I don’t even count the airport LOL, on and off I-78 never need to head into town thankfully.
Newark is a real shame, it had a great history, I spent my early childhood four blocks over in Irvington and my parents had a coffee shop on Clinton before the riots.
It is a shame, but it ws inevitable when manufacturing left.
The airport is critical for NYC, not Newark itself (in fact, they were looking for a site for third international airport for NYC, and the closest they got was the former Stewart Air Force Base in Newburgh NY - but it was too far).
Once these areas deemed their only economic future was as poverty hatcheries, the flight of wealth and talent was inevitable. The population would become one that found a statue of the criminal George Floyd in front of city hall acceptable; the Harriet Tubman statue just is to masquerade as Americans.