Mayor critical of some solutions proposed by study.
By: David Campbell
A growing number of suburbs, including Princeton Borough, are struggling with stresses typically associated with large cities, according to a new study.
"Our quality of life is steadily eroding in our region," said Martin Johnson of Isles, Inc., a Trenton-based community-development organization, at a gathering Wednesday night at Princeton Township Hall. The event was hosted by the township housing board.
The study was commissioned by the New Jersey Regional Coalition, a statewide partnership of planning and social-justice organizations Mr. Johnson helped found. The coalition hired a consulting firm to evaluate demographic changes in New Jersey’s 566 municipalities over the last decade.
Findings indicate that competition for tax base and uncoordinated growth have hurt almost every community in the state not just cities.
The "ratables chase" pits local governments against one another and contributes to growing social disparities, resulting in racial and economic segregation, sprawl and diminishing quality of life and opportunities for the working and middle classes, the study finds.
Citing mutual self-interest by municipalities as an incentive for regional and statewide reforms, Mr. Johnson called for reduced reliance on property taxes through reforms such as tax-base sharing, regional cooperation and planning, and decentralization of poverty.
According to the study, the three traditional regional classifications urban, suburban and rural are no more in New Jersey. There are instead groups of suburbs with growing poverty in schools, weakening tax bases, or which are fast-growing and struggling to provide needed schools and infrastructure with limited resources.
"The notion of (the) affluent, monolithic suburb is a myth," Mr. Johnson said.
The study categorizes Princeton Borough as an "at-risk, developed" municipality.
According to the study, towns like the borough are at risk because they are running out of land to develop and cannot keep pace with surrounding communities in generating the property-tax bases that are relied on for public services.
Princeton Borough Mayor Marvin Reed said his municipality’s housing market is vibrant and its inclusionary housing program active and productive, but said that under one of the solutions proposed by Mr. Johnson shared tax bases the borough would likely bear the brunt of the financial burden.
"This community, for all it’s done, will be a donor," Mayor Reed said. "We’re very apprehensive. We’d be the ones that pay."

