PEOPLE, POLITICS AND PLANNING: THE COMPARATIVE HISTORY OF THREE SUBURBAN COMMUNITIES

Are we able to deliberately plan for the development of our communities, or are we captives of prior historical events?;The results of this inquiry show that there were continuing chains of events which were interrelated and interconnected. Both earlier historical events as well as more recent exogeneous factors were linked together to set parameters about the ability of communities to completely control their destinies.;Planning decisions, or policies, were reflections of the values of the dominant social groupings of each municipality. These values changed over time as the composition of the population changed. The historic and exogeneous factors and the policy decisions are linked together in a series of causal relationships. The historic and exogeneous factors set the stage, the policy decisions attempted to correct any imbalance with community values. Sometimes these decisions were an effort to correct undersirable events, sometimes they were meant to reinforce a desirable set of circumstances. Chains of such linkages emerge over time and explain present patterns of social and physical development.;This question is explored in this dissertation through a historical analysis of three suburban communities in Northeastern New Jersey, each of which were contiguous and relatively alike in 1930, the base year of the study.