Suburban Tract Homes Circa 1970 (Vintage 8mm Home Movie Footage). Tract housing (also known as cookie-cutter housing) is a style of housing development in which multiple identical homes are built on a tract of land which is subdivided into individual small lots. Tract housing developments are typically found in North American suburbs that were modeled on the "Levittown" concept and sometimes encompass large areas of dozens of square miles.