It is funny because, here in Paris, the urban core is where upwards life is and suburbia is the land of social despair. The opposite logic from the USA, which makes some forum threads awkward with both sides of the Atlantic talking past each other !
There's a lot of differences between the US and France that result in different suburb/city situations, but I think "white flight" and "redlining" cover a decent chunk of it:
recently though white flight (if we refer to the general progression of people to suburbs away from cities) is dominated by people of color. Suburbia is basically about as representative demographically as the rest of the country at this point.
