Inside Newark by Robert Curvin

Author:Robert Curvin [Curvin, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, United States, State & Local, Middle Atlantic (DC; DE; MD; NJ; NY; PA), Political Science, American Government, Local
ISBN: 9780813565729
Google: lKxaBAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
Published: 2014-07-09T03:33:21+00:00

Source: Brendan O’Flaherty, “Newark’s Non-Renaissance and Beyond,” February 13, 2000.

*Includes government employment

TABLE 7.2. Resident Employment Changes, 1980–1998

Source: Brendan O’Flaherty, “Newark’s Non-Renaissance and Beyond,” February 13, 2000.

*April 1980 April–December 1999

†April 1990–December 1999 (from O’Flaherty 2000)

TABLE 7.3. Employment in Four Cities

Source: New Jersey Department of Labor, lwd.dol.state.nj.us/labor.

The data reaffirm the evidence found over the years that jobs created in urban areas are most likely to go to people who live outside of the cities. Despite the slight employment increases in Newark and Trenton, for example, employment of residents declined by 4.8 percent and 7.1 percent respectively. The reality is that important changes and growth did take place in Newark through the 1990s and up to 2006, when Sharpe James led the city. But the expanded construction activity meant little for the mass of Newark’s population. It is true that hard bargaining produced some jobs for minority workers in the construction of the medical school and expansion of the airport in the 1970s, but the world of commercial and banking affairs is beyond the ken of many unemployed Newarkers. The kinds of jobs created by these new or extended operations are not open to the unskilled or poorly educated. Additional jobs in the white-collar ranks do little to help the bulk of the unemployed or underemployed city dwellers. The importance of the expanded or new facilities in commerce, banking, or entertainment is not in the jobs they add but rather the taxes they pay and the added commerce they stimulate. But even with taxes, there are problems lurking.

As it turns out, the apparent tax advantage of commercial development projects is minimal. All of the major industrial-commercial development projects in the city over the past fifty years were built on the basis of agreements regarding taxation worked out under the state’s Fox Lance Act.30 Under that law, a developer can get an abatement of taxes by agreeing to pay a stipulated sum in lieu of taxes, a sum that must exceed the amount of taxes received prior to the development (or renovation). A fifteen-year tax abatement as an incentive to locate in Newark (or to remain in Newark) is unquestionably a boon to the business involved. The assurance of no rise in tax rates and the need to pay (in lieu) only from about 20 to 40 percent of what full taxation would yield are strong inducements. It is, of course, commonplace for states and cities to compete with each other for development through such arrangements, but it is noteworthy that New Jersey in past years let the whole weight of the tax concession fall on Newark’s already dangerously low assessed property values.

One distinctive feature of the city’s abatement policy is that everything is discretionary. The mayor and the council approve every tax abatement individually and no one has to give a reason for rejection or approval (although none that reach the formal council stage are ever rejected). The statutory limits on how generous development deals can be are fairly easy to evade through

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