Recent New Jersey judicial decisions have propounded the “balanced community” as a standard of validity of zoning ordinances. The “balanced community” standard is appealing to many planners in spite of the danger of ambiguity arising out of the diverse range of its meanings: (e.g., socioeconomic balance, fiscal balance, ecological balance, regional balance, and temporal balance). Judicial acceptance of the “balanced community” standard for zoning law validity would emphasize the need to evaluate the merits of competing land uses. It would enhance the importance of the planning process because the validity of zoning laws would depend on the process by which the merits of competing land uses are evaluated. Adoption of the “community balance” standard would constitute judicial acceptance of planning principles of rational land-use allocation as criteria by which this evaluation is to be made.