Birth of a City

On what was once an old sugar-beet field ten miles southeast of Los Angeles, 30,000 people stampeded one day last week. They were there for the first sale of houses in Lakewood Park, the biggest U.S. housing project.

The prospective buyers stormed in and around seven sample stucco and wood houses, priced from $8,000 for two bedrooms to $9,000 for three. All had automatic garbage-disposal units, stainless steel kitchens, picture windows and garages. By week's end 611 houses had been sold (no down payment for veterans, one-third for others), and the buyers could count on moving in within two months.

When completed in two years, the 17,000 houses in the $136 million Lakewood project will sprawl over 3,500 acres. With some 70,000 people, Lakewood will dwarf such long-established U.S. cities as Poughkeepsie, N.Y. and Holyoke, Mass. Land has been set aside for a massive shopping center, and additional areas are being blocked out for 17 churches, 20 schools and 37 playgrounds. So fast were lots grabbed up that when one church delayed its decision on a location for a week, it found that 91 home foundations had been built on the site it wanted.

No Competition. Lakewood is the product of two rival Los Angeles building companies--Aetna Construction, Inc. and Biltmore Homes, Inc.--which joined hands three months ago. Previously, Aetna's swarthy, shy President Lou Boyar had built 20,000 houses on his own; Biltmore's President Mark Taper, a Londoner who went to California twelve years ago to retire but never did, had built 10,000.

Because of the size of the Lakewood project, they decided to join forces and pool labor, equipment and building materials, got financing from Investors Diversified Services, Inc. of Minneapolis (a mutual fund), and Prudential Insurance Co. of America.

No Garbage. By dividing the work among four-man teams, and planning out the individual work-steps on a carefully timed schedule, the builders have avoided many of the headaches--and the low productivity--of the trade. Bucket-chain excavators dig foundations in 15 minutes, bulldozer-jeeps carry the earth away, then the foundation-layers move in. After them . come the flooring team, the wall team, the roof team. Then a single tree is planted in front of each house.

By last week more than 3,500 houses had been started, and completions are expected at the rate of 100 a week. Said Mark Taper: "This is planning as businessmen can do it. Ours will be the only big city in the world without any garbage."

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