In "Suburbs under Siege" Charles Haar argues passionately that
all people--rich or poor, black or white--have a constitutional
right to live in the suburbs and that a socially responsible
judiciary should vigorously uphold that right. For various reasons,
American courts have generally failed to question local zoning
regulations that trap the urban poor in the squalor of inner
cities, away from decent housing and jobs in the suburbs. No U.S.
Supreme Court case, for instance, has confronted exclusionary
zoning rules, as "Brown v. Board of Education" once attacked school
segregation. Instead, judges at all levels have most often
reinforced the residential segregation that may well destroy
American society. In this provocative book on the landmark Mount
Laurel cases, Haar shows how the N.J. state judiciary broke out of
this pattern of judicial behavior. These courageous, innovative
judges attracted nationwide attention by challenging the forces of
affluence that ruled the suburbs (and the legislature) of their
state. Furthermore, they based their reasoning on the N.J. state
constitution in order to protect their rulings from invalidation by
the U.S. Supreme Court.
In the early 1970s, when the cases began, the plaintiffs, Ethel
Lawrence and her daughter Thomasene, were barely making ends meet
in the Philadelphia suburb of Mount Laurel, a town where their
African-American ancestors had lived for seven generations. The
Lawrences' dream was to live in a Mount Laurel garden apartment
planned by a grassroots reform group as affordable housing: in
their way stood a typical minimum acreage zoning ordinance. The
eventual court victory of the Lawrences and their young public
interest attorneys inspired other N.J. suits and a process of
remediation that continues to this day, as judges, experts (special
masters), the state legislature, and other citizens work to carry
out the Mount Laurel principles. Haar's book is a bold attack on
conventional doctrines of the separation of powers limitations on
the judicial branch and a plea that judges across the country
assume their proper responsibilities for fair housing before it is
too late.
Originally published in 1998.
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