For the better part of a century, American internal migration patterns have been massively influenced by the suburban promise of great amenities, low taxes, privacy, safety, and a fresh start. But as long-time education reporter Benjamin Herold argues in his new book, Disillusioned: Five Families and the Unraveling of America’s Suburbs, that dream has always been elusive, not least because the suburbs themselves have a baked-in economic life cycle. Through a portrait of five families in pursuit of the suburban idyll, Herold reveals how suburbs are born to fail.

Disillusioned is just as much about schools and race as it is about housing as a Ponzi scheme, but when it comes to daily life, these can’t be neatly separated. All five families Herold profiles move to the suburbs to get their children into better schools. But schools’ performance and resources too often mirror their racial makeup, good intentions or not. Part of the suburban story is that opportunity is usually drained by the time latecomers, often people of color from working-class backgrounds, move in.

The suburban cycle, as Herold documents it, goes something like this: suburbs are built on massive subsidies like guaranteed mortgages, federal infrastructure like commuter highways, and defense contracts for employment. New tax revenues flow to high-quality services. Budgets are boosted by plentiful credit, taken against future taxes so long as the suburb continues to expand. This lasts for decades, but there’s a tension between exclusivity and expansion. When infrastructure ages and the bills come due, services are pinched and wealthy people move to start the cycle over somewhere new. Problems are staved off for a time through ignorance and more debt, but sooner or later taxes must go up as quality of life goes down.