(A version of this post was originally published by the author in 2011.)
Alan Karcher, a long-time New Jersey Assemblyman from Sayreville fell victim to lung cancer and passed on 28 years ago at the age of only 56. Karcher, described as a brilliant political prodigy, burned bright and burned out during a short but eventful legislative career. The son of an assemblyman, he formally broke into politics as a second-year law student, serving as secretary to State Senate President John Lynch, Sr. (the father of John Lynch, Jr., who is well-known in Middlesex County politics to this day.)
Shortly before his death, Karcher published New Jersey’s Multiple Municipal Madness (Rutgers University Press, 1998), which is both a historical work, and a prescription for what he perceived to be the state’s ills; the central of which being New Jersey’s complex map of 566 municipalities, which he colorfully compares to a web woven by a spider taking LSD. The tome is an idiosyncratic document, which will at times both confound and beguile readers. The publication, seemingly geared towards a sophomore-level political science class, can get repetitive and drag on at its worst. At its peaks however, it is a painstakingly crafted, methodically researched paean.
It should be clear from the author’s legislative record that he was quite opinionated on any number of matters, showing an admirable willingness at times to bite the bullet in arguments beyond where most would fear to tread. Parts of Madness almost seem designed to provoke and invite challenges, like a brief nod to Newark mayor Sharpe James, and an extended defense of Frank Hague’s record and legacy as mayor of Jersey City. On the merits, no one can dare challenge Alan Karcher’s tenaciousness; nor, the undeniable truth that he cared deeply about the state of New Jersey.
Alan Karcher’s argument structure is simple, but his work is methodical both in its documentation, evidence, and head-on willingness for bluntly reinforcing certain premises so as to make his desired conclusion unmistakable and inevitable. Ostensibly a series of case studies, Karcher starts off in his native region of eastern and southern Middlesex County (along the south bank of the Raritan River) before jumping around across the state of New Jersey. That is all in an effort to establish that, far from being a supposed merit, certain vestiges of the home rule system of local government have had disastrous consequences when it comes to drawing New Jersey’s geographic political borders.
Although the origins of East and West Jersey are touched on, opening the gauntlet is the former South Amboy Township. It was a once-sprawling landmass that in turn surrendered Monroe (which further germinated Jamesburg, Helmetta, Spotswood, along with parts of East Brunswick, Cranbury, and South River), Old Bridge, and Sayreville. Each separation appeared to make sense for South Amboy at the time, as the town center was an aspiring urban rail hub with interests squarely at odds with the rural farming villages and assorted town squares located to the south and west.
Agricultural communities….felt the pull of new centers of administrative and economic gravity. The priority of the rural communities was to ensure a reliable and passable roadway from them to that center of gravity. – p56
Soon, the influence of rail waned with the introduction and popularity of the superhighway, with its robber barons choosing either to capitulate or move on. Rail’s overarching historical dominance over state politics is long-forgotten by now, but serves as a central theme for Karcher to continually revisit, along with the already-popularized battle lines between the suburbs/automobiles and cities/trains. This is very much a book for transportation nerds. Its fields razed for housing and industry development, South Amboy was left a footnote on the various state roads leading down to the New Jersey shore coastline, the town a victim of its own myopic greed.
That is the gist of the tale, although Karcher excels in documenting the historical causes (taxes, local sovereignty, influential developers) at the cause of each secession. The case of Shrewsbury Township is even starker than that of South Amboy, as Shrewsbury’s original borders included 75 present-day New Jersey municipalities, constituting the bulk of what are now Monmouth and Ocean counties.
Most of Monmouth’s shore boroughs were originally part of Ocean Township before breaking off one by one and further subdividing. Leading this wave was Long Branch, once a playground for the rich and influential. A dichotomy soon arose, with wet resort towns in direct opposition to dry Methodist settlements like Ocean Grove (now a part of Neptune Township) and Asbury Park, which at the time banned all alcohol (the temperance movement is another ongoing theme), and mandated that women wear ankle-length skirts.
As to Shrewsbury proper, it shrunk to .09 square miles (having originally been nearly a thousand), following a quarrel over the wartime Vail Homes development in 1950. The overwhelming majority of the township’s population and landmass seceded as New Shrewsbury, which was later rechristened “Tinton Falls.” Ironically, what remains of Shrewsbury today has a higher median income than its erstwhile companion. Similar wartime orphans include Winfield Township spawning from Clark, Randolph jettisoning Victory Gardens, and Jersey Homesteads/Roosevelt separating from Millstone Township.
Indeed, the central thesis to the work is one decrying selfishness and immediate gratification triumphing over the common good and long term prosperity. This point is repeatedly and none-too-subtly made explicit, as in the discussion on page 48 over how Windsor Township split over a dispute over whether to orient transportation monies towards traveling to New Brunswick or Trenton. Even centuries ago New Jerseyans were at each others’ throats over transportation subsidies!
It is impossible to miss the point of these early deliberations. The spirit of independence was manifested in a simple proposition: “I’m happy to pay for what benefits me directly, but don’t ask me to pay for someone else’s benefit” – a view that has been as persistent in New Jersey, as it has been dominant.
Such was the case in regards to Bergen County’s infamous “boroughitis.” An 1894 amendment to New Jersey’s Borough Act created an incentive for incorporation by granting boroughs control of their respective local school districts upon secession. Boroughs were the incorporation method of choice because they could form at that time by special referendum without legislative approval. Of course, any scenario that results in the documented absurdity of dueling petitioners racing to incorporate first (so that the winner could claim a specific tax ratable within their desired municipal borders) is not going to draw many defenders.
This “selfishness” argument is reflected in the implausible argument that Perth Amboy and Burlington would have emerged as legitimate rivals to New York City and Philadelphia respectively if not for unfair external interference. After all, Philadelphia is close to the mouth of the Delaware River, and Manhattan has a fantastic natural location. Granted, cities like Camden or Newark (which jettisoned a good portion of Essex County, and fought with Elizabeth in lieu of merging with it) may have been unfairly barred from needed growth. New Jersey may be not a “destination, but a corridor,” but that distinction stunningly ignores the extent that the state has benefited off suburban flight out of NYC and Philadelphia, to a level where its credibility is badly damaged.
What makes the work more meaningful, as opposed to being a fun bit of historical trivia, is the little matter of New Jersey not only having the nation’s highest property taxes, but being far ahead of any other state in that regard. This issue continues to dominate state and local politics to this very day. Municipal consolidation advocates like Karcher blame redundancy of services as the main underlying cause driving these taxes. Either a group of small boroughs can all require their own government, schools, police, and other services, or disparate communities can collaborate to some extent in an effort to keep costs down.
That is largely the model in Middlesex County’s larger townships, which provide an interesting basis for comparison. Edison has a higher median resident income than neighboring Metuchen, but has lower property taxes. North Edison’s suburban sprawl has more in common with Metuchen than it does with the southern half of Edison. However, South Edison’s tax ratables (mostly industrial and office parks) effectively subsidize and feed the schools beast. Metuchen is a nice place, with a fine downtown, but it could maintain its distinct identity without losing immutable qualitative properties in a merger with Edison. I chose this example as an easy test case (many others certainly would have more hurdles.)
Such a straight-forward consolidation meeting resistance is the perfect example of local parochialism run amok. People like the idea in theory, but don’t want to see it in their backyard. Karcher blames this supposedly unfair model of taxation as effectively being biased against cities. Historically, nineteenth century railroads paid few taxes, and polluted Jersey City’s waterfront with New York City’s trash (which further allowed the railroads to claim water rights, stymieing potential competitors.) This anti-urban bias was reflected in the lopsided state subsidization of highways at the expense of public transportation, further augmented by how projects like the Turnpike, Route 1, and Interstate 78 cut straight through and divided urban neighborhoods.
Other sections fall flatter. Decrying strip malls and subdivisions is both cliche, and a disingenuous attempt to beat up a constructed straw man argument. The most congested, population-dense areas like North Edison or Bergen County south of Route 4, nice as they may be, are not commonly cited models. While Hoboken and Jersey City are increasingly popular, households with money to throw around often want the best amenities of both worlds, with all the logistical conveniences of urban living alongside the security and privacy of having your own little corner of the world. Not overtly subsidizing the suburbs is a winning argument, but Karcher would have been more daring to argue against the Westfields and Montclairs of the world.
His proposed solution to the ever-growing property tax monster is to counteract and reverse the existing incentives, with the state directly cajoling towards consolidation on multiple levels. New Jersey’s legislature could relax the current requirement of needing petition signatures from 20% of voters in each municipality of a proposed merger as a prerequisite. That would be a carrot, with the stick of tighter regulation, or even legislating annexations based on minimum population level-based criteria. One wonders in response whether New Jersey could opt for a hybrid approach, even more directly tying municipal aid to proportional population-based incentives.
Alan Karcher was an ideologue and an idealist, but he was not unrealistic, having watched consolidation proposals continually stall and regress during his tenure in office. While Madness can come off as an angry missive to the past brined in brackish hindsight, the laments for countless supposed missed opportunities are almost as numerous as the number of cities, boroughs, and townships within New Jersey’s borders. Particularly galling was not taking advantage of the Great Depression as an impetus for making headway.
As such, it comes as little surprise that current political and economic realities are bringing new attention to consolidation. For a political animal like Karcher, that ultimate victory may be in finally seeing his passion come to fruition even if a decade too late.