Assessing Mt. Laurel

In the pages of the New York Times, David Kirp takes a look at what's happening in Mt. Laurel, New Jersey.  Mt Laurel is the site of, arguably, the most famous inclusionary zoning case in the country.  Kirp argues that the presence of affordable housing units has had no noticable effect on the lives of Mt. Laurel's wealthy residents: 

Families with incomes as low as $8,150 — one-third of the poverty level — have been living in a town where the median income is 10 times higher for a family of four. “Climbing Mount Laurel,” co-written by the Princeton sociologist Douglas S. Massey and several colleagues, concludes that this affordable housing has had zero impact on the affluent residents of that community — crime rates, property values and taxes have moved in step with nearby suburbs — while the lives of the poor and working-class families who moved there have been transformed.

Steve Clowney