Given that I study suburbs, I have had numerous opportunities to discuss suburban lifestyles, communities, and history with a range of people: family, friends, college students, colleagues, people at church, and more. Reflecting back on these experiences, I have seen some patterns:

-Perhaps not surprisingly, suburbanites can have a hard time seeing some of the patterns that are present. The suburbs are what they are used to. This is just how life is lived. More broadly, more than half of Americans live in suburban settings and now multiple generations have been suburban dwellers. The suburbs are both a long-term aspirational place for many Americans and it is what is familiar to many.

-Drawing contrasts between other kinds of places can be helpful to point out what is going on in suburbia. This might be asking about other places people have lived, whether actual small towns or rural areas (not smaller suburbs), big cities (places that are centers of metropolitan regions and not just big suburbs), or international contexts. This could be through highlighting how Americans often think about certain places, such as perceptions often held of big cities or wild or natural areas.

-Having conversations about broad patterns in suburbs often leads to considering the intersection of those with individual experiences in suburbs. There are a variety of suburban settings – what I would call different types of suburban communities, including bedroom suburbs, edge cities, working-class suburbs, and more – and suburban communities have particular characters and histories. Americans often take an individualistic approach to life and so talking about commonalities across suburbs and their history can conflict at times with how people understand their own experiences. (This is the argument Mills makes regarding the sociological imagination: seeing how our individual experiences are shaped by social forces.)

-A concern that analysis is necessarily critique. Research on suburbs can often carry this along: we need to understand suburbs so that we can see their flaws and point systems and people in other directions. But understanding the suburban context does not have to lead to admonition. Can suburbanites articulate what they do like about suburban communities and what they don’t? Are people willing to discuss the trade-offs that come with any choice about where to live? If places and zip code do shape many of our life chances, can we consider that?