Situation:The country’s metropolitan areas are rebounding from decades of stagnation, but growth and prosperity continue to elude our state’s six big cities.
Cause: Crime, shrinking population, mismanagement, and the loss of manufacturing jobs have battered Camden, Bayonne, Jersey City, Newark, East Orange, and Trenton. According to Youngstown State University researchers, 80 of the 601 largest cities in the 2000 U.S. Census had smaller populations than in 1950; all six of New Jersey’s cities slid by double-digit percentages (Newark: down 38%, Camden: down 36%, Trenton: down 33%, Bayonne: down 20%, Jersey City: down 20%, East Orange: down 12%). Trenton and Camden, smallest of the cities (below) are being dwarfed by townships such as Woodbridge and Dover (Ocean County); both are projected to have populations near or above 100,000 by 2010. As suburban towns consolidate political clout through greater representation in the state legislature, it becomes difficult for the six big cities to gain needed resources. Decreased populations mean these cities have less direct representation in the legislature; they must now either appeal directly to the state for aid or enlist the assistance of suburban and rural legislators who prefer to fix problems in their own backyards.
how to Fix:
1. Strengthen schools. New Jersey’s highly regarded educational model is at odds with the pitiful performance of its city school districts. The state took control in Jersey City (1989), Paterson (1991), and Newark (1995), but the decline continues. Local control is being returned gradually in Jersey City and Newark—the state dealt with some of the financial and ethical issues that compelled its takeover—but each faces obstacles. These districts still take proportionally enormous shares of state aid and, primarily in the case of Paterson, remain plagued by problems. The growing sense is that the state, having accomplished little, is simply dumping the problem back into local laps.
Especially in Abbott districts, computers and new teaching models, plus an influx of teachers equipped to use them, could produce rapid improvements.
Without better schools, urban districts face a steadily shrinking tax base. As more people leave, fewer homes are occupied; those that are, see their values drop. Businesses relocate or close. The result is fewer property-tax paying home and business owners. With McMansions enriching suburban tax bases, spreading the tax burden across a wider portion of the population, and causing a shallow tax base, urban districts are forced to become more reliant on state aid. Projections show that within a decade Abbott districts, which educate less than one quarter of the state’s students, will receive 70 percent of state aid.
2. Concentrate on solutions. The playground shootings in Newark this summer overshadowed the state’s successes in preventing urban crime during the last decade. According to the State Police’s Uniform Crime Report for 2005, fifteen major urban areas saw their overall crime index (total reported crimes) drop by 36 percent from 1996 to 2005. Six of the seven major categories showed significant improvement, including rape (down 58 percent) and burglary (down 47 percent). The seventh category—murder—persistently increases in cities: from 219 in 1996 to 297 in 2005, with Newark rising from 92 killings in 1996 to a record high of 106 in 2006.
Crime indexes have dropped even though those fifteen urban areas have roughly the same total number of police officers. Newark’s index dropped 55 percent—attributed to a change in the way the police patrol the streets. An analysis revealed that 60 percent of the force worked during the day; nighttime patrols were increased, crime went down. The city also cracked down on “nuisance crimes” such as loitering and public drunkenness.
At the end of August, the Federal Bureau of Investigations reported that for the first six months of 2007, serious crime—identified as murder, rape, assault, and violent crimes involving property—fell 13 percent in Newark and Paterson; and 4 percent in Jersey City, but rose 10 percent in Elizabeth. The national violent-crime numbers fell 4 percent.
Intractable problems such as cheap and unlicensed guns, widespread drug use, and gang proliferation could be fought by the state adding new police officers to counter a trend observed by Steven Levitt of the University of Chicago: Police levels generally increase only in local election years.
The state also must advocate gun control and other legislation to curb violent crime in our cities. When Jersey City, for one, attempted to write gun control legislation in 2006, the laws were struck down by the New Jersey Superior courts. Stronger state laws would, if constitutional, protect all residents equally. New Jersey often is a first-adopter of laws and could be a crusader, providing political cover for other states to write similar laws.
3. Think parks (and parking). Urban planners say that replacing blighted blocks with parks and greenways can raise home values in surrounding areas while providing recreation, artistic outlets, and ecological leadership—a significant lesson learned by Curitiba, Brazil, a gold-mining capital that went bust and began remaking itself in the 1960s. The city increased its parkland acreage nearly 20-fold per resident, a key component in its effort to achieve diversified prosperity.
To create the parking needed as population density grows, cities should demand creative solutions such as those utilized in Atlanta’s thriving Buckhead section, where pedestrian malls and parks were built on top of under- ground garages.
4. Accommodate people of all economic levels. Cities seed comebacks by subsidizing grand projects: waterfront development in Jersey City and Camden and the Prudential Center in Newark, for example. These efforts often are directed at suburbanites—those New Jersey Devils tickets are far out of the reach of most Newark residents—and skew how people view urban revitalization.
A thriving metropolis mixes individuals from all economic levels and provides a variety of housing situations. While condominium towers and swanky lofts in former factories can drive the high end of the market, suitable rental housing for low-income families is just as important.
Not Just A City Problem
Crime statistics published by the New Jersey State Police in its annual Uniform Crime Report show a general reduction in crime across the state. The numbers published in 1996 and 2005 show steeper drops for most crimes in the big six cities and Urban 15 population centers, a fact lost in the headlines about the Mount Vernon School playground shootings in Newark this summer.