Dear Editor:

A story on Medium titled “Little Boxes Made of Ticky Tacky” compares Levittown developments that emerged after World War II to house millions of returning GIs and the quality of sameness found in today’s apps designed by AI.

My parents lived in a Levittown development when my Dad was Dean of the Akron Art Institute, but Dad decided he would rather be making ceramics. He knew he could not do so in his Levittown home for long, so my parents moved to Maine, where they could establish their own business in a home, reinventing production by individualizing it, allowing the artisan’s unique hand to be part of a production process in which no two pieces are alike with a mission to create a handmade product affordable to the middle class.

Back then, Maine was a place where every house was unique.

Today, new state-municipal ordinances mandate overcrowded housing zones in every municipality to house the “workforce” and other year-round residents. The reason for the new Levittown developments is transparent when reading studies and laws, which avoid the term “short-term rental”, replaced with “seasonal or ‘alternate use’ homes”, which are said to maintain a steady 17% of overall housing needs. The figures projecting housing needs are not distinguished by category, but the study maintains that “seasonal or ‘alternate use’ remains constant at 17%. The lack of further indication suggests that the 17% is included in the projections, begging the question: Are STR targets used to extrapolate housing needs?

The state has unconstitutionally taken over writing municipal ordinances, but municipalities can still enact their own ordinances, which can counteract the sameness created by state-wide municipal ordinances and reclaim the unique character of locations.

To counteract state-municipal ordinances favoring STRS, municipalities need to establish economic development zones where STRS are prohibited. Recent workers’ movements reject working at corporate headquarters and favor working from home. Large corporations are shedding human jobs, replaced by AI. Zones permitting businesses in a home are timely and appropriate as the future of work evolves. Such zones communicate a welcoming message to the middle class.

Mackenzie Andersen

Boothbay Harbor