“Exploring the impact of an affordable housing development in Mount Laurel, New Jersey, this book provides new and innovative methodologies for examining key theoretical and public policy issues that have been the subject of intensive debate. It will be useful to scholars, public officials, and others interested in the way American communities develop in the face of increasing diversity and inequalities.”–Gregory Squires, George Washington University

“Ably linking social science, legal analysis, and policy discussion together, Climbing Mount Laurel is a much-needed book.”–John Goering, City University of New York, Graduate Center

Douglas S. Massey is the Henry G. Bryant Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs at Princeton University and director of its Office of Population Research. Len Albright is assistant professor of sociology at Northeastern University. Rebecca Casciano is the CEO of Rebecca Casciano, LLC. Elizabeth Derickson is a doctoral candidate in sociology at Princeton University. David N. Kinsey is lecturer of public and international affairs at Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School and a partner in the planning consulting firm Kinsey & Hand.

Climbing Mount Laurel

The Struggle for Affordable Housing and Social Mobility in an American Suburb

By Douglas S. Massey, Len Albright, Rebecca Casciano, Elizabeth Derickson, David N. Kinsey

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

Copyright © 2013 Princeton University Press
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-691-15729-0

Contents

List of Illustrations………………………………………………ixList of Tables…………………………………………………….xiPreface…………………………………………………………..xiiiChapter 1. Location Cubed: The Importance of Neighborhoods……………..1Chapter 2. Suburban Showdown: The Mount Laurel Controversy……………..32Chapter 3. Field of Dreams: Ethel Lawrence Homes Come to Mount Laurel……51Chapter 4. Rhetoric and Reality: Monitoring Mount Laurel……………….64Chapter 5. Neighborly Concerns: Effects on Surrounding Communities………80Chapter 6. All Things Considered: Neighbors’ Perceptions a Decade Later….100Chapter 7. Greener Pastures: Moving to Tranquility…………………….121Chapter 8. Tenant Transitions: From Geographic to Social Mobility……….147Chapter 9. Affordable Housing: Suburban Solutions to Urban Problems……..184Appendices………………………………………………………..197References………………………………………………………..245Index…………………………………………………………….261

CHAPTER 1

Location Cubed

THE IMPORTANCE OF NEIGHBORHOODS

Any Realtor can tell you that “the three most important things about realestate are location, location, location.” This oft-repeated refrain, whichwe might label “L³,” or “location cubed,” underscores the importance ofplace in human affairs. Everyone needs somewhere to live, of course—adwelling that confers protection from the elements and a private space foreating, sleeping, and interacting with socially relevant others. Naturallythe quality of a dwelling has direct implications for the health, comfort,security, and well-being of the people who inhabit it, and matching theattributes of housing with the needs and resources of families has longbeen a principal reason for residential mobility in the United States (Rossi1980). As income and assets rise, households generally seek to improvethe housing they inhabit to match it more closely with their changingfamilial needs, either by moving elsewhere or by investing to modify thecurrent dwelling.

When people purchase or rent a home, however, they not only buy intoa particular dwelling and its amenities but also into a surrounding neighborhoodand its qualities, for good or for ill. In contemporary urban society,opportunities and resources tend to be distributed unevenly in space,and in the United States spatial inequalities have widened substantially inrecent decades (Massey and Fischer 2003; Reardon and Bischoff 2011).Where one lives is probably more important now than ever in determiningone’s life chances (Dreier, Mollenkopf, and Swanstrom 2001; deSouza Briggs 2005; Sampson 2012). In selecting a place to live, a familydoes much more than simply choose a dwelling to inhabit; it also selectsa neighborhood to occupy. In doing so, it chooses the crime rate to whichit will be exposed; the police and fire protection it will receive; the taxesit will pay; the insurance costs it will incur; the quality of education itschildren will receive; the peer groups they will experience; the goods,services, and jobs to which the family will have access; and the relativelikelihood a household will be able to build wealth through home appreciation;not to mention the status and prestige, or lack thereof, familymembers will derive from living in the neighborhood.

For these reasons, real estate markets constitute a critical nexus in theAmerican system of stratification (Massey 2008; Sampson 2012). Housingmarkets are especially important because they distribute much morethan housing; they also distribute education, security, health, wealth, employment,social status, and interpersonal connections. If one does nothave full access to the housing market, one does not have access to thefull range of resources, benefits, and opportunities that American societyhas to offer (Massey and Denton 1993). Residential mobility has thus alwaysbeen central to the broader process of social mobility in the UnitedStates (Massey and Mullan 1984; Massey and Denton 1985). As individualsand families move up the economic ladder, they translate gains inincome and wealth into improved residential circumstances, which putsthem in a better position to realize even greater socioeconomic gains inthe future. By interspersing residential and socioeconomic mobility, overtime and across the generations, families and social groups ratchet themselvesupward in the class distribution. In a very real way, therefore, barriersto residential mobility are barriers to social mobility.

Historically, the most important barriers to residential mobility inthe United States have been racial in nature (Massey and Denton 1993;Massey, Rothwell, and Domina 2009). Before the civil rights era, AfricanAmericans, especially, but also other religious and ethnic minorities,experienced systematic discrimination in real estate and mortgage marketsand were excluded from federal lending programs designed to promotehome ownership (Jackson 1985; Katznelson 2005). In addition, thepractice of redlining, which was institutionalized throughout the lendingindustry, systematically denied capital to black neighborhoods (Jackson1985; Squires 1994, 1997). Poor black neighborhoods were often targetedfor demolition by urban renewal programs, displacing residentsinto dense clusters of badly constructed and poorly maintained publichousing projects that isolated families by class as well as race (Hirsch1983; Goldstein and Yancy 1986; Brauman 1987; Massey and Bickford1992; Massey and Kanaiaupuni 1993; Jones 2004).

The end result was a universally high degree of urban racial segregationin mid-twentieth-century America that only began to abate in the wake oflandmark civil rights legislation passed in the 1960s and 1970s (Charles2003; Massey, Rothwell, and Domina 2009). Progress in eliminating racismfrom real estate and lending markets was slow and halting, however,and desegregation was only achieved slowly through a multitude of individualefforts undertaken in cooperation with civil rights organizations(Patterson and Silverman 2011). One such effort occurred in the NewJersey suburbs of Philadelphia in 1969, when a group of lower-income,predominantly minority residents joined together to form the SpringvilleCommunity Action Committee (Haar 1996; Lawrence-Haley 2007).Dismayed at their inability to find decent housing at a price they couldafford in their hometown of Mount Laurel, New Jersey, committee membersteamed up with a local contractor to build thirty-six units of affordablehousing for themselves and other low-income families in the region.

Not surprisingly given the history of race and housing in America,the response from township officials to the proposed development ofclustered town houses for low-income minority families was a firm andresounding “no.” The proposed project, they said, would violate MountLaurel’s zoning policies and land-use regulations, which as in many suburbancommunities, favored large single-family dwellings set back fromthe street on large lots (Rose and Rothman 1977). In response, membersof the Springville Action Committee joined with local chapters of theNAACP and Camden Regional Legal Services in 1971 to file suit againstthe township, arguing that its zoning rule effectively prohibited the constructionof affordable housing and thus, in de facto if not de jure terms,excluded poor, predominantly minority families from living in the townshipand enjoying its resources and benefits.

After a prolonged legal battle, the New Jersey Supreme Court in 1975found for the plaintiffs and handed down a decision that came to beknown as Mount Laurel I. In it, the court defined a new “Mount LaurelDoctrine,” which stated unequivocally that municipalities in the state ofNew Jersey had an “affirmative obligation” to meet their “fair share” ofthe regional need for low-and moderate-income housing (Kirp, Dwyer,and Rosenthal 1995). The decision and its associated doctrine provideda blueprint for fair-housing advocates and affordable-housing developerselsewhere to launch similar efforts on behalf of low-income residents,and in the ensuing years Mount Laurel I was cited frequently in housinglitigation around the country (Burchell 1985; Haar 1996).

Although some community members supported the project from thebeginning, such encouragement was not popular. In general, public officials,township inhabitants, and neighbors near the proposed developmentwere none too pleased with the court’s decision and decried it invitriolic demonstrations, raucous public hearings, and vituperative lettersto local newspapers. Ordered to amend its zoning to accommodate itsfair-share housing obligations, Mount Laurel Township officials stalledfor time and after a year begrudgingly rezoned three unsuitable propertieswhile they appealed the initial court decision.

A second drawn-out court case ensued and in 1983 the Supreme Courtreaffirmed its earlier ruling in a decision that came to be known as MountLaurel II, ordering the township to recalculate its fair share of affordablehousing and to redo its zoning amendments quickly. Two years later,Township officials and the plaintiffs reached a settlement that permittedmultifamily zoning in the area and provided partial funding to enablethe project finally to move forward (Haar 1996). Plans were submittedto local authorities but this action triggered another round of acrimoniouspublic hearings attended by angry citizens who vehemently expressedfears that the development would bring vexing urban problems into theirsuburban utopia (Kirp, Dwyer, and Rosenthal 1995). Areas of specificconcern were the perceived potential for rising taxes, increasing crime,falling property values, and a general disruption of the suburban ethos(Smothers 1997a, 1997b, 1997c).

The hearings and public protests dragged on for more than a decade,and it was not until 1997 that the Mount Laurel Planning Board finallyapproved plans for the project to begin construction. Even then, architecturalblueprints had to be finalized, permits solicited, and numerousdetails negotiated with local officials before the project’s nonprofit developercould break ground. It was not until the year 2000 that the projectwas finally completed and its developers could accept applicationsfor entry into the project’s one hundred units. Late in the year the firsttenants began moving in—thirty-one years after the Springville CommunityAction Committee originally sought to launch the project, twenty-nineyears after the filing of the lawsuit, twenty-five years after MountLaurel I, and seventeen years after Mount Laurel II. Unfortunately it wasalso six years after the death of the lead plaintiff, Ethel Lawrence, and theproject was duly named in her honor (Lawrence-Halley 2007). In 2004,forty additional units were added to the Ethel Lawrence Homes (ELH)and leased to a new set of tenants, bringing the development to its currentsize of 140 units.

ELH is unusual in that it is 100 percent affordable. Many affordablehousing projects in New Jersey and elsewhere simply require setting asidea percentage of units for low-income families within larger market-ratedevelopments, typically 20 percent. In contrast, ELH from the start wasdesigned and built entirely for low-and moderate-income families. Theproject presently contains one-, two-, and three-bedroom apartments locatedwithin two-story town houses that are affordable to householdslying between 10 percent and 80 percent of the regional median income.These criteria yield a remarkably broad range of “affordability,” withunits in ELH going to families with incomes that range from $6,200 to$49,500 per year. Given New Jersey’s high-income economy and priceyreal estate market, however, no inhabitant of ELH could be consideredwell-off or affluent, though obviously not everyone is abjectly poor either.

As the project’s first residents moved in, a host of observers lookedon with curiosity and no small amount of apprehension. Local officialsbraced for possible negative reactions from citizens and disruptions arisingfrom the incorporation of poor, minority families into the community’ssocial fabric. Neighbors, while hoping for the best, nonetheless fearedthat their premonitions about rising tax rates, declining property values,and increasing crime rates might indeed come true. Fair housing advocatesin New Jersey and around the country mostly crossed their fingersand prayed that the disruptions would be few and that the developmentwould enable the new tenants to forge a pathway out of disadvantage.The residents themselves entered with a combination of hope for the futureand trepidation about how they would fit into a white suburbanenvironment whose residents had made abundantly clear their skepticismand rancor about the development they were entering.

It is within this contradictory and contentious context that we undertakethe present analysis, the first systematic, comprehensive effortto determine as rigorously as possible the degree to which the manifoldhopes and fears associated with the Mount Laurel project were realized.In the next chapter we describe in greater detail the Mount Laurel courtcase and the controversy it generated. We then go on in chapter 3 todescribe the construction, organization, and physical appearance of theEthel Lawrence Homes and to assess the project’s aesthetics relative toother housing in the area. In chapter 4 we outline our study’s design andresearch methodology, describing the specific data sources we consultedto determine the effects of the project on the community and the multiplesurveys and in-depth interviews we conducted to gather information onhow the opening of the homes affected residents, neighbors, and the communityin general.

Having set the stage in this fashion, we begin our analysis in chapter5 by evaluating the outcomes that were of such grave concern to localresidents and township officials prior to the project’s construction, usingpublicly available data to determine the effects it had on crime rates, taxburdens, and property values. After detecting no effects of the project ontrends in crime, taxes, or home values, either in adjacent neighborhoodsor the township generally, in chapter 6 we move on to consider the effectsof Ethel Lawrence Homes on the ethos of suburban life. Drawing ona representative survey and selected interviews with neighbors living insurrounding residential areas, we show that despite all the agitation andemotion before the fact, once the project opened, the reaction of neighborswas surprisingly muted, with nearly a third not even realizing thatan affordable housing development existed right next door.

In chapter 7 we turn our attention to a special survey we conductedof ELH residents and nonresidents to assess how moving into the projectaffected the residential environment people experienced on a day-todaybasis. The design of the survey enables us to compare neighborhoodconditions experienced by ELH residents both before and after theymoved into the project, as well to compare them with a control groupof people who had applied to ELH but had not yet been admitted. Bothcomparisons reveal a dramatic reduction in exposure to neighborhooddisorder and violence and a lower frequency of negative life events as aresult of the move. Chapter 8 moves on to consider whether the move—andthe improved neighborhood conditions it enabled—were sufficient tochange the trajectory of people’s lives. Systematic comparisons betweenproject residents and members of the nonresident control group indicatedsignificant improvements in mental health, economic independence, andchildren’s educational outcomes as a result of moving into the project. Inchapter 9 we recap the foregoing results and trace out their implicationsfor public policy and for social theory. We argue that neighborhood circumstancesdo indeed have profound consequences for individual andfamily well-being and that housing mobility programs constitute an efficaciousway both to reduce poverty and to lower levels of racial and classsegregation in metropolitan America.

Before turning to our analyses, however, in the remainder of this chapterwe situate the Mount Laurel controversy in a broader theoretical andsubstantive context. Theoretically, we develop a conceptual understandingof the political economy of place to underscore the distinct characterof real estate markets. In doing so, we shed light on the motivations andbehaviors of the various participants in the Mount Laurel controversy—projectdevelopers, prospective residents, potential neighbors, and localofficials, as well as ancillary actors such as housing advocates, civil rightsleaders, and suburban politicians. Substantively, we describe the evolvingspatial ecology of race and class in the United States, outlining recenttrends in racial and economic segregation nationally and in New Jersey,and reviewing the role that housing policies have played in structuringthese trends over the past several decades. We also review the evidenceadduced to date on the role played by neighborhoods in determining thesocial and economic welfare of individuals and families.

Although the Mount Laurel controversy was fraught with muchanger and animosity, and charged with an abundance of positive andnegative emotion, we hope that our theoretical and substantive framingof the issues, along with our empirical analyses of the project andits consequences, will bring needed facts and reason to the debate, enablingcitizens to reflect more calmly and policy makers to evaluate moreobjectively the efficacy of affordable housing developments such as theEthel Lawrence Homes as social policy. We believe our empirical findingsvalidate the use of affordable housing projects as a tool to address thepressing problems of housing scarcity, poverty alleviation, and residentialsegregation. We also believe that the study’s methodology and data willbe of interest to social scientists, enabling them to assess more definitivelythan hitherto possible the influence of neighborhood circumstances onindividual and family outcomes.

The Political Economy of Place

In a capitalist society such as the United States’, homes are exchangedthrough markets. Dwellings are offered for sale or rent by owners, landlords,or agents who seek to maximize monetary returns while rentersand home buyers seek to obtain highest-quality housing at the lowestpossible price. Americans often celebrate “the free market” and denigrate”government interventions” and their correlate “bureaucracy.” But marketsare not states of nature. They are social constructions, built andelaborated by human beings for the instrumental purpose of exchanginggoods and services (Carruthers and Babb 2000). They do not arise spontaneouslyand they do not somehow spring into existence in a free andunfettered condition until disturbed by an intrusive state (North 1990;Evans 1995). Instead they are self-consciously constructed by human actorswithin specific societies and assume a variety of different institutionalforms or “architectures,” depending on how they are embeddedwithin surrounding and often preexisting social structures (Hall and Soskice2001; Fligstein 2001; Guillen 2001; Portes 2010).
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