesy Levittown Public Library; bottom, courtesy Stapleton
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Offsite:
The Museum at FIT, www.fitnyc.suny.edu
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The way developers view the blank slate of open space in America says a
lot about us as a nation. For example, our understanding of postwar culture
begins with Levittown, New York, where the Levitt family mass-produced almost
20,000 virtually identical homes in the late 1940s at a peak rate of 30
per day, transforming 6,000 acres of Long Island potato farms into the prototypical
U.S. suburb.
If Levittown was a Ford, then Stapleton, a massive redevelopment project
on the former site of Denver's airport, is a bicycle. Boasting its own "green
book" of sustainable guidelines as well as an explicit effort to rectify
virtually every postwar sprawl-related ill--economic stratification, air
pollution, car reliance, community disintegration, detachment from nature--Stapleton
garnered the prestigious Stockholm Partnerships for Sustainable Cities award
in May 2002.
By comparing the nuts and bolts behind Stapleton's departure from the Levittown
template, it becomes clear that the more things stay the same, the more
they require a paradigm shift. It remains to be seen whether any Stapletonians
will actually investigate, for example, their new Central Park's distant
past as an open plain, as its swaths of prairie grass are meant to suggest.
But if nothing else the project comforts design nerds by at least considering
that residents have minds of their own. Ultimately it's a 4,000-acre step
in the right direction.
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LEVITTOWN |
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STAPLETON |
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Originally 1,200 acres; eventually 6,000 acres with 17,447 homes for 65,000
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Development Size |
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4,051 acres (including 1,116 acres of open space), with plans for 12,000
houses and apartments for 30,000 residents, plus 3 million square feet of
retail space and 10 million square feet of office space accommodating
35,000 workers. |
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Houses rented for $60 per month in 1947, converted two years later to sales
only at $7,990 for an 800-square-foot house. |
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Cost |
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From $150,000 for a 1,000-square-foot condo to $1,000,000 for a 3,800-square-foot
house. |
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Potato farms in the town of Island Trees. |
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Former Land Use |
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Stapleton International Airport, 1929-95. |
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Nine swimming pools constructed on the same concrete foundations as the
town's homes; "village green" open spaces; curvilinear streets
to slow traffic, provide a "country" feel, and allow for
street play; a covenant prohibiting fences and front-lawn clotheslines. |
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Planning Innovations |
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Ten-minute walk to shopping, schools, parks, and offices; raised front
porches to encourage social interaction; garages in back to de-emphasize
automobile reliance; narrow streets and wide sidewalks to create pedestrian-friendly
neighborhoods. |
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Frank Lloyd Wright; Navy Seabee construction teams. |
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Influences |
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Smart Growth, New Urbanism (master plan by Peter Calthorpe). |
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World War II GI families seeking affordable housing in the face of an acute
postwar housing shortage; originally 100 percent white (a Caucasians-only
policy remained intact until 1966). |
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Tenants |
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With the goal to attract a full range of age groups, economic classes, and
ethnicities, the Workforce Housing Program creates housing for teachers,
nurses, police officers, and retail clerks. |
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TV built into living-room shelving unit; back-to-back fireplaces; double-glazed
Thermopane windows (inspired by sliding windows at White Castle hamburger
stands); floors heated by electric coils embedded in concrete foundations. |
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Home Features |
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Neotraditional architecture in single-family homes, row houses, town houses,
and carriage houses; all homes prewired with high-speed Internet access
and intranet; wireless Internet capability in stores and outdoor spaces. |
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Lewis Mumford, 1961: "Suburbs are just an expansion of a mistaken
policy to build without industry. We have to build complete,
well-integrated 'new towns,' not monotonous suburbs with great picture
windows that look out onto clotheslines.". |
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What Does It Say About America? |
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Stockholm Partnership for Sustainable Cities: "The Stapleton airport
reuse project breaks the old pattern...while calling into question 50 years
of single land-use development and automobile-dependent design.". |
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