suburbs

"The stories of five American families, an . . . exploration of how hope, history, and racial denial collide in the suburbs and their schools. . . . Education journalist Benjamin Herold's ability to braid these compelling human stories together with local and national history makes . . . an urgent argument that America's suburbs and their schools are locked into a destructive cycle that has brought the country to a point of crisis. For generations, white families have reaped the benefits of massive federal investment in suburbia, then moved on as social and political infrastructure began to fail, leaving the mostly Black and brown families who follow to clean up the ensuing mess. Now, though, the suburbs are caught between rapidly shifting demographics and the reality that endless expansion is no longer feasible. Forced to confront truths that their communities were built to avoid, everyday suburban families find themselves at the center of the nation's most pressing debates: How do we repair America's divided communities?"--Provided by publisher.

"On the surface, Emerson, Massachusetts, is just like any other affluent New England suburb. But when a young woman is found dead in the nicest part of town, the powerful neighbors close ranks to keep their families safe. The three teenagers who were partying with her that night are the suspects: Hannah, a sweet girl with an unstable history; Jack, the popular kid with a mean streak; Christopher, an outsider desperate to fit in. Their parents, each with motivations of their own, only complicate the picture: they will do anything to protect their children, even at the others' expense"--OCLC.

Carefully leveled text and full-color photographs invite readers to explore the suburbs. This nonfiction title pairs with the fiction title Cam's Walk.

"When fifteen-year-old Lucinda Hayes is found dead in her sleepy Colorado suburb, the secret lives of three people connected to her are revealed: the social outcast who loved her from afar, the jaded girl who despised her, and the policeman investigating her death"--Provided by publisher.

"For decades the suburbs have been where art happens "despite": despite the conformity, the emptiness, the sameness. The familiar story is one of gems formed under pressure, creative transcendence fueled by suburban resentment. But what if the suburb has actually been an incubator for distinctly American art, as positively and as surely as in any other cultural hothouse? Mixing personal experience, cultural reportage, and history while rejecting clich?s and pieties, these essays stretch across the country in an effort to show that this uniquely American milieu deserves another look"--.

Text and color illustrations explore different kinds of communities, including suburban life and relationships with neighbors and other people who work and live there.

Thirteen-year-old Socko and his mother move from their cramped, unsafe inner city apartment to a house in the suburbs, where they plan to care for Socko's crotchety great-grandfather, but they soon discover that leaving the problems of the city behind is not as easy as it seems.

Describes what it is like to live in a suburb.

"More than five decades have passed since Jane Jacobs wrote her classic The Death and Life of Great American Cities, and since a front page headline in the New York Times read, "Cars Choking Cities as 'Urban Sprawl' Takes Over." Yet sprawl persists, and not by mistake. It happens for a reason. As an activist and a scholar, Benjamin Ross is uniquely placed to diagnose why this is so. Dead End traces how the ideal of a safe, green, orderly retreat where hardworking members of the middle class could raise their children away from the city mutated into the McMansion and strip mall-ridden suburbs of today. Ross finds that sprawl is much more than bad architecture and sloppy planning. Its roots are historical, sociological, and economic. He uses these insights to lay out a practical strategy for change, honed by his experience leading the largest grass-roots mass transit advocacy organization in the United States. The problems of smart growth, sustainability, transportation, and affordable housing, he argues, are intertwined and must be solved as a whole. The two keys to creating better places to live are expansion of rail transit and a more genuinely democratic oversight of land use. Dead End is, ultimately, about the places where we live our lives. Both an engaging history of suburbia and an invaluable guide for today's urbanists, it will serve as a primer for anyone interested in how Americans actually live"--.

Explores the evolution of the American suburbs from 1820 to 2000, discussing the cultural and economic patterns that have shaped suburban areas from the nineteenth century to the present.