Willingboro Township (known from 1959 to 1963 as Levittown and Levittown Township) is a township in Burlington County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It is a suburb of Philadelphia and part of the state's South Jersey region. The township, and all of Burlington County, is a part of the Philadelphia-Reading-Camden combined statistical area and the Delaware Valley.

As of the 2020 United States census, the township's population was 31,889,

The township has British roots going back to the 17th century. Abraham Levitt and Sons purchased and developed Willingboro land in the 1950s and 1960s as a planned community in their Levittown model.

The 1967 book The Levittowners, by sociologist Herbert J. Gans, was a famous case study in American urban sociology based on the development of Levittown. Willingboro later became a predominantly African American suburb.

History

thumb|upright=1.1|Lake at Millcreek Park in Willingboro, New Jersey

Willingboro was one of the original nine divisions in the organization of Burlington County within West Jersey, and was originally formed as the "Constabulary of Wellingborrow" on November 6, 1688. At the time, it included present day Delanco Township, New Jersey. The original name of Wellingborough was after the community in England, which was the hometown of Thomas Olive, who led the original settlers into what would become Willingboro Township. Other spellings were used at different times.

After the establishment of the United States and the State of New Jersey, the community was formally incorporated as "Willingborough Township", one of New Jersey's initial group of 104 townships, on February 21, 1798, by the New Jersey Legislature when it enacted "An Act incorporating the Inhabitants of Townships, designating their Powers, and regulating their Meetings", P.L. 1798, p. 289.

The town's name was changed from the original Willingboro to "Levittown Township" by a referendum of township residents held on November 3, 1959. Willingboro was less than from Levittown, Pennsylvania and this occasionally caused confusion. The community used the name "Levittown, New Jersey" in 1958, and "Levittown Township" from 1959 to 1963. A referendum held on the issue on November 5, 1963, changed the name back to Willingboro. The name change was passed by a narrow margin of 3,123 to 3,003. W. R. James, an African-American officer in the Army's Criminal Investigation Division, was stationed at nearby Fort Dix and applied to purchase a Levittown home. On June 29, 1958, an agent of Levitt and Sons told him that the new Levittown development would be an all-white community. James filed suit against the company challenging their policy. A friend of his, who worked at the New Jersey Division of Civil Rights, said that it was illegal in New Jersey to discriminate in federally-subsidized housing. At the time, de facto racial segregation in housing existed in many areas in the United States. Levittown was receiving mortgage insurance from the Federal Housing Administration. But as of 1958, the law had not been tested.

Following the court case, Levitt developed a thorough integration program. The company set up an integration committee headed by Howard Lett, an African American. During the early 1970s, several homeowners said they were approached by local real estate agents and told that their neighborhood was becoming increasingly African-American and home values could decline if they did not sell quickly; a practice known as blockbusting. While the Human Relations Council could not prove these claims, it made recommendations to help foster better relations between ethnic communities in the township and calm concerns.

The township in 1974 enacted an ordinance that prohibited the posting of "for sale" or "sold" signs on real estate. Proponents of the ordinance alleged the purpose was to maintain integration. Many other communities had enacted similar laws in reaction to the practice of blockbusting in the 1960s and 1970s. The Supreme Court in the 1977 case of Linmark Associates, Inc. v. Willingboro ruled that the ordinance violated the First Amendment protections for free speech, which applied to commercial needs.

Geography

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the township had a total area of 8.14 square miles (21.08&nbsp;km<sup>2</sup>), including 7.73 square miles (20.01&nbsp;km<sup>2</sup>) of land and 0.41 square miles (1.07&nbsp;km<sup>2</sup>) of water (5.09%). Rancocas Creek drains Willingboro and forms its SW boundary while U.S. Route 130 forms its NW boundary.

Unincorporated communities, localities and place names located partially or completely within the township include Bortons Landing, Charleston and Cooperstown.

Parks and sections

Willingboro is divided into several sections called parks. Each section's street names begin with the same letter as the corresponding section name. For example, streets in Pennypacker Park all begin with the letter "P". This is the case with all parks, excluding Martin's Beach and certain streets in Rittenhouse Park. Some streets that predate Levittown retained their original names, such as Charleston Road.

Originally, each park or section had its own swimming pool for residents' use. Residents' families would receive free swim tags after showing applicable IDs at each section's school or the community office. However, some swimming pools, such as Hawthorne Park, have been inactive for years. Free lessons and other events were focused on these "park" pools during the summer months. By the 1990s, only Pennypacker Park and Country Club Park had operating summer pools. Finally, Country Club Park and Pennypacker Park have been denoted the "community pools" at this time.

The township's parks include:

  • Buckingham Park
  • Country Club Ridge, laid out in the 1960s around a golf course designed by Robert Trent Jones.
  • Pennypacker Park
  • Millbrook Park
  • Martin's Beach
  • Deer Park
  • Somerset Park (First house was occupied here.)
  • Windsor Park
  • Garfield Park
  • Garfield Park East
  • Garfield Park North
  • Rittenhouse Park
  • Twin Hill Park
  • Ironside Court (Non-residential, Public Works Department and some industry.)
  • Hawthorne Park
  • Fairmount Park

A small, unnamed section of the township uses area code 856. The rest of Willingboro is in area code 609.

Climate

Willingboro has a humid subtropical climate (Cfa) and average monthly temperatures in the vicinity of Veterans Parkway and Willingboro Parkway range from in January to in July. The local hardiness zone is 7a.

Demographics