[roywiggins]

It's fair to criticise an article that says "Levittown served two or three generations very well and that should be celebrated." without even mentioning that it only served one population well: whites. That's who it served. The same exact piece could have been written and it could have at least made passing mention of the explicitly whites-exclusive founding of the project. The history of projects like these is important, the modern state of them is important, and pretending that they didn't also intertwine with race in America is just being (un)intentionally blinkered.

[StanislavPetrov]

Sorry, I would suggest its being (un)intentionally blinkered to inject race (or any other "identity") into every issue. The article didn't mention anything about how we slaughtered the Native Americans, and stole their land, either - or they would still be living where Levittown was. That happened, and it was terrible, but its not all germane to the subject at hand. This article is about the crumbling of Levittown, which would have been exactly the same whether or not people were discriminated against during the initial building of the town 60+ years ago.

[roywiggins]

"solving big national problems for mutual benefit"

"the environment for individuals to achieve their dreams of an independent and secure home life"

"Levittown served two or three generations very well"

Each of these statements are simply not true. The benefit, the individuals, the generations- they were all white, by law (whites-only requirements were written into the covenants.you had to sign to buy a place). Sure, not everyone could take advantage, but everyone who could was white. This article is misrepresenting the history: this was for white benefit, white individuals, and white generations.

[wbronitsky]

Wow, I had no idea HN had become Reddit. To celebrate, I’ll also leave a reddit style comment!

[charlesism]

At Reddit hardly anyone complains that Reddit is turning into Reddit.