The legislature finds and declares that large areas in the municipalities of the state have become blighted and significant areas in the municipalities of the state are deteriorating in a manner which leads to severe blight, with the consequent impairment of taxable values upon which, in large part, municipal revenues depend; that those blighted areas are detrimental or inimical to the health, safety, morals, and general welfare of the citizens, and to the economic welfare of the municipality; that in order to improve and maintain the general character of the municipality, it is necessary to rehabilitate those blighted areas; that the conditions found in blighted areas cannot be remedied by the ordinary operations of private enterprise, with due regard to the general welfare of the public, without public participation in the planning, property acquisition or disposition, and related implementation and financing of the remedies; that the purposes of this act are to rehabilitate those areas by improving or acquiring and developing properties within the areas for the protection of the health, safety, morals and general welfare of the municipality, to preserve existing values of other properties within or adjacent to the areas, and to preserve the taxable value of the property within the areas; and that the necessity in the public interest for provisions enacted in this act is hereby declared as a matter of legislative determination to be a public purpose and a public use.