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Disillusioned: Five Families and the Unraveling of America’s Suburbs
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50
/100
I Index Overall Rating
Readers
34/100Critics
65/100Scholars
Author:
Benjamin Herold, Bethany Smith
Publisher:
Penguin Press
Date:
January 23, 2024
Through the stories of five American families, an exploration of how hope, history, and racial denial collide in the suburbs and their schools
What The Reviewers Say
In this richly reported book, he follows five families that sought comfort and promise in America’s suburbs over these past couple of decades, outside Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas, Los Angeles, and Pittsburgh. In each of these communities, Herold zeroes in on the schools, in large part because education captures the essence of what attracted these families: the prospect of something better for their kids.
...an important, cleareyed account of suburban boom and bust, and the challenges facing the country today.
...presents a blistering indictment of how American suburbs were built on racism and unsustainable development 'that functioned like a Ponzi scheme'.
Through beautifully layered reporting, Herold argues that time and demographic change have created a novel disenchantment..
