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ANXIETY
Singleminded
By
DIANA SPECHLER
JUNE 26, 2015 7:05 AM June 26, 2015 7:05 am 44 Comments

Anxiety: We worry. A gallery of contributors count the ways.

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Im almost unmedicated. Each morning, I take just 100 milligrams of bupropion. At bedtime, I take a
quarter milligram of lorazepam. Ive eliminated trazodone. And Im single. My ex and I are friends again
we were friends for years before we dated and now that my heartbreak has receded, I dont miss the
upstream swim of that relationship. I still pop awake in the middle of the night, and often stay awake for
two or three hours, but theres a peacefulness to my days now. Summer is helping. It always does.
My worst depression comes not from heartbreak, but from feeling trapped. Yet Ive sought out
relationships again and again.
For the first time since age 12, Im not engaged in the compulsive relationship pattern that those close to
me have often questioned, that Ive often questioned, too: I neither have a serious boyfriend nor want
one. I spend a lot of time thinking about one man (its hard to imagine quitting that vice), but hes 2,600
miles away without a working phone or a passport.
I didnt make a conscious decision to take a hiatus from serial monogamy. At other times in my life, I have
tried militantly to stay single, knowing that a steady stream of boyfriends is not the antidote to depression,
but Ive always wound up panicking and tumbling into a relationship. I just feel something different now, as
if a cord thats usually pulled tight has slackened.
Ive been single for only four months; I dont deserve a medal or induction into a convent, but its
interesting to me that as I decrease my meds, the urgency I feel around men subsides.


Nothing has troubled me more consistently than romantic love. Youre afraid to be alone, Ive been told,
and thats true. But then again, isnt it true of most people? Arent we taught from a young age to fear
that?
Between relationships, I always forget loves shortcomings, envision it to be something magical and
curative. I forget about the annoying parts the beloved clipping his toenails in bed. I forget about the
darkness that the beloved might suffer from depression, too; that the beloved might face tragedy or
sleep with someone else. In her memoir, The Odd Woman and The City, Vivian Gornick describes her
decision to give up romantic love: It haunted the psyche, was an ache in the bones; so deeply embedded
in the makeup of the spirit, it hurt the eyes to look directly into its influence. It would be a cause of pain
and conflict for the rest of my life.
For me, it is a cause of pain just as surely as its a distraction from pain love is all meshed up with my
depression. Im sick with anxiety when I fall for someone, unsure if he loves me back, but simultaneously,
Ive often relied on that crazed feeling to take me out of my own head. I find it endlessly sad that the
falling-in-love sensation is fleeting; even sadder is the crash that inevitably follows, when real life must be
faced.
The end of a relationship is a kind of high, too theres nothing more life-affirming, more hope-inspiring,
than a fresh start. After my first long-term relationship unraveled, I started running. I would wake at five in
the morning and run while the world slept. I would run until I vomited. I couldnt get enough. I was so
excited, so energized, that walking felt like sitting still.
Photo

CreditYann Kebbi
My worst depression comes not from heartbreak, but from feeling trapped. Relationships, even those with
the best beginnings, often infuse me with a sense of entrapment. And yet, Ive sought them out again and
again, certain that if I find the right one, it will open a window and let the fresh air in while all of my
problems fly out.
According to popular culture, to be a single woman is either pathetic or empowering. On television, single
women are either eating ice cream and crying or drinking cosmopolitans with their spirited girlfriends and
trashing the men they go to bed with. Historically, my singledom has erred more on the side of pathetic
I never fail to make leaps of logic, including No one will ever love me again. But this time is different. I
wouldnt say I feel empowered, but I am finding single life relaxing. I should have figured this out years
ago, what my friends have always told me that I dont need a relationship. Im reminded of the time a
woman stopped me on the street to point out that I was the only person with an open umbrella, that it
hadnt been raining for quite some time; I was so happy to collapse that thing, to shove it into my bag, to
finally have my hands free.


I always want to reiterate how grateful I am for meds, how meds saved my life. But as I taper, I do have a
sense that Im floating gently back to reality, that Ive been separated from reality for years, that reality is
greeting me. Reality is surprisingly tolerable I can live on tiny doses of medication and I can live
without a boyfriend. In the past month and a half, Ive been experiencing intense laughing jags. Ill start
laughing about something semi-funny and find myself unable to stop. Sometimes I laugh so hard, I cry or
get a cramp. It is the best feeling Ive ever had. That laughter is restoring something inside me, or
restoring me to the world. Someone close to me who kicked a heroin habit told me he had the same
experience when he was getting clean.
RELATED
More From Going Off
Read previous contributions to this series.
I met the man who lives 2,600 miles away while I was spending the month of May in Mexico. One night,
after wed been friends only a few days, I stayed out late with him and couldnt get home to my meds
because the buses had stopped running. I was terrified by the prospect of spending a night without
lorazepam. I could hardly speak as we walked three miles along the highway to his house. Every shadow
looked alive. The occasional headlights assaulted my vision. My whole body trembled. The source of my
fear felt nebulous, and so I was afraid of everything.
In his living room, he showed me to an air mattress on the floor, and then went outside to the garden.
When he returned, he arranged rosemary beside my face. He laid rose petals on my sweaty palms, said
something about my chakras. I felt itchy and squirmy. My stomach hurt. Could I trust this person? Who
was he anyway? I kept thinking of Francisco Goldmans New Yorker series about those 43 missing
students. Wasnt Mexico dangerous? Werent men?
His dog climbed on top of me and licked my face, chin to forehead. He kept licking me until I started to
laugh. My friend was laughing, too. Leave her alone! he yelled at the dog. Shes trying to be
depressed!
I hesitate to share to what happened next. I dont want to sound like those television shows I was
criticizing the final frame where the single woman struts confidently down the sidewalk. I dont want to
admit that my emotions, which Ive always hailed as complicated, sharpened to a clear and simple point: I
was going to be O.K., I realized. Not just on this air mattress while I waited for the buses to start running,
but in a grander sense soon I was going to be meds-free and I was going to survive it.
When the sun broke through the dark and turned the sky lavender, my friend and I walked outside. We
ran into his neighbors, who offered us a ride to my place. We climbed into the back of their pickup truck.
How are you feeling? he asked as we sped over the cobblestones.
There was wind on our faces. Its almost impossible to feel bad when theres wind on your face and the
days just beginning. To our right, the lake unfurled, a ribbon of blue. Beyond it, the mountains zigzagged
against the sky. In a few minutes, I would say goodbye to the men, hop out of the truck, and be alone with
myself and my unmedicated thoughts.
I remember that before I answered, I was curious to hear how these words would sound because I was
going to mean them: Im fine.
Read the entire Going Off series here.

Diana Spechler is the author of the novels Who by Fire and Skinny. Twitter: @DianaSpechler.
Follow The New York Times Opinion section onFacebook and on Twitter, and sign up for the Opinion
Today newsletter.

SEARCH
THE CONVERSATION

Political Infections
By
DAVID BROOKS
and
GAIL COLLINS
OCTOBER 28, 2014 8:50 PM October 28, 2014 8:50 pm 175 Comments

In The Conversation, David Brooks and Gail Collins talk between columns every Wednesday.

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Photo

Barack Obama hugs the nurse and Ebola survivor Nina Pham in the Oval Office on Oct. 24.Credit Pool photo by
Olivier Douliery
Gail Collins: David, I was pretty confident that the United States had Ebola under control until the other day, when it
appeared policy-making had devolved to Andrew Cuomo and Chris Christie. Chris Christie, who cant keep bridge
traffic moving. Andrew Cuomo, who failed to get his 2012 flu shot until 2013.
David Brooks: This is why were a republic and not a democracy. People running for office should not be making
science policy. By the way, Ive been against quarantines and overreaction through this whole thing, but there was a
piece in The New Republic a few weeks ago that sobered me. Steven Beutler, an infectious disease specialist,
was arguing for a maximalist response. Heres one core point: Medicine can be a very humbling profession, and
after more than 30 years of practicing infectious-disease medicine, I have learned that the unanticipated happens all
too often, especially where microbes are involved.
Gail: Do you think the Ebola hysteria will have any effect on next weeks election? Theres been a lot of complaint
about the administrations ineptitude. But I think the message on Ebola, at least, has been the opposite. Ebola in the
United States began deep in the heart of Texas, a state whose health care system is so estranged from the federal
government it refuses to accept the opportunity to get its millions of uninsured residents covered under Obamacare.
David: Your love of all things Texas is well known. But you have to admit a few things about the place. It is
economically vibrant beyond all reckoning. Houston and Dallas are exploding economically while the rest of the
country dawdles.
Gail: Texas is the last gasp of the Sunbelt boom. It has all the advantages of warm weather, plus an enormous
amount of space which makes housing stupendously cheap. It could have done just as well without being politically
crazy.
But we were talking about Ebola.
David: As for Ebola and the election, my pretentious theory is that Ebola is the objective correlative of the campaign.
Gail: Youre using big words again.
David: If I remember high school English correctly, an objective correlative is an object that gives explicit access to
the meaning of vague and insubstantial things, like a mood or an emotion. Its an object that correlates to a mood or
emotion or idea. T.S. Eliot made it famous writing about Hamlet.

Anyway, the country was already afraid. It felt like the people running things were not quite up to the job. Along comes
a disease to perfectly embody that vague sense. That said, I dont think Ebola is swinging too many votes. People are
just sour and they are disappointed with the president.
Gail: It certainly has been a tough season for President Obama. But before we start blaming him for anything bad
that happens next Tuesday, I would like to give him a shout-out for that hug-the-Ebola-nurse photo. Which allows us
to recall that when AIDS hit the United States in 1981, President Ronald Reagan was criminally useless. Never said a
word. As Laura Helmuth noted in Slate this week, Reagans press secretary made fun of the idea that the president
would ever consider speaking out.
David: I totally agree with you on that one. Its not in the presidents job description to be the professional emoter and
behavior model, but when he can display some truth by example, he might as well do it.
Gail: I know Im preparing my defenses in advance of next week. But I think the American people have been saying
they want an effective government, not a smaller government. All the candidates are promising theyre going to end
gridlock, but if theres anything weve learned since Obama was elected, its that you dont end gridlock by sending
more Tea Party types to Washington.
David: I guess I think it is more generalized than that. They just dont trust government to get the job done. At least
the federal government. Im struck by how amazingly stable polling has been on the Affordable Care Act. Democrats
in swing states dont try to defend it. They just promise to fix it. The relatively good news on the health care front over
the past year has done nothing to change minds.
Gail: I find it sort of fascinating that the Republican Senate nominee in Iowa, who previously said shed support a law
to have federal officials arrested for attempting to implement Obamacare, is marketing herself as the Iowa nice
candidate who can work across the aisle.
David: I find it shocking that Iowans should steal Minnesotas slogan. Minnesota is the nice state. Missouri is the
skeptical state. New Jersey is the brash state. Iowa should be the quiet state.
In her defense I think it is possible to arrest federal officials nicely. We call it compassionate conservatism.
Gail: O.K., this is the point at which were morally obliged to start making predictions. Whats yours?
David: I say this with no great confidence, but Im guessing the Republicans pick up eight seats. I think the biggest
surprise will be a G.O.P. win in Georgia.
Gail: That would make me sad, if only because Michelle Nunn has run such a good race and her opponent has been
so terrible. It just seems unjust.
My guess is that were not going to know who gets control of the Senate for a while. Some state is going to be so
close therell be a recount. And Alaska takes forever to just get the ballots together. Plus Georgia and Louisiana,
which will probably go to runoffs, since they require their senators to get a majority of the vote.
David: Great! Why shouldnt the decades most content-less campaign go into overtime? Im sort of amazed that this
election hasnt been about jobs and the economy. It hasnt been about anything but a sort of fatalism.
Gail: Theres something about the idea of the fate of the nation hanging on Louisiana that makes me very nervous. I
still remember being down there in 1991, covering the gubernatorial runoff between the Ku Klux Klan wizard David
Duke and the deeply corrupt ex-governor Edwin Edwards. The Edwards supporters had those bumper stickers
saying: Vote for the Crook. Which, blessedly, the people did.
David: Ill take an effective crook over an ineffective honest person any day.
Gail: I should mention that at age 87, Edwards is running for the House of Representatives this year. After getting out
of jail, marrying a woman 51 years younger, and starring in a reality TV series. You cant say Louisiana isnt
interesting. And if theres a runoff at least then wed be able to spend part of the winter in New Orleans. So much
better than next year, when well be spending it in Des Moines.

David: I was just in New Orleans last week. I love every street in that city except Bourbon Street, which is filled with
terrible pizza places, extremely drunk idiots and teenagers mortified to be walking with their parents.
Gong there makes me want to reread my favorite political novel of all time, Robert Penn Warrens All the Kings
Men. Trollopes Phineas Finn is second.
And dont knock Des Moines. Silence is golden.
Gail: Whats the state youre following most closely? I have to admit Kansas is pretty darned fascinating. If the
Republicans have to ferry in any more old party stalwarts to shore up Senator Pat Roberts, theyll be resurrecting Alf
Landon.
I got a twinge watching Bob Dole campaign so vigorously for Roberts. Do you remember in 2012 when Dole was
sitting in the Senate, in his wheelchair, watching his friends refuse to ratify the United Nations treaty on people with
disabilities? Which was based, of course, on the signature bill Dole got passed in 1990 when he was in the Senate.
David: Somebody should please explain to me why senators dont ever want to retire. Whats fun about attending Ag
Committee hearings when you are 84? Maybe the napping opportunities.
Gail: I talked with Dole after the treaty vote, and he kept coming back to the fact that both of the Republican Senators
from Kansas had voted against ratification. But theres Roberts now, in a deep ditch because he took his constituents
so much for granted he didnt even bother to pretend he lived in their state. Dole clearly has a much deeper sense of
loyalty.
David: I once went to the Dole center in Kansas. Theyve got a sort of museum display about his life. The thing that
moved me most was the exercise equipment he used to build himself back into shape after his war injury. He had
wasted away to nothing and had to build himself all the way back. Then I got to see the basement where they keep all
the presents he had been given by foreign dignitaries during his Senate years. There were carpets, saddles, baseball
bats. People give politicians portraits of themselves. I guess thats called knowing your subject.
Gail: Its interesting how many elections there are this year where voters seem to despise both candidates. If
Floridians were any more alienated by their governors race, theyd have been bringing alligators to the debates.
David: I dont think Floridians should be angry or alienated. It doesnt suit them. Among other things, it doesnt go
with their pastels.
Gail: I dont want anybody to imagine that Im making fun of other states because of my deep satisfaction with New
York. Nothing is more humbling than spending a season covering New York politics. Where the phrase not yet
indicted is regarded as a compliment.
David: If Minnesota is nice and Iowa is quiet, what should New York be: Pompous? Narcissistic? I say this lovingly. It
is my state too.
Gail: Last question. Is there anything about this election thats really surprised you? I didnt expect to see so much of
Mitt Romney on the campaign trail. Do you think hes actually interested in running again? They say third times a
charm.
David: Trust me. He isnt running. I think his wife sort of ruled that out. That documentary released after the election
revealed him to be an authentically warm and nice guy. If there are three things that dont seem to work in politics
these days its authenticity, niceness and warmth. Doesnt fit the national mood.

SEARCH
COUCH

A Conversation on the Edge of Human

Perception
By
CHRISTOPHER BOLLAS
OCTOBER 17, 2015 2:30 PM October 17, 2015 2:30 pm 14 Comments
Photo

CreditDadu Shin

Couch is a series about psychotherapy.

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Lucy wrote to me at my farmstead in North Dakota and asked if I was prepared to psychoanalyze her. She lived on a
remote island in a Norwegian fjord. A 55-year-old writer, she was supported by a family trust. Her parents were
deceased, she had no siblings and she rarely spoke to the 60 or so islanders who were her neighbors.
Her companionship came from a highly active mind devoted to endless reworkings of memories and sudden
epiphanies. When she went down memory lane she inevitably retrieved a distressing encounter with another person
a teacher who had not understood her, an editor or publisher who had slighted her. Her epiphanies would be
abrupt brainstorms in which she saw configurations in the landscape that momentarily objectified an unknown secret
about herself: A wave crashing against a cliff, for example, took the shape of her mother leaning over her crib, trying
to suffocate her.
Lucy phoned me at 8 oclock in the evening, five days a week, always on the dot. She would speak nonstop. Usually
she announced an agenda. Today, she would say, I am going to tell you about Sister Underwood and the day she
told me that I had to write I cleanse my mind of evil thoughts 100 times on parchment in a very cold room when I
was 13.
At university Lucy had concentrated on Celtic and Nordic legends, and her imaginings were often pervaded by a
conviction that she had actually seen one or another of the gods or humans who figured in these tales. I knew some
of these figures from my university studies, and whenever I let on that I knew who one of them was, she would cry
out, Oh, Christopher, thank god you know him! as if I had confirmed that this figure did exist in some form of reality.
She hallucinated many of these characters and she would also transform real people through memory into
phantasmagoric presences. Often she would be fleeing from them.
Lucy was a schizophrenic. Most people I know who have talked with schizophrenics have noticed that it feels like a
conversation not with someone whose ailment is derived from the fog of symptomatic preoccupation, or the dulling
repetition of character patterns, but with a person who seems to be existing on the edge of human perception. Take
LSD and you see things you would ordinarily never perceive. Become schizophrenic and you see these things
without the aid of drugs.
I have been working with schizophrenics since the 1960s. I am sometimes asked about the possible causes of
schizophrenia. I do not know the answer to this. To me it is rather like asking what causes the being of human being.
Nonetheless a certain theme has emerged in my work: To be a child is to endure a prolonged situation in which the
human mind is more complex than the self can ordinarily bear. Our minds in themselves produce contents that
will be overwhelming. To be successfully normal, then, we rather have to dumb ourselves down.
Work with schizophrenics has taught me that when defenses against the complexities of the mind break down there
can be a breakthrough of too much. Selves cave in.
It is not a coincidence that the beginning of schizophrenia is almost inevitably an event in adolescence. The
schizophrenic fails to make the transition from childhood to adulthood: Something goes wrong.
But precisely because selves falter during this period, they can also turn around and rediscover an ordinary track to
life. So although schizophrenics are highly vulnerable to all kinds of disturbances, this porosity also makes them open
to therapeutic change.
One day, during a session, Lucy screamed into the phone in an indescribably haunting way. I thought the house had
caught fire or something else terrible had happened. I could hear her running around, screaming: Go away! I did not
do it! Please leave me alone!
Half an hour passed, and she returned to the phone. She told me that It had come after her. This was a reference to
a dragon that had eight legs and five eyes, and was flying around her house. It had come to kill her.

I suddenly realized that earlier in the session I had told her it was good that of late her bad memories were not
dragging on, and I said that I thought my use of this phrase might have brought an image of the dragon into her
mind. She insisted the dragon was real, and she was furious that I did not believe her.
Christopher, she said, it was right here in front of me. It was breathing fire at me. It scorched my dress! It has
nothing to do with what you said.
Her scream was still echoing in my head and her refusals were adamant and infuriated, so I said little, and the
session ended.
The next day Lucy accused me of having summoned the dragon: You said, Your dragon will get you. And it did!
Thats what you heard?
No, she replied. That is what you said. I have a perfect memory. You did this to me.
Clearly, I am to blame for a most horrifying event.
Yes, she said, so why did you do this?
I think you are angry with me for listening to some of your very private thoughts and you are trying to get rid of me.
You were horrible, she said.
I was, and perhaps am, the dragon who drags on about things.
You admit that, she said, do you?
Yes. Its my job to do that, sort of.
To be a dragon? she asked.
No, but I do go on. Psychoanalysts are tedious at times.
Why? she asked.
Lucy, you pay me to analyze you. Its my job and sometimes I dont get things right.
Why dont you get things right? she asked.
Well, Lucy, I
Christopher, she said, I like it when you tell me what you think.
Thanks, Lucy.
This is only a compressed fragment of a session. It is, however, typical of what went on between us for years. Lucy
would construct a universe of heinous motivations and ascribe them to me. I would try to find the underlying
persecutory anxiety that authored such admonitions, and now and then we were successful in tracking down the
origins of her florid hallucinations to a simple idea.
For example, I was right to link the phrase dragging on to dragon. She heard the word drag, made a link to the
idea that I thought she was a drag, and as she became incensed about this she felt that fire was coming out of her
mouth and she saw a dragon. At the same time, I had to admit that I had been dragging on about her internal world
and she was probably right to protest about this.
YOU need not be a mental health professional to be aware ofconcerted efforts within some factions
in psychiatry closely affiliated with the pharmaceutical industry to promote the viewthat schizophrenia is

genetically determined and should be treatedprimarily through a combination of maintenance medication and
occasional periods of hospitalization. There may be a brief nod topsychotherapy in the form of time-limited cognitive
behavioral treatment.
Sadly, many of todays schizophrenics receive powerful antipsychotic medications in hospitals and are discharged on
a cocktail of drugs that dulls their lives. Their zombielike states are caused not so much by their mental alterity as by
their treatment. The tragic irony of this approach is that the patient is met with a process parallel to schizophrenia
itself: radical incarceration, mind-altering actions, dehumanization, isolation.
Many people with schizophrenia may need to be in a hospital or to take some form of medication in order to help
rediscover the useful parts of their minds. However, I am also aware of successful work with schizophrenics in which
no medication has been administered and the patient has never been in the hospital. I am by no means the only
psychoanalyst who has done such work.
We all know the wisdom of talking. In trouble, we turn to another person. Being listened to inevitably generates new
perspective, and the help we get lies not only in what is said but also in that human connection of talking that
promotes unconscious thinking.
Talking to an empathic other is curative. We all know that. We all do it. We do not need outcome studies to prove to
us that it works. And yet it is precisely this ancient means of helping the self through its roughest mental and
existential quandaries that is too often denied to the schizophrenic person.
By the end of the fifth year of our work, Lucy was no longer hallucinating and she was no longer dwelling in past
memories, but she was haunted by her history of disturbance and wondered what it was about.
She began to read up on schizophrenia, and I found it intriguing and moving that she wanted to talk about her
ailment. She said she now found it comforting to be able to describe it, even if now and then every six months or
so she would descend back into it, recalling hallucinations, as if playing with the notion of conjuring them up. In
fact, she was getting much better, and these forays into the past were like curious amusements.
In the final months of our collaboration, during a difficult spell in our work, she asked if I would just, please, tell her
what I saw through my window in North Dakota. And so I would tell her about the owl, the rabbits, the deer, the
eagles, the trees, the changing weather and so on. In turn she sent me photos of her cottage, her garden and chicken
coop, and the small village where she lived.
It is interesting that our respective landscapes her island, North Dakota were like comforting third objects that
nourished both of us as we struggled to help her find her mind. In the last phase of our work, she asked for actual
photographs rather than merely my narrative of what I saw, and I obliged. The object world had become its own thing,
not subject to anyones narration or subjective judgment. My North Dakota became her North Dakota.
Details have been altered to protect patient privacy.
Christopher Bollas, a psychoanalyst, is the author of the forthcoming book When the Sun Bursts: The Enigma of
Schizophrenia, from which this essay is adapted.

The Opinion Pages | LETTER

Less Polarized Elections

OCT. 16, 2015

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To the Editor:
As David Brooks notes (Clintons Opportunist Solution!, column, Oct. 9),
candidates swing to extremes to woo party bases for primaries and
caucuses, then shift to the center for general elections.
Center-left to center-right moderate majority voters dismayed by the tenor
of public discourse during the primary season need to wake up and
regularly get to the polls or caucuses for both presidential and
congressional elections. This may entail registering for a party in states
where that is required for primary and caucus participation.
If more general-election voters participated in primaries and caucuses, the
aspirations and candidacies of moderates would be strengthened, leading
in time to a less polarized, more effective government.
Perhaps in this age of social media, this message could be quickly and
broadly disseminated in advance of coming primaries. Politics will never
be perfect, but I have to believe that we can do better.

ERIC D. TUCKER
Cross River, N.Y.

The Opinion Pages | LETTER

U.S. Chambers Capitalism

OCT. 16, 2015

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To the Editor:
Re Big Tobaccos Powerful Friend in Washington (front page, Oct. 10):
Many thanks for your thorough and hard-hitting investigation of the U.S.
Chamber of Commerce and its advocacy for Big Tobacco, led by the
chambers chief executive, Thomas J. Donahue. You call this American
style capitalism. In fact, it is simply capitalism in its most brutal form.
Consider not only Big Tobacco but also the fossil fuel industry: In a
country bereft of effective and wise government leadership attentive to
citizens needs, this unchecked economic system is wrecking our country
and destroying the planet.
ELLEN CANTAROW
Medford, Mass.

SundayReview | EDITORIAL
Ending the Cycle of Racial Isolation

By THE EDITORIAL BOARDOCT. 17, 2015

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CreditLeigh Guldig
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Racial discrimination in housing remains pervasive and well entrenched, and governments at all
levels bear a heavy share of the blame. Despite paying lip service to the Fair Housing Act of 1968,
which required states and localities that receive federal money to try to overcome historical
patterns of racial isolation, elected officials have often reinforced segregation through a range of
policies. Among the most pernicious of these is the practice of buildingsubsidized housing mainly
in existing ghettos instead of in areas that offer low- and moderate-income families access to safe
neighborhoods, good jobs and schools that allow their children to thrive.
Good things can happen when the cycle of racial isolation is broken. An encouraging example can
be found in the southern New Jersey suburb of Mount Laurel, where zoning policies that once
excluded black and lower-income families were the target of a major lawsuit nearly a half century
ago. In rulings handed down in 1975 and 1983, the New Jersey Supreme Court told Mount Laurel
and other suburbs that they could no longer exclude affordable housing and were required to
rewrite zoning laws to make such housing possible.
The Mount Laurel remedy had a difficult birth and still draws fire today. Some local officials are
working diligently to turn back the clock to a time when poor and minority citizens had no choice
but to live walled off in ghettos that stunted their lives and the lives of their children. Gov. Chris
Christie and his allies in some of the states wealthy towns would like nothing more than to kill this
remedy.
But much good has flowed from the courts decisions. Once-segregated areas are now more
diverse. And more than 60,000 homes have been built for low- and moderate-income families in
the New Jersey suburbs, giving such families access to solid jobs and starter homes.
Critics would do well to study Mount Laurel itself, where an affordable housing development that
opened in 2000 has yielded benefits that have been chronicled in a study led by the Princeton
sociologist Douglas Massey. The study, recounted in the book Climbing Mount Laurel, shows that
an attractive, well-maintained affordable housing development in an affluent neighborhood can
improve the lives of struggling families without jeopardizing local property values, precipitating
more crime or becoming an economic burden on the community.
Mount Laurels history is instructive. In the mid-20th century, African-Americans were hemmed in
by pervasive bias and federally sponsored mortgage discrimination that kept them from buying
homes and amassing personal wealth. In Mount Laurel, black families who had lived in the area for
generations found themselves priced out as the township moved from a sleepy farmland
community to a desirable suburb of nearby Philadelphia. With few housing options and wanting
to avoid the ghettos of Camden or Philadelphia they moved to dilapidated farmhouses, summer
cottages or converted chicken coops. As the area went even more upscale, officials began to
condemn and raze these structures.
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In 1968, a newly formed community group optioned a plot of land and began laying plans to build
36 two- and three-bedroom apartments that would be affordable to low-income renters. The
townships mayor subsequently told black residents: If you people cant afford to live in our town,
then youll just have to leave. The black residents filed suit, alleging that Mount Laurel Township
had used exclusionary zoning to systematically shut people out on the basis of race and class. It
further asserted that the township had an affirmative responsibility to allow for housing for people
of all races and incomes.
The black plaintiffs were not alone. Real estate developers and the United Auto Workers union
also brought suit against suburbs that excluded lower-income people through zoning laws while
opening their arms to manufacturers and building housing for a growing middle-class.
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The court sought to put an end to all this in the Mount Laurel case. It ruled that the township was
practicing an illegal form of discrimination that violated the State Constitution, and ordered
municipalities throughout the state to end exclusionary zoning and create land-use policies that
made a range of housing choices realistically possible.
Many Mount Laurel residents who had violently opposed affordable housing equated it with the
crime-infested, public housing ghettos common in urban centers all over the country. The Mount
Laurel development is anything but. Beautifully landscaped, the subdivision known as the Ethel
Lawrence Homes is in some ways more attractive than nearby developments for middle- and
upper-income families. Its management has rigorously screened applicants and has tried to ensure
an income mix by setting broader income guidelines. The subsidivision managers have also
focused on helping children who live in the development.
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Meanwhile, according to Climbing Mount Laurel, crime did not rise, nearby property values did
not drop and taxes did not go up. The development has blended in so smoothly and quietly that a
decade after it opened, three-quarters of the people in nearby subdivisions could not name it, and
nearly one-third were unaware that such a subdivision even existed in the area.
The families that came to Mount Laurel from poorer places clearly benefited. Compared with
families who applied for housing at the development but ended up elsewhere, the Ethel Lawrence
families have shown higher rates of employment and family income, and lower rates of welfare
dependency. The parents are more closely engaged in the school lives of their children, who did
well academically even though they found themselves in more challenging schools.
Whatever the precise reason for its success, the authors say, the Ethel Lawrence Homes
subdivision validates the idea of developing affordable housing, both as a social policy for
promoting racial and class integration in metropolitan America and as a practical strategy for
alleviating poverty and achieving economic mobility.