Introduction

Over the past several decades some suburban picture windows in the United States have developed cracks (Jackson 1985, Baxandall and Ewen 2000). Many suburbs are no longer places with high proportions of home-owning non-Hispanic Whites and native borns with relatively high household incomes, high levels of education, and without any problems (Teaford 2008, Keil 2013, Kneebone and Berube 2013). Indeed, some suburbs have never had these characteristics (Nicolaides 2002, Wiese 2004). Interestingly, perception has been lagging behind. As Bier (1991) stated, “Suburbanites have had the mistaken belief that an impenetrable wall stands between them and the problems and threats in the city [ … ]” (48). Denton and Gibbons (2013) referred to the difference between reality and perception as the “‘hidden frame’ that many carry around in their heads of suburban areas as places with single-family detached houses occupied by two white parents and their children” and state that “[w]hat is perhaps more surprising is the perseverance of that image, and, more importantly, the fact that the desirability of suburbs as a place to live is still rooted in the images found in that frame” (29).