It wasn’t so different in the 90s — I went to public school with the son of the VP of a major telecom company, with children of Costa Rican immigrant laborers, and with children of plumbers and electricians. It all depends where you grow up. I think the East is still more mixed. Gated communities are pretty rare and public schools are still good enough (thanks to high property taxes) to allow people of different backgrounds to send their kids there.