ABSTRACT
Zoning ordinances have been used to prevent members of racial minorities and low-income families from moving from the central cities to suburban areas. The effect of such exclusionary zoning laws is to concentrate poor and racial minorities in the cities and to restrict the use of suburbs to middle-and upper-class residents. This chapter examines the cases dealing with the issues of the validity of programs of managed growth, the control of the, socio-economic composition of the population, and the special problems of racial, as distinguished from economic, discrimination. It gives an indepth analysis in the response of the New Jersey Supreme Court of this problem in the Mount Laurel and subsequent decisions. The chapter describes the objective of a court before which a zoning ordinance is challenged on Mount Laurel grounds is to determine whether it realistically permits the opportunity to provide a fair and reasonable share of the region's need for housing for the lower income population.
