Don't separate workers from their jobs

Back in the 1950s, Mahwah, in Bergen County, was mighty pleased when Ford Motor Co. decided to locate a huge assembly plant there. It was great for local business. It paid a nice chunk of property

But when the United Auto Workers approached the town with a plan to build apartments in which some of the 5,000-plus Ford employees could live, the reaction was very different. The town, a community of single-family homes, was unwilling to make the necessary changes in zoning to allow construction of apartments.

The message couldn't have been clearer: We want your money but not your workers.

Some people defended such resistance as a town's right to preserve its character. What they really meant-to put it in polite terms-is that people of one socioeconomic classification didn't want to live in the same town as, and share their schools with, the families of another.