I'm one of those NJ people who owns a home.
A 2000 square foot, 3 bedroom, 2.5 bath home with an attic and an unfinished basement.
Down the street from the best elementary school in the area. You can walk to the middle school, too.
The house is 90+ years old.
Our property taxes in this decent area are $13.5k/year. At least 2/3 of that figure go directly to the public schools. Schools in my town are good, but they are tapped out in terms of class sizes. Adding high density housing in a good suburban town is just going to decrease the standard of living for everybody here.
People fight the construction of 3 bedroom condos and public housing in their nice, suburban towns in NJ because it brings CHILDREN. Children cost a shit ton of money and the people who can least afford to live here want us locals to subsidize their life. These people breed like rabbits, rent apartments or live in public housing, soak up lots of public services which we homeowners pay for, then leave for another place as soon as it becomes easy. Meanwhile our property taxes go higher and higher to pay for these "young families."
Read up about the Mount Laurel decision. All new developments must reserve some units for low-income (read: welfare) housing. The senior housing trick has been going on for a LONG TIME now in NJ, because it allows local seniors to stay in town on a reduced income, while allowing the town to fulfill their low income housing requirements. It also keeps out the breeder welfare types from Camden and Newark, and the crime (gangs) that always seems to follow them.
I don't blame some towns for limiting day care facilities in certain areas. Towns have to consider everybody in their locality, not just the breeders. There's noise ordinances to consider. Not everybody wants to live next to a day care, with the endless screaming, shrieking, and plastic crap everywhere. Then there is zoning. Can you imagine the traffic nightmares on the streets surrounding the day care, especially at rush hour, as breeders drop and pick up their kids every day? I can also imagine the big drop in property values around the day care, as nobody in their right mind would willfully buy a home next to a building full of shrieking kids. Then there is liability, if the day care is on a busy street, and a kid gets loose and runs into the street.
And for the record, municipalities don't raise the cost of apartments and homes in NJ. The housing market sets the prices. It's pure capitalism, supply and demand.
I don't see the problem with potential population decline. The planet is beginning a new mass extinction, whole species are being wiped out, predictions are that most insects will be gone by 2100, and people still think having lots of children is a good idea??
The authors
(both white men, it figures) make it seem that all women are foregoing their dreams of "baby joy," because the mean suburbs aren't pandering to them. I'd love to womansplain to these sexist creeps that not all women want children. Young, educated women especially aren't considering kids because they know you cannot have it all, and they are starting to choose themselves over a mythical child that doesn't exist. The ones breeding are the uneducated, GED types, and they can't afford to live here anyways.