Urban and suburban neighborhoods in America are often profoundly different. They vary according to wealth, business and commercial development, employment opportunities, educational quality, health care, recreational facilities, and a variety of other important characteristics. Yet perhaps the most visible difference is their racial composition: black cities and white suburbs. This condition, a product of decades of housing segregation, is explained in large part by discrimination. Although white attitudes toward housing integration have grown more tolerant over time, and African Americans are moving to the suburbs in small but increasing numbers, race still significantly affects residential patterns.

A substantial body of research has explored the complexities of urban segregation in the United States since World War II, with African Americans constituting the group most segregated in the nation's cities. Much less scholarly attention has been paid to racial segregation in the suburbs, though its existence is common knowledge. After decades of suburbanization, with whites fleeing urban problems, American society remains divided along racial lines. Today, the United States is primarily a suburban nation. A high percentage of whites reside in the suburbs, whereas African Americans and other minorities, especially the less affluent, mainly occupy urban areas left behind by white flight.

The racial composition of suburban America changed very gradually between 1960 and 2000 (see the Appendix). However, African American suburbanization rarely results in housing integration.