"'Multiple Municipal Madness'" or What I Learned About Cities and Suburbs By Working for the New Jersey Legislature

Abstract

Personal acccount of staffing NJ Assembly Municipal Government Committee from 1977 to 1981 against the backdrop of the severe decline in the Big Six and other cities. Focuses on the legislative response ( or lack of it)  to court ordered  equalization of funding for city and suburban schoools (Robinson v. Cahill) and demand for  zoning revisions  to make possible  the development of low and moderate income housing (Mt. Laurel). Serves as a corrective to the popular depiction of the suburbs as bastions of privilege while  considering NJ"s conspicuously  fragmented local governance as an obstacle to advancing regional social and  economic equity.