The Ruins of Trenton

Last week Assembly Majority Leader Bonnie Watson Coleman said that a Brookings Institute report that demonstrated more and more of the nation's poor are being shoved into poverty-stricken urban areas vindicates the affordable housing efforts of state legislators this year.

Ms. Watson Coleman specifically singled out legislation that eliminated Regional Contribution Agreements, the housing mechanism that allowed the state's richest towns and cities to sell off affordable housing obligations to poor, cash-strapped cities, as evidence that "New Jersey is clearly out in front of a growing national issue."

The Brookings Institute report apparently found that concentrated poverty rates in both the Camden-Philadelphia and the New Jersey-New York City areas have grown significantly in the past 10 years.

What's interesting is that Ms. Watson Coleman has provided significant political support to Trenton Mayor Douglas H. Palmer.

Mayor Palmer repeatedly utilized Regional Contribution Agreements in the past despite the mechanism's proven negative effect on New Jersey cities that have continually experienced more and more concentrated poverty.