Why does Levittown have such a bad reputation? (Hicksville, Long Beach: sales, real estate)
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I know when I was growing up people would be negative and even now there appears to still have a negative stigma attached. I know Long Beach was bad in the 70's and 80's but for the most part it outgrew it - but the reason was that it had a lot of crime and was run down during those times - it appears Levittown isn't run down - just curious where this all comes from?
Since when does Levittown have a bad reputation?????
It is a solid, middle class town with a nice school district. I am unaware of it being labled as a bad town. As a resident living here for almost 3 years...I love it in Levittown. It is very safe, very low-crime and extremely family-friendly. It is by no means run-down
Perhaps you are listening to people who remember Levittown in the 80's when it wasn't as nice (or so I have been told...I was only a little kid back then and didn't grow up in this town). As for today, it is a great town. Sometimes people with no first-hand experience tend to spew outdated prejudices and biases.
Suburban angst. Somewhere along the way people started to realize the cookie-cutter suburbs were missing the good things they left behind in the city, while chasing the American dream of home ownership, green lawns, swimming pools, and white picket fences. It was nice to escape the clutter, crime and pollution of the city, but at what cost? No more walking to the corner grocery store, you had to drive everywhere. Neighbors didn't sit out on the stoops in the summer, everyone sat in their fenced in yards. It's not just Levittown that gets the bad rap, suburbs all across the country are criticized the same, but Levittown was the original prototype suburb that all the others followed.
I too have heard negative things from when I was growing up in the 80's. What happened in the 80's to make it not as nice? A riot at a local foodtown? lol
Now I know for a fact it is a great middle class neighborhood that is clean and quiet. My wife and I are hoping to find a home there and settle down. The schools are also considered well above par.
I know when I was growing up people would be negative and even now there appears to still have a negative stigma attached. I know Long Beach was bad in the 70's and 80's but for the most part it outgrew it - but the reason was that it had a lot of crime and was run down during those times - it appears Levittown isn't run down - just curious where this all comes from?
Back in the olden days when I was growing up on LI, just about every family could afford to own a home because prices were in line with incomes. Many families had 2 homes on LI (a summer home also). Now those summer homes are full-time homes that many people can barely afford! So what happened? The standard of living for the middle class is and has been declining for years. So what does this have to do with Levittown specifically you might ask ...
Back in the 70s and 80s when anybody with a job (most were single-income families too back then) could afford to buy some sort of home, Levittown was considered a white working class enclave. To many LI'ers that meant Levittowners were "tacky." However, once the real estate bubble hit and made homes on LI unaffordable to many first-time buyers and homes were more affordable in Levittown, that made it attractive to a more professional class of people through sheer necessity. There are many people who grew up on LI that cannot afford to buy in the town they grew up in (myself included). But they can afford places like Levittown, so if they want to stay on the Island, Levittown is a good choice. More and more young families are seeing it that way, so the Levittown their parents considered tacky is attracting a different middle class population.
As for Long Beach, what really helped that along was the demolishment of the SRO hotels along the Boardwalk and the building of new co-ops and converting rental buildings with cheap rent housing many "skels" to co-ops. Long Beach had been a dumping ground for criminals and the mentally ill. Once the oceanfront SROs and group homes, etc., were destroyed, they left and Long Beach attracted a more prosperous group of people who wanted to live on the water. Levittown is not on the water and did not have a surge in prime waterfront real estate development like Long Beach did, so it has not experienced the meteoric rise for the better that Long Beach did (although Levittown had not been any sort of dumping ground, so was actually a better neighborhood to begin with). Perhaps someday Far Rockaway will experience what Long Beach did if they knock down the projects.
So, there is nothing wrong with Levittown. It never was "bad" in the first place and is getting better all the time and is a very respectable choice for anyone seeking a somewhat affordable home on Long Island.
Last edited by I_Love_LI_but; 02-04-2009 at 07:00 PM..
We have lived in levittown since 2005. My wife is from Bellmore and I am from Lynbrook. One day I called a company for a quote and was talking to this sales person and she said where are you moving from and I said Bellmore. She said why are you moving from Bellmore to Levittown? Bellmore is so much better. We have friends that grew up in Levittown and had friends that lived in Levittown in the late 70's and they are always saying bad things about the town. I dont let it bother me, because I know the truth about Levittown, and this means that these people that talk about Levittown wont be moving here anytime soon and I dont have to hear their mouths.
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Levittown is one of the very few areas in Nassau county that my fiance and I can afford (but yet we still make over 100k, doesn't seem to make sense, does it). I love its proximity to the highways, how it's clean and safe, but yet a quick train ride to the city. I never knew it had a bad reputation.
It's the Criminal Enclaves like Elmont, that are REALLY the problem.
The societal misfits that inhabit these Crime Enclaves, use it as a safe haven, from which, to trapse back and forth from it, to committ their crimes in surrounding "good" areas. The Police and all legal governmental authority have all given up, ham-stringed by the Do-Gooders and Apologists for Criminals.
History has proven that "throwing money" at these "BAD" areas is a Total Waste!
You might as well declare these enclaves, "OPEN CITIES", let a pre-determined (pre-screened by criminal record) number of "good" people, safe passage OUT, isolate the rest of them inside, cut off ALL traffic and essential living services, in and out, and then, just, surgically wipe them off the face of the Earth !
You would be doing it's miscreant inhabitants, and Society, a BIG favor !
It sounds "bizarre", and harsh, but, basically, it's ALL these Criminal Types understand.
Levittown is one of the very few areas in Nassau county that my fiance and I can afford (but yet we still make over 100k, doesn't seem to make sense, does it). I love its proximity to the highways, how it's clean and safe, but yet a quick train ride to the city. I never knew it had a bad reputation.
It doesn't have a bad reputation at all.
That is why I don't understand the purpose of this thread either. Sometimes people on here like to cause trouble where there is none. I would just ignore it. People here complain about everything. I have seen threads knocking super good towns like Garden City.
I would take this thread with a grain of salt. Especially considering nobody that posted agrees with it. Don't let one person affect your ideas.
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Nothing is wrong with Levittown!
