How Localism Destroys Opportunity: A Comparison Of Montville And Elizabeth, NJ
Philip S. Voss
20 March 2013
While New Jersey is one of the United States’ most populous states, it is simultaneously one of its wealthiest. In other respects, however, New Jersey closely mirrors the overall demographic make-up of the United States, specifically in terms of race. When looking at New Jersey on a more micro and municipal level the state is equally illustrative of insidious problems plaguing the country as a whole, most notably the inequitable and disharmonious way in which wealth and race statistics are consolidated and segregated across New Jersey’s 566 municipalities, due in large part to a destructive reliance on localism; the manifestation of strong local legal power in the face of state control.
Montville Township and Elizabeth help highlight the way in which localism has compounded inequity in New Jersey between for minorities and whites, and between the wealthy and the poor. While not geographically situated within the same county (Montville is part of Morris County while Elizabeth is part of Union County), the counties in which they both reside sit side by side, and share borders. Union and Elizabeth sit near the New Jersey coastline, whereas Montville and Morris County lie westward, towards the center of New Jersey’s top hump. But while these counties may be neighbors, the two municipalities differ wildly in key demographics such as wealth, crime and arrest rates, racial homogeneity, homeownership, school attendance and passage rates, and access to high-paying jobs. In Montville Township, recently named one of the top 20 cities in the country in which to live, the percentage of black residents hovers around 1% of the total population, and the barriers for entry for middle and lower income residents appear impossibly high. These barriers, set in large part by zoning restrictions and high property values, are indicative of other control mechanisms used by wealthy municipalities throughout New Jersey, and systemic of an overreliance on the tenets of localism. Even though the towns are less than a forty minute drive from one another, Montville contrasts markedly from a city like Elizabeth, with a 45% minority population, public schools which consistently fall in the lower quartile of state-wide performance levels, a terminally high crime rate, and an unemployment level currently 5% higher than the national average.
Montville and Elizabeth are shining examples of how New Jersey’s attachment to localism helps produce wealth and racial inequity, compounding a lack of social mobility for the poor, and extending a wealth monopoly for the most affluent. While localities are technically under the control of state authority, the power utilized by individual municipalities under localism exacerbates poverty and constrains mobility for minorities and urban-poor, by increasing costs for the have-nots and decreasing costs for the haves. Localities like Montville prosper under local power, but only at the expense of citizens stuck in decaying urban centers like Elizabeth.
The type of localism utilized by Montville to keep its town safe, secure, and free from poverty and lower housing values, and which forces Elizabeth to accept the very value destroying populations which Montville rejects, can trace its roots in America back to the Civil War. Localism, or the abstract idea of greater local power over state power, is championed by its proponents of economic efficiency, education for public life, and popular political empowerment. These positives, however, are debatable, and as Richard Briffault states and this paper will argue, greatly “exaggerated”. As we will see, Montville, due to help from localist powers, can rely on state-granted local powers to their fullest. Elizabeth, however, due to high concentrations of urban poor and increased municipal services, is unable to similarly take advantage of localism.
Continue reading this article in its entirety below:
The End of the American Dream: How Localism Destroys Opportunity