Disillusioned
Five Families and the Unraveling of America's Suburbs
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Narrated by:
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Benjamin Herold
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Bethany Smith
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By:
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Benjamin Herold
About this listen
Through the stories of five American families, a masterful and timely exploration of how hope, history, and racial denial collide in the suburbs and their schools
Outside Atlanta, a middle-class Black family faces off with a school system seemingly bent on punishing their teenage son. North of Dallas, a conservative white family relocates to an affluent suburban enclave, but can’t escape the changes sweeping the country. On Chicago’s North Shore, a multiracial mom joins an ultraprogressive challenge to the town’s liberal status quo. In Compton, California, whose suburban roots are now barely recognizable, undocumented Hispanic parents place their gifted son’s future in the hands of educators at a remarkable elementary school. And outside Pittsburgh, a Black mother moves to the same street where author Benjamin Herold grew up, then confronts the destructive legacy left behind by white families like his.
Disillusioned braids these human stories together with penetrating local and national history to reveal a vicious cycle undermining the dreams upon which American suburbia was built. For generations, upwardly mobile white families have extracted opportunity from the nation’s heavily subsidized suburbs, then moved on before the bills for maintenance and repair came due, leaving the mostly Black and Brown families who followed to clean up the ensuing mess. But now, sweeping demographic shifts and the dawning realization that endless expansion is no longer feasible are disrupting this pattern, forcing everyday families to confront a truth their communities were designed to avoid: The suburban lifestyle dream is a Ponzi scheme whose unraveling threatens us all.
How do we come to terms with this troubled history? How do we build a future in which all children can thrive? Drawing upon his decorated career as an education journalist, Herold explores these pressing debates with expertise and perspective. Then, alongside Bethany Smith—the mother from his old neighborhood, who contributes a powerful epilogue to the book—he offers a hopeful path toward renewal. The result is nothing short of a journalistic masterpiece.©2023 Benjamin Herold (P)2023 Penguin Audio
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Critic reviews
“An important, cleareyed account of suburban boom and bust, and the challenges facing the country today. . . . each suburb’s history is engrossing, and Herold, a journalist who has frequently reported on public education, delivers an up-close, intimate account of life there that resounds with broader meaning. The families also reflect the expanding range of people who now call American suburbs home.”—The New York Times Book Review
“This intrepid inquiry into the unfulfilled promise of America’s suburbs posits that a ‘deep-seated history of white control, racial exclusion, and systematic forgetting’ has poisoned the great postwar residential experiment. . . . Herold, a white journalist raised in Penn Hills, a Pittsburgh suburb, peels back layers of structural racism, granting that ‘the abundant opportunities my family extracted from Penn Hills a generation earlier were linked to the cratering fortunes of the families who lived there now.’”—The New Yorker
“Not only is Disillusioned engaging—riveting, really—it strikes at the very heart of the geography and emotional economy of race in the United States. ‘The suburbs’ are such a potent symbol and reality of the nation, and race is at the very center of their meaning, creation, and transformation. For decades now, we have lived with the myth that the suburbs are the centerpiece of the American Dream and that school integration is a simple matter of putting different races of children in the same well-maintained building in a bucolic setting. Disillusioned challenges us to be far more rigorous and honest in our accounts of race, place and community. An essential text in a challenging time.”—Imani Perry, New York Times-bestselling author of South to America, winner of the National Book Award
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The ancient Toltecs believed that life, as we perceive it, is a dream. We each live in our own personal dream, and these come together to form the dream of the planet, or the world in which we live. Problems arise when our perception of the dream becomes clouded with negativity, drama, and judgment (of ourselves and others), because it's in these moments of suffering that we have forgotten that we are the architects of our own reality and we have the power to change our dream if we choose.
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listen.. .then listen again
- By Casiano on 12-22-16
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The Last Days of Cabrini-Green
- By: Ben Austen, Harrison David Rivers
- Narrated by: Ben Austen, Patina Miller, Harry Lennix, and others
- Length: 3 hrs and 32 mins
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In 1992, the deadliest year in Chicago’s history, seven-year-old Dantrell Davis was shot and killed in front of his elementary school inside the public housing complex Cabrini-Green. What happened to Dantrell led to a truce among Chicago’s gangs, but it also ignited a national panic about poverty and violence in America’s cities. Dantrell’s name would soon be used to demolish all of Chicago’s high-rise public housing, displacing tens of thousands of low-income families.
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A Gripping and Necessary Work
- By booklover on 11-24-24
By: Ben Austen, and others
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Ho Tactics
- How to MindF**k a Man into Spending, Spoiling, and Sponsoring
- By: G. L. Lambert
- Narrated by: Patrick Stevens
- Length: 9 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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I have discovered a group of women who refuse to be exploited, are immune to manipulation, and who never settle in the name of love. These ladies know what they want and take what they want by beating men at their own game. Utilizing the secrets exposed in this book, these women gain power, money, and status. Men call them gold diggers, women call them hos, but they call themselves winners. This is the book that society doesn't want you to listen to….
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I spent $24,000 in 4 months
- By B.M. on 10-06-18
By: G. L. Lambert
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The Autobiography of Malcolm X
- As Told to Alex Haley
- By: Malcolm X, Alex Haley
- Narrated by: Laurence Fishburne
- Length: 16 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Experience a bold take on this classic autobiography as it’s performed by Oscar-nominated Laurence Fishburne. In this searing classic autobiography, originally published in 1965, Malcolm X, the Muslim leader, firebrand, and Black empowerment activist, tells the extraordinary story of his life and the growth of the Human Rights movement. His fascinating perspective on the lies and limitations of the American dream and the inherent racism in a society that denies its non-White citizens the opportunity to dream, gives extraordinary insight into the most urgent issues of our own time.
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it's Nearly perfect
- By Kerry on 09-16-20
By: Malcolm X, and others
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I Thought It Was Just Me (but it isn’t)
- Telling the Truth about Perfectionism, Inadequacy, and Power
- By: Brené Brown
- Narrated by: Lauren Fortgang
- Length: 10 hrs and 44 mins
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Based on seven years of ground-breaking research and hundreds of interviews, I Thought It Was Just Me shines a long-overdue light on an important truth: Our imperfections are what connect us to each other and to our humanity. Our vulnerabilities are not weaknesses; they are powerful reminders to keep our hearts and minds open to the reality that we're all in this together.
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I'm sure its great if you are a mother ....
- By Leslie A Hill on 08-09-11
By: Brené Brown
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Mythology: Mega Collection
- Classic Stories from the Greek, Celtic, Norse, Japanese, Hindu, Chinese, Mesopotamian and Egyptian Mythology
- By: Scott Lewis
- Narrated by: Madison Niederhauser, Oliver Hunt
- Length: 31 hrs and 37 mins
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Do you know how many wives Zeus had? Or how the famous Trojan War was caused by one beautiful lady? Or how Thor got his hammer? Give your imagination a real treat. This Mega Mythology Collection of eight audiobooks is for you....
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An interesting set of introductions.
- By Kevin Potter on 05-30-19
By: Scott Lewis
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The Philosopher's Toolkit: How to Be the Most Rational Person in Any Room
- By: Patrick Grim, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Patrick Grim
- Length: 12 hrs and 2 mins
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Taught by award-winning Professor Patrick Grim of the State University of New York at Stony Brook, The Philosopher’s Toolkit: How to Be the Most Rational Person in Any Room arms you against the perils of bad thinking and supplies you with an arsenal of strategies to help you be more creative, logical, inventive, realistic, and rational in all aspects of your daily life.
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This should NOT be an audio book
- By Brooks Emerson on 03-21-20
By: Patrick Grim, and others
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My Big TOE: Awakening
- Book One of a Trilogy Unifying Philosophy, Physics, and Metaphysics
- By: Thomas Campbell
- Narrated by: Thomas Campbell
- Length: 11 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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My Big TOE: Awakening, written by a nuclear physicist in the language of contemporary culture, unifies science and philosophy, physics and metaphysics, mind and matter, purpose and meaning, the normal and the paranormal. The entirety of human experience (mind, body, and spirit) including both our objective and subjective worlds is brought together under one seamless scientific understanding.
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What a Trip (but to where?)
- By Michael on 11-26-13
By: Thomas Campbell
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What listeners say about Disillusioned
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Melinda
- 01-28-24
Enlightening
Illuminating revelation of the different perspectives of people from different communities that were all developed for the same reason , succeeded for a time , but are all in decline for the same reasons as well. Truly interesting and I personally was educated by it in a profound way.
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- Deanna Means
- 03-07-24
Resident from one of the suburbs
Recommended to everyone I know! I burst into tears at the epilogue!
Thank you to everyone for collaborating on this especially Bethany!!!!!
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- Gail G. Wood
- 07-15-24
Great companions for a spectacular journey
I don't usually write reviews (tho I truly appreciate that others do) but this book just grabbed me and I could not put it down. It is a great journey through the adventure, the topography and history of the Canyon and the social and economic forces that both protect and threaten it.
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- Damon T. Bethea
- 07-19-24
Thank you, Fellow Penn Hiller!
Thank you so much for including us in Penn Hills PA in your amazing book and sharing Bethany's story 👍🏾
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- Delphine C. Lucas
- 02-17-24
Good writing and research about the sociology of American Suburbs and their evolution.
Never having been a suburban dweller, I heard recently that the suburbs in America are changing, which only makes sense considering that cities are unaffordable. The book delves into the changes that are taking place and the challenges all suburban dwellers see themselves facing. A lot of focus was on public schools and the myriad of problems people face attending them. As a retired urban and rural public school teacher myself I again see that this book as well as the American public white and black, focus on the wrong things. The issue with public schools and what is destroying public education is the top down structure of the system. Major educational decisions are made by politicians and administrators who rarely care about kids. Teachers who do the heavy lifting are not consulted or supported in the ways that would change everything for children. The book didn’t address real issues as far as I was concerned.
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- david hendricks
- 12-07-24
Loved the writer’s approach
Not over reliant on sociology or firsthand accounts. Tell us what you see and take a shot at connecting the dots. I’ll take it from there. Thanks
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- Amazon Customer
- 03-03-24
Trying to make social science a “story” with a sleepy narrator voice
I like the attempt at “story telling “ about data points in social science, but the velvet voiced narrator would best be deployed on children’s bedtime stories
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- Michael P. Skinner
- 06-02-24
Boring
Not what I thought it would be. Initial description of the book was more interesting than the actual book
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