One of the tricky features of the new suburban poverty is that it is less visible than traditional, inner-city poverty. We are all familiar with the large-scale, urban housing projects that seem to announce their residents’ poverty to the world. In contrast, the suburban poor tend to be less densely concentrated and are scattered about in older apartment complexes, pockets of mobile homes, subdivisions of circa-1950 brick units, and low-income housing built behind strip malls.4
