"Numerous authors have detailed the phenomenon of black suburbanization in the 20th century surrounding specific U.S. cities, but Wiese is one of the few to consider the overall trend, particularly comparing migration in the North and the South. Wiese argues that instead of being forced from the cities, blacks moved into the suburbs by choice in order to build their own communities. His discussion of Southern suburbanization is especially interesting, partly because earlier studies have focused on Northern cities and partly because Wiese sees suburbanization as an extension of the Civil Rights Movement’s impetus toward black empowerment.... Wiese does a good job of covering his topic from both black and white perspectives. A useful addition to the literature of black suburbanization."

Anthony J. Adam | Library Journal

"A work of exceptionally broad research, Places of Their Own does much more than simply document the presence of African Americans in suburbs. It also illustrates how black suburbanization changed over the course of the twentieth century."

Amanda Seligman | Journal of Planning History

“Places of Their Own is a necessary corrective to underclass stereotypes and the well-meaning academic obsession with black slums—the black middle and upper classes are rarely portrayed with so much depth or sensitivity. Wiese, by organizing his narrative around the impact of racial discrimination on urban form, may consciously follow in the footsteps of scholars such as Thomas Sugrue, Kenneth Jackson, and Arnold Hirsch, but the negativism that dominates the work of those scholars is tempered by the success stories of many of Wiese’s black suburban subjects and communities. Wiese’s approach produces a more balanced, if still troubling, account of racial change in the American metropolis.”

Nicholas Dagan Bloom | Journal of American History

“Wiese’s mission is to explain the ways by which African Americans discovered and pursued places for themselves in suburban America. Among other objectives, he aims to demonstrate that the African American commitment to suburbs living is no mere late-twentieth-century development, but extends back to the early decades of the century. . . . [Wiese’s] work should serve as the stimulus of sociologically-grounded comparative historical investigations of African American suburbanization. . . . Places of Their Own will become a valued and pioneering contribution to the sociological project of analyses of African American residential transformation.”

Alfrod A. Young, Jr | Ethnic and Racial Studies

"Wiese has provided an insightful reference work on black suburbanization that will influence the field and encourage new research. His informative maps, tables, and photographs further reinforce what is now the best scholarly treatment of an important subject."

Eugene P. Moehring | Journal of American Ethnic History

"This is an important book, as Wiese expertly deploys the concepts of race, class, and gender to demonstrate both the similarities and the differences between European-American and African American suburban experiences. . . . Historians of race relations and the civil rights movement, as well as urban and suburban historians, will find here much to spark debate and to stimulate further research. . . . But no matter how these issues are resolved, Places of Their Own will force us to reconsider the nature and meaning of twentieth-century American suburbanization.—Jack S. Blocker Jr., Left History

Jack S. Blocker, Jr. | Left History