Racial Order of Suburban Communities: Past, Present, and Future

Abstract

The steady growth of the post-war suburban Black middle class has been overshadowed by the mis-characterization of the suburbs as conformist and racially homogeneous. Until recently, race remained an ever present yet unexplored dimension of studies of suburban communities. However, new suburban histories and a growing collection of black middle-class suburban community case studies replace the monochrome descriptions of suburban life with an analysis that places the suburb within its regional, political, economic, and ideological landscape.