The suburbs are in the news again. Remember this Tweet:

I am happy to inform all of the people living their Suburban Lifestyle Dream that you will no longer be bothered or financially hurt by having low income housing built in your neighborhood…

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 29, 2020

If you want to get a good sense of what is happening in the suburbs right now and how it influences American politics, check out Zack Stanton’s interview with historian Thomas Sugrue at Politico.

Here is a taste:

The “suburban lifestyle dream” is really different depending on who you are. There’s not one single “suburban lifestyle dream.” For immigrants from Guatemala, Mexico and El Salvador, it’s getting access to the plentiful service-sector jobs available in suburban places. For educated, well-to-do whites, it’s having a charming house in an older, walkable neighborhood with first-rate public schools. For middle-class whites alienated by the growing diversity of society, it’s having a place closer to open fields and farms, with brand-new housing stock and racially homogenous public schools. We have to talk about the diversity of “suburban lifestyle dreams,” and see that there’s not just one. And that’s where I think Trump has really misread the reality of today’s suburbs.

Read the entire interview here.