America's suburbs have traditionally been overwhelmingly white, although this is gradually changing. When moving from the cities, African Americans tend to relocate in older suburbs, rarely penetrating newer areas farther from the urban core. Whites, in turn, frequently flee inner-ring suburbs undergoing significant racial change. White opposition to living in neighborhoods with sizable numbers of blacks is often grounded in racism and fear, especially the fear that property values and schools will decline and that crime rates, local taxes, interracial dating, and interracial marriages will rise.

Even though African Americans are slowly relocating to the suburbs, this has not led to housing integration for most. A small percentage of suburbs experienced sizable declines in racial segregation between 1960 and 2000, but most suburbs underwent little racial change. Continued segregation in the suburbs perpetuates various divisions in American society, including segregated schools and concentrations of wealth and poverty. Suburban segregation also affects politics, policy, and law at all levels of government.

Sociologists explain racially segregated suburbs by emphasizing discrimination. This book adds a political layer of explanation. It argues that segregation in the suburbs is partly rooted in President Richard Nixon's fair housing policy, which prohibits federal agencies from pressuring the suburbs to accept low-income housing. According to Nixon, federal law does not permit the national government to force economic integration on the suburbs, and communities have no legal obligation to provide housing for the poor.