Just as the nation witnessed the widespread decay of urban centers,
there is a mounting suburban crisis in first-tier suburbs - the early
suburbs to develop in metropolitan America. These places, once the
bastion of a large middle class, have matured and experienced three
decades of social and economic decline. In the first comprehensive
analysis of suburban decline for an entire region, Vicino uses Baltimore
as an illustrative case to chronicle how first-tier suburbs experienced
widespread decline while outer suburbs flourished since the 1970s. At
the brink of the twenty-first century, Vicino illustrates how the
processes of deindustrialization, racial diversity, and class
segregation have shaped the evolution of suburban decline.