Great thread and an interesting topic. I think that we as New Jerseyans have a very unique perspective on this topic simply due to the fact that though we live in a relatively small state, we have a full spectrum of environments, communities, income levels, and types of people. We have Paterson, Newark, Camden, Trenton (my hometown-and I do state that proudly), Elizabeth, East Orange and Orange, Irvington, Vineland, and Atlantic City. Those, I would say, are our largest and most depressed areas of the state. Then we also have places like Alpine, Rumson, Princeton, Essex Fells, Jersey City (well the waterfront anyway), Atlantic Highlands, Madison, Chatham, Basking Ridge, Short Hills, etc...quite arguably the most affluent areas. We also have areas which are quite rural in the southern and northwestern areas of the state which are a stark contrast to the cities. The interesting phenomenon is the fact that it seems (and I'm sure that a comprehensive study would prove this) that many people in New Jersey are doing all they can to move further and further away from the cities if they're not leaving the state entirely. This, to me, is quite alarming, but it's not as cut and dry as blaming those who are "giving up" and moving out. A little background: one entire half of my family originated in Trenton. I was born there, but my parents had already moved out to Hamilton by the time I was a year old. My great grandfather had come to Trenton sometime around 1890 which, looking back was at the beginning of the city's tenure as a major industrial, financial, and cultural capital, not to mention the state capital. My grandfather was a fireman working for the Pennsylvania Railroad at the time, and moved into a small upstairs apartment on Monmouth Street, within walking distance of the train station of course. He rented from the people who would become his in-laws (they were Irish and so was my great grandfather, so the marriage was somewhat arranged from what I'm told) for he eventually married their daughter, 10 years his junior. He and my great grandmother eventually settled into a small 3 story rowhome just down the street and had nine (yes nine) children. My great grandfather eventually made engineer and ran trains up and down what is now the Northeast Corridor until he died.
That small rowhome with a coal furnace in the basement was the pinnacle of success for a man like my great grandfather. Sure everyone was crammed into the small house, they had no car, but that was life. He worked for a company that almost has no equal today and had top pay and a rock solid pension. In fact, that home was still good enough for my grandfather when he married my grandmother (my great grandparents' youngest daughter) he bought it. Granted they only had five children, my grandfather bought a car, and they eventually got an air conditioner and a record player for the living room. Still, for a guy like my grandfather who had to leave school in 8th grade to support his family during the Depression, that was LIVING. Fast forward to 2007-the last time I drove down my grandmother's old street (the same one I played ball on no more than 17-18 years ago) a bunch of guys in red bandannas were loitering on the porch, glaring at me as if to say "What the hell do you think you're doing here?" So what happened to our cities? There is no easy answer. It's not just that "youth has gone wild," it's not "all the illegals," and the "welfare babies" aren't the sole cause either. The condition that our cities are in has deep deep roots. One could probably go further, but I'll start with the post WWII era. After my grandfather got back from WWII he married my grandmother, put his newfound skills to work (he was a combat photographer) for the local papers as a freelancer, and bought my great grandparents' house. However, many of his old friends from Chambersburg, sons of Roebling Steel, Trenton Pottery, and Home Rubber workers, were moving out to places like Hamilton, Lawrence, Ewing, and even places like "housing developments" in "Levittown," a novel alternative to the rowhomes of the city. Before WWII you had to have a good reason to live outside the city. The city was where the jobs were, and the limitations on transportation dictated that one had to be close one's job. Pre 1945 if you didn't make your living off the land, you didn't live far from the city limits of places like Trenton, Camden, Newark, and Paterson. In the late 1940s and into the 1950s this all began to change. More people bought cars and roads were improved. 1956 marked the beginning of the Eisenhower Interstate System, which allowed people for the first time to move beyond the cities (to the newly growing "suburbs") and still have a reasonable commute to work. The economic prosperity of the WWII boom, the Interstate System, the growing car culture, and the fact that gasoline was rediculously cheap, all contributed to those with the means (the upper and middle classes) leaving the cities. It wasn't because the cities were bad, or the people in them were bad, or for any other reason save for the fact that the parents of the Baby Boomers simply wanted better for their children than they had. They wanted the big house, the white picket fence, and the big backyard. By the hundreds of thousands all over the country, they got it. Once the post war generation had moved out to the suburbs, the big downtown department stores (Korvettes, Two Guys, Montgomery Ward, Bambergers) had less and less reason to be located downtown. The shopping malls became the focal point with their easy access and big parking lots. Why fight for a parking space on State Street when you could head to the new Quakerbridge Mall and hit J.C. Penney and Macy's all in one shot?
As a result of middle and upper class whites leaving the cities in large numbers, naturally others moved in to fill the void. By the 1950s Trenton had a higher African-American and Puerto Rican population than ever before. This in and of itself wasn't a problem, but it was a change. My mother, who grew up in a solidly Italian/Irish neighborhood remembers racial tensions as being always present in the background, but not quite boiling over until the late 1960s. In 1968 of course, all hell broke loose in the city following the assasination of Martin Luther King, but there were other contributing factors as well. Damages to the city amounted to around $7 million, an astronomical figure for the time. In the decade following, the riots proved to the be the death knell for the city. Anyone, black white or otherwise, who could afford to get out of the city did. Again, they went in large numbers to the still relatively undeveloped areas of Hamilton, Lawrence, and Ewing. For a short time, industry hung on even though the indigenous population had fled the cities, due to the fact that people could still commute in and out, which they did. Men still went into the city to work for Roebling, Home, Lenox, etc... State workers still descended on the capital everyday, and institutions such as the Broad Street Bank, Mary A. Roebling Bank, and others still commanded large workforces which came into the city every day. However, this would all begin to change quickly. As a result of the economic depression that gripped the country through the 80s, one by one the factories closed. The machines that made the huge cables that still hold the Brooklyn and Golden Gate bridges up fell silent, the pottery kilns cooled, and the banks were bought up and moved elsewhere. Eventually there was little skilled employment to be found in the capital city, save for the State of New Jersey. The factories, breweries, offices, and banks of the once vibrant city of 125,000 were all gone. Unfortunately the lack of employment couldn't have come at a worse time. The cities had now become concentrated areas of poverty as a result of bad government housing policies (that which produced "the projects"), white flight, local political mismanagement and corruption, and plain demographic trends. The majority of people who lived in Trenton at that point were either on public assistance, or subsisting on low/no skill or service jobs. The city of Trenton, which, not unlike Camden, Newark and Paterson, was once a place of close knit neighborhoods and families now became a place of broken homes, substance abuse, and social problems. The "perfect storm" which had produced the concentration of poverty we see today provided a breeding ground for the drug trade and the gangs which to this day terrorize our streets.
Now Trenton keeps its head above water simply because it houses the state capital, although it doesn't help much. State workers stream in by the thousands every morning and go right back out in the mass exodus that begins around 4:15 every day. Few who work for the state (one of the very few "industries" left) actually live in the city, although that is changing albeit in small numbers and very slowly. As a result of the years of corruption and mismanagement that have plagued City Hall and the leadership of the police department (the Mayor long ago abolished the position of Police Chief and appointed a civillian "Police Director" subservient to him) gangs and drugs have been allowed to run wild in the city. As a result of the concentration of social problems (not to mention the drugs and the gangs) the schools are a mess. Teachers do the best they can with the 6 hours a day they spend with their kids, but they have no control over the fact that the child probably didn't have breakfast that morning, is wearing the same clothes as the day before, and is going to go home to a parent that is either strung out on drugs, drunk, or simply not there because they're working a second or third menial job to pay the rent for a cockroach infested slum apartment. Slumlords are a huge problem in Trenton and they've profited handsomely from the white flight from the city. They pick up houses at prices far below market value, shoddily convert them to 5 and 6 family homes illegally, and charge rent that the average indigent resident can just barely afford. The slumlords perform no maintenance and simply let their properties rot. The tenants don't complain because either they are too afraid to lose the roof over their heads, or they themselves are conducting shady activities on the premises. The corrupt city government hardly ever conducts inspections or fines property owners for even the most egregious violations which can be easily seen from the street. Slumlords also care little about who they rent to so long as the rent is paid on time. Noise complaints as well as complaints from other law abiding residents about illegal activities occuring in and around the properties simply fall on deaf ears.
So, in light of all that, what do we do? Do we just move further and further out, reasoning that "the animals will eventually kill each other?" Do we turn a blind eye and hope that the crime and the problems don't invade our suburbs? In Hamilton, Lawrence, and Ewing they already have and will continue to unless a holistic, comprehensive approach is taken. One of the things that we need to do is reinvest in our cities. This goes beyond simply making the cities better places. In light of ever more rapidly dissapearing open space from High Point to Cape May, New Jerseyans don't want to see the last acre of pineland or skyland paved over. While we build ever further into what was once wilderness, our cities sit and decay further and further. However, there is hope. With energy becoming more expensive and transit villages becoming all the rage, our small cities (Camden, Trenton, Vineland, Plainfield, etc...) are poised to make a comeback as the "ultimate" transit village. Our economy has moved away from manufacturing, but the professional and tech sectors are still viable, and cities can be excellent places for people in these industries to live and work. Little by little, many of these folks are moving back and restoring old rowhomes and brownstones, or inhabiting lofts which were once industrial spaces. In the Mill Hill neighborhood of Trenton, many brick row homes dating to the 1840s and 1850s have been lovingly restored in a community that boasts nearly 300 families of all races, some Trenton natives, some transplants, who are all close neighbors, committed to bettering the city. Elsewhere, two factories and a hulking turn of the century bank building have been turned into brand new top quality market rate housing marketed towards young professionals and others interested in an urban environment. One of the great things about these projects is that not only do they not displace indigent residents, but they also enrich the community by providing a diversity of income. Take, for example, a young black child growing up in Trenton who lives on a block with drug dealers, thugs, and gang members. The only major influences on that kid's block are going to teach him how to steal, that the police are not his friend, and how to sell dimebags on the corner. Take, for example, a young black child growing up in Trenton who lives on a block that has a couple of artists who share a loft on the corner, a young couple who work in/around the Statehouse, and a city Firefighter (right now few city police, firefighters, or teachers live in the city), arguably, that kid is going to grow up around a better class of people. A group of people who are more inclined to pull his parents aside to let them know they saw him running with a bad crowd, or causing trouble. A group of people who can provide solid role models even if his parents aren't the greatest.
Trenton is by no means unique in its story. With minor similarities, Camden, Paterson, Newark, and all the rest traveled the same path from boom to bust. The causes weren't that simple, and the answers aren't that simple, but the fact is, unless we stop running for the hills, the problems of the city will only spread. I'm not saying its for everybody, but I try to do what I can to boost the city whether that means patronizing businesses, getting involved in grassroots stuff, or whatever. My theory is that eventually more people will have more reasons to return to the cities, which can restore the middle class and thereby strengthen their very fabric. In the meantime, I go to Tir Na Nog instead of TGI Fridays for a pint of Guinness. I get my haircut (and a shave and a little philosophy from a very opinionated old Italian guy) at the State Barber Shop. I grab a coffee at Cafe Ole on Warren Street instead of Starbucks in Princeton. Not to mention all the great dining that's still hanging on in the 'Burg and elsewhere from John Henry's to De Lorenzo's to Amici Milano. So that's my take on what's up with our cities, please comment.
