Mention “America’s first suburb” and most people instantly picture Levittown, New York, a seemingly endless landscape of uniform, affordable homes. This iconic post-World War II community fundamentally changed how millions of Americans lived, but it was not the first. The true story of the American suburb stretches back nearly a century earlier, revealing a history rooted not in mass affordability, but in privilege and grand design.
Understanding the real origins of the suburb requires distinguishing between the first mass-produced community and the first planned one, and recognizing the social desires that fueled both.
The Myth of Levittown’s Beginning
Levittown, built primarily between 1947 and 1951, truly deserves its place in history, but for its scale, not its originality. Built by the firm Levitt & Sons, this was the moment housing became a standardized assembly-line product. Using factory-like construction techniques, homes could be completed incredibly fast, sometimes one every 16 minutes.
This model solved the severe housing shortage facing returning veterans and young families in the post-WWII era. Crucially, federal programs like the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) made homeownership possible for millions of middle-class families through affordable, government-backed loans. However, these federal policies often enforced racial exclusion, meaning the dream of suburbia was initially reserved almost exclusively for white families.
Levittown established the template we still recognize today: the spacious yard, the kitchen appliances, the detached home, and the car dependency. It was the first suburb to truly democratize this lifestyle, even if its doors were not open to everyone.
The True Genesis: An Escape for the Elite
The very first planned suburban community in the United States emerged in 1853 in West Orange, New Jersey. This was Llewellyn Park, and it was designed for the exact opposite of mass affordability: the wealthy elite. Llewellyn Haskell, the developer, envisioned a community that would offer a healthful retreat from the noise, pollution, and chaos of the rapidly growing industrial city.
This community was revolutionary because it was meticulously planned around nature. It featured winding roads, communal green spaces, and restrictive covenants designed to protect the peace and exclusivity of the estate. Llewellyn Park gave affluent residents a chance to enjoy the benefits of rural life without sacrificing the economic opportunities of the city.
Llewellyn Park solidified the early suburban ideal: a park-like setting, privacy, and the feeling of separation from the lower classes. It was the first to use planned landscape architecture as a major selling point for residential living.
Bridging the Gap: Trains and Streetcars
The transition from the wealthy exclusivity of Llewellyn Park to the middle-class access of Levittown was made possible by revolutionary advancements in transportation. As railroads and, later, streetcars expanded in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, they allowed people to live further away from their jobs.
Early planned communities benefited from this transit. In 1869, Riverside, Illinois, was established as another key planned suburb, designed by the famed landscape architects Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux. Like Llewellyn Park, it was characterized by curving streets and abundant greenery, designed to encourage a high quality of life.
Later, the emergence of “streetcar suburbs,” such as Shaker Heights, Ohio, further opened up suburban living to the middle class. These communities clustered along transit lines, enabling a daily commute that was faster and cheaper than traveling by carriage, marking the first time large numbers of people could realistically separate their home life from their work life.
The Enduring Legacy of Two Ideals
The story of the American suburb is therefore a blend of two powerful forces. On one hand, you have the ideal of the exclusive, planned retreat pioneered by Llewellyn Park, which still influences high-end development today. On the other, you have the economic and social revolution launched by Levittown, which fulfilled the post-war vision of widespread homeownership.
Today, we navigate a complex landscape that inherited both traditions: beautiful planning and mass accessibility, but also entrenched patterns of exclusion and the problems of sprawl. By understanding that suburbia began as a planned refuge for the elite, we can better understand the powerful economic and social forces that shaped the modern American landscape we live in now.