Commonplaces: Community Ideology and Identity in American Culture

This book interprets popular American belief and sentiment about cities, suburbs, and small towns in terms of community ideologies. Based on in-depth interviews with residents of American communities, it shows how people construct a sense of identity based on their communities, and how they perceive and explain community problems (e.g., why cities have more crime than their suburban and rural counterparts) in terms of this identity.

Hummon reveals the changing role of place imagery in contem...