Levittown is, in a sense, the original planned community, and a town that has never officially been incorporated as a "town". Don't worry, Santa Claus will still find you!
The first modern American suburb, named after its designers William and Alfred Levitt, Levittown is the personification of all those black-and-white suburbs from movies from the fifties and sixties
Levittown is, in a sense, the original planned community, and a town that has never officially been incorporated as a "town". Don't worry, Santa Claus will still find you!
The first modern American suburb, named after its designers William and Alfred Levitt, Levittown is the personification of all those black-and-white suburbs from movies from the fifties and sixties. Ozzie and the Beav would be right at home amidst the just-big-enough backyards and calm, idyllic streets. A suburb of Philadelphia, Levittown is convenient to the city as well as to major cities in New Jersey and Delaware. It's a great starting area for folks who want to have quite a bit at their doorstep, but who are unsure of where exactly they want to spend their money.
Levittown exhibits some of the best parts of planned communities, but it also falls victim to some of the pitfalls of these types of areas. If youre looking for home rentals or apartments in Levittown, youll need to consider the following points:
Travel
For commuters, Levittown is in a nearly perfect spot. The east side borders Route 13, the west side borders Interstate 95, and the south touches Interstate 276. Only a few minutes north is Route 1. This means living in Levittown puts you within moments of major routes that can get you almost anywhere in the northeast region. SEPTA (pricey but reliable) services Levittown with both bus and rail transportation while the Philadelphia International Airport is only a few minutes away. Whether youre checking out houses or apartments, make sure have a spot to park your car. Getting around on foot or by bicycle isn't fun here, and with limited local activities, youll probably want to drive out of the area often.
Weather
The saying goes in Pennsylvania: If you dont like the weather, give it an hour. Levittown can give you beautiful, sunny weather, then immediately turn around on you. The season tend to fluctuate as well, as you can get some pleasant fall days in early August and some sweltering summer days in mid-November. Winter is always guaranteed to be cold and snowy, except for those few days where sometimes you get spring weather in January. Your best bet is to keep all seasons of clothing ready at all times, because sometimes you may need shorts at lunch and pants and a sweater at dinner. And always have an umbrella by the door.
Lifestyle
Levittown is a family-oriented neighborhood, and the tree-lined streets and mid-sized yards of many of the homes allow for kids to get out and play with the neighbors. Levittown is also quite divided, with the city being in different municipalities and the children going to a number of different school districts because of this. This creates a very on-the-go lifestyle, especially as the heavy residential use in the city and centralized shopping areas set apart from the residential areas require car usage. Traffic is generally heavy around Levittown, as people go in and out of Philadelphia, New Jersey, and Delaware. It is also a town where the lifestyle continues from generation to generation many of the residents of Levittown have lived there for decades, with multiple generations sticking to the same area.
Lead Time
With incredibly low turnover rates on housing and the majority of properties being owner-occupied, folks trying to find an apartment in Levittown are going to have some difficulties and will need to get their search started pretty early. The single homes that are part of the original Levittown almost never go up for rent, but there are more modern apartment buildings that have a higher turnover. All that being said, it means that if youre looking for a single-family home for rent, you could potentially need up to a year lead time. However, finding apartments for rent is slightly easier, and you can get away with a few months of lead time.
Levittown is unique in that it does not have any neighborhoods in the titular sense, but it does have sections. These sections theres 41, in total are spread across four different municipalities, which has lead to Levittown never being incorporated as a town. This oddity means that Levittown is one of the largest unincorporated towns in the country, and not truly a town at all. That being said, there is no real difference from neighborhood to neighborhood as a planned community, you will see the same block layouts, the same houses, and the same storefronts from one area to another. The sections merely provide people a way to designate where in Levittown they live, as there is no real difference from one to the next.
As youve noticed by now, Levittown is a rather unique city. This uniqueness is something that can be endearing, or it can be frustrating. It has created generations of residents, but it has also made people swear they would never step foot in the town ever again.
There arent too many festivals in Levittown, as they dont have large enough places to hold them. There are craft fairs and flea markets that pop up at the local shopping centers and schools over the course of a summer.
Levittown is not all that walkable or bikeable, either. With the residences clustered together and the shopping areas set apart from these shopping centers, there are no convenient stores to walk to and from, unless you live on the outer fringes of the residential areas. That being said, the remote shopping areas do tend to provide plenty of one-stop shopping for residents, with grocery stores, beer and liquor stores, and specialty stores all crammed together around one parking lot, so you dont have to drive around all day to get everything you need.
A vast number of schools provide education to the children of the area, and with the housing being so close, its conceivable that you could live right across the street from someone in a different school district the Kenwood and Stonybrook "Sections" are split between the Bristol and Pennsbury School Districts. A third district, Neshaminy, serves the students found in the Middletown Township sections. If youre not a big fan of the public school system, there is also Bishop Egan, part of the Philadelphia Archdiocese, which serves all grades. Bucks County Country Day and Hope Lutheran School educate up through middle school, but there is no non-Catholic private school for older students.
With no professional sports teams although the Philadelphia teams are only a short ride on I-95 away high school and recreational sports are a big deal, especially basketball and baseball. Football is, as with nearly every part of the country, a staple in the fall months.
You might notice that folks in Levittown speak a bit odd too, and that's the whole Philadelphia area. They even pronounce it differently - the New York town is generally pronounced as "Levit-town" while the Pennsylvania one gets pronounced like "Leh-vuh-town," just like they turn "water" into "woo-dah." You'll get used to it after time.
