I’d love to hear more about the Newark story!!
They’ve tried to lure working taxpayers back (especially those high earners working in Newark but living in suburbs) with the concept of a “teachers’ village” in the downtown (which is a dangerous ghost town after dark); they were marketed to teachers working in area schools originally (hence the name), but it is really an attempt to get the office workers of the remaining companies to settle there rather than race out at 5:00 pm. It is similar to the “strategic hamlets” of the Vietnam War (fortified compounds surrounded by dangerous people), with the added incentive of proximity to mass transit escape points. The problem is that they think they’ll attract a Hoboken-type demographic, but those young tech-savvy people know it is a dangerous area (like some foreign resorts) where you basically can’t leave the premises safely - so they pass on living there. Very close by (Harrison, NJ - just south of me) this concept seems to be working - large multi-unit housing constructions with retailers on the ground floor, next to train access to NYC - because it is a white/Hispanic area rather than black. There is some crime, but nothing on the scale or ferocity encountered in Newark. Harrison also offers nice restaurants, and the “NJ” MLS team (NY Red Bulls) built a new stadium a couple of blocks from this new housing. Newark wanted all that investment and redevelopment, but Harrison and Jersey City are getting it instead; both are a bit closer to NYC via the PATH (Newark is the last stop, west of them) and they were just better bets.
A few years ago Newark offered vacant lots to people on Valentine’s Day for $1,000 apiece on the conditions that they built on them and lived there for five years (similar to some HUD requirements); Newark residents lined up to buy them, and for the next two years the project was revisited by the media - and had failed horribly. Few of the lots sold were ever developed, as the buyers realized they were effectively being turned from public assistance/housing “takers” into property tax-paying “makers”; we don’t get annual updates on that project anymore.
Even as they try to shoehorn immigrants (including illegals) into NJ to offset the dwindling American population, even those people are avoiding Newark; the exodus is happening so fast, those immigrants can settle in much nicer areas (even if it involves illegally-converted apartments and such). Newark is a transit hub (trains/port/airport) at this point; it offers little else.