Climbing Mount Laurel: The Struggle for Affordable Housing and Social Mobility in an American Suburb

H ow much do neighborhoods affect our life outcomes? This question, which has been long debated and researched, is especially significant when assessing problems and solutions related to residential segregation. Since post-WWII suburbanization, the segregation of black and white households has been a staple of U.S. residential patterns. One of the major issues related to segregation is not simply where households are segregated from, but where they are segregated to. Patterns of residential segregation are often associated with stark inequalities related to housing, education, health, labor opportunities, safety, and local resources and amenities. To summarize, many believe that location matters. Further, if segregation is a problem, many have assumed that integration is a solution. Support for residential integration rests on two primary assumptions. The first assumption is the belief that low-income minorities are exposed to social ills as a function of their segregation. In other words, if segregated minority families are disadvantaged, we are assuming that where they live is a source of that disadvantage. This has come to be known as a " neighborhood " effect. The idea that neighborhoods cause additional disadvantage has a long history, but was heavily emphasized in the popular book The Truly Disadvantaged by William Julius Wilson. Economists, of course, point to the fact that it is difficult to unpack whether place causes disadvantage or merely reflects it. The second assumption is that households would fare better if they were dispersed, or integrated, within better neighborhoods that reflect a greater diversity of race and income. Despite a consistent imperative of " moving toward the goal of integrated living " that exists among a host of social scientists, there is a range of evidence in support of, and against, these aforementioned assumptions (Hartman and Squires 2010, p. 7). Given this, the story of Mount Laurel offers an interesting case study. In 1970, a group of African Americans led by a young woman named Ethel Lawrence petitioned for the town of Mount Laurel, New Jersey, to build low-income garden apartments. The answer was a resounding " no " due to