Levittown (1947-1951)
William Levitt built 17,000 nearly identical houses on Long Island farmland with assembly-line methods. A four-room Cape Cod sold for about $8,000, and veterans could buy with no down payment.
The first homes sold within hours; Levittown became the symbol of postwar suburbia.
Mass-produced single-family homes became the American default, and zoning codes across the country were written to keep them that way.
D.R. Horton is the same playbook at national scale. Sandy Station turns that machinery toward attached townhomes, but it still has to win approval in a zoning system built for detached houses.
