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which have the effect of increasing the cost of housing so that it is beyond the means of lower- income households.6s In the years since the widespread adoption of zoning as the principal tool of city planners, there has been a sea change in the challenges facing the American city. First, in a number of older American cities in the Northeast and Midwest, a significant problem is growing depopulation rather than overcrowding.66 Next, many cities, rather than remaining centers for capital production and accumulation, have become post-industrial specters of their former selves, often largely populated by members of racial and ethnic minority groups employed in low-wage 65 See e.g. S. Burlington County NAACP v. Mount Laurel, 336 A.2d 713 (N.J. 1975) (hereinafter Mt. Laurel I); S. Burlington County NAACP v. Mount Laurel, 456 A.2d 390 (N.J. 1983) (hereinafter Mt. Laurel II). In Mt. Laurel I, the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled that municipalities had a constitutional obligation to provide a"fair share" of low- and moderate- income housing. The decision responded to a variety of zoning practices in rural and suburban communities that were designed to exclude affordable housing from these areas. The court found that exclusionary zoning went against the communities' obligations to provide for the welfare of not only the town but the general region. In Mt. Laurel II, the New Jersey Supreme Court discussed the fact that municipalities were failing to address the sorts of exclusionary zoning practices which had been the basis of Mt. Laurel I. Hence, the New Jersey Supreme Court reaffirmed the principles of the earlier decision and required municipalities to implement a variety of "affirmative" governmental mechanisms. One of the most noteworthy aspects of the decision was the Court's provision of a"builder's remedy," which allowed builders or landowners who wanted to provide low- and moderate-income housing in a jurisdiction to sue a municipality to obtain approval notwithstanding existing zoning standards for an area. 66 See M. Christine Boyer, Dreaming the Rational City: The Myth of American City Planning 237 (1986).The "rust belt" phenomenon, the deindustrialization, decay and depopulation of older United States cities has been produced by a number of factors, among them the loss of manufacturing jobs and their partial replacement by knowledge-intensive white collar jobs often requiring post-secondary education. John D. Kasarda, Cities as Places Where People Live and Work: Urban Change and Neighborhood Distress, in Interwoven Destinies: Cities and the Nation 81, 83 (Henry Cisneros ed., 1993). This has meant that already present poorly educated inner city residents were excluded from employment. Id. The decline of these Northeastern and Midwestern cities has, however, to a great extent been paralleled by the almost exponential growth of "sun belt" cities in the South and Southwest. Eli Ginzberg, The Changing Urban Scene: 1960-1990 and Beyond, in Interwoven Destinies: Cities and the Nation 31, 35-37 (Henry Cisneros ed., 1993). 19