His proposal - to parcel the economically beleaguered city out to three neighboring, well-to-do towns - was a "cry for help," he said, never one to be taken seriously.

But East Brunswick is a well-to-do town, and there was no rental alternative for those whose income is over the limits for the town project.

The rangy young driver pulled his truck around a corner in the well-to-do suburban town of Chatham and stopped in front of an unpretentious house.

He rushed into a grocery store in Gravata, a well-to-do town nearby, in a troubling reminder of desperation in the backyard of affluence.

Since 2001, when affluent Millburn voted to secede from Essex County, about a half-dozen other well-to-do suburban towns have expressed a similar interest.

Now this well-to-do town on the Pacific - where Richard Diebenkorn, Sam Francis and other artists once made their homes - can claim its first museum.

"I am not saying that immigration equals terrorism," Mr. Herault said the other day, before giving a tour of his largely well-to-do town of 23,000.

Though these may seem difficult to market, they are often some of the most sought-after properties in well-to-do suburban towns and thus priced accordingly.

It is a nightly ritual now in the life of Beit Sahur, a once well-to-do town in a picturesque valley beneath Bethlehem.

Two or three teenagers a day have been caught smoking since the law went into effect three years ago in this well-to-do town.