08/27/2026
Ahhh 40 houses a day. That is some record to be proud of.
Forty houses a day. Not forty a week, forty a day, on an empty mesa that had nothing standing on it in February. 🏘️
San Diego's aircraft plants grew faster than the city could house the people running them, so the federal government stepped in. Authorized under the Lanham Defense Housing Act of October 14, 1940, ground was broken at Linda Vista on February 19, 1941. The first twenty families moved in on May 19, barely three months later. By November 5, 1941, the initial phase was finished: 3,000 homes plus 750 dormitory units.
Los Angeles contractor McNeil and Zoss did the building, working to plans overseen by a team of architects that included Louis J. Gill and Sam W. Hamill. Serious designers, drafting for speed. At peak, crews were completing roughly 40 houses per day. A second wartime phase added another 1,845 units by 1943, and the ones officially labeled temporary outlasted the war by a very long stretch. At the time it stood among the largest federal housing projects in the country.
A neighborhood did not grow into Linda Vista. It was delivered, nearly all at once, because bombers needed builders and builders needed beds.
What does a place inherit from being built in a hurry?
