In This Issue:

– RPA Releases a Vision for Newark

– 300 Million Americans

– North Jersey Rises from the Shadows (Book Review)

– Calendar

A Vision for Newark
Here at RPA, we spend a lot of time talking about how the region will add 4 million people by 2030, that sprawling development will not be able to accommodate this growth, and that much of the growth will have to be focused in dense, transit-accessible centers. And while transit villages have become trendy over the past few years, the reality on the ground remains that many transit-accessible municipalities resist growth like the plague, and the places with the infrastructure to support tens of thousands of new residents – like Bridgeport, Stamford, and especially Newark – struggle to shed images of crime and stagnant post-industrial economies.

So when Newark Mayor Cory A. Booker approached RPA this past summer to help his administration present a comprehensive vision for that city’s future, we jumped at the chance. Our charge was to synthesize the more than 100 plans prepared by the city and other public agencies, non-profit organizations, private developers and others over the past dozen years into a cohesive foundation for updating Newark’s Master Plan and Zoning Ordinance. Years of studies without action, and an understanding that planning decisions were based on political influence instead of merit, had created a “planning fatigue” in Newark. RPA’s goal was to draft a vision within the Mayor’s first 100 days in office that built on the previous work but also made it clear that the Booker administration had clear ideas about the city’s future. The Draft Vision was released today and can be found online at www.rpa.org.

After poring over the documents and summarizing their findings and recommendations, RPA convened an intensive three-day planning charrette at NJIT in mid-September, bringing together local partners with planning, design and architecture professionals. It was clear from the start that Newark is far better positioned than any similar place in the area. Its infrastructure – including unparalleled rail (NJ TRANSIT and PATH), highway (Interstate Highways 78, 280 and 95) and transit (internal subway and light rail systems) access – is really designed for a population nearer to Newark’s 1930 peak of 442,000 than its current 280,000. A 20-minute train ride from Manhattan and easily reachable from throughout north Jersey, Newark is uniquely positioned to be both a residential and employment center.

Still, a review of the many excellent plans prepared (but not implemented) for Newark reiterates that the city lacks functional public open space, its Downtown is littered with sky bridges and pedestrian-unfriendly roads, its universities lack sufficient on-site housing, and its robust transportation network fails to adequately connect a large segment of the population to local jobs and services. Not addressed in these plans, and beyond the scope of our work, are necessary improvements in public safety and education, without which significant growth will not be possible.

These are daunting challenges, but as the Draft Vision released today shows, Newark has a very bright future. The report envisions Newark as a city that is EQUITABLE, ACCESSIBLE, GREEN, SMART and PROSPEROUS.

The vision starts with an EQUITABLE Newark because any plan for Newark’s future must provide a better quality of life for all Newark residents. This begins with providing neighborhoods with a formal role in the planning process and includes raising the bar for neighborhood design and amenity. There should be no more strip malls, no more “Bayonne Boxes” (the dominant housing type in Newark these days that puts cars first), and more parks, super markets and community facilities.

Newark is already very ACCESSIBLE, but we envision a city where the transportation network is aligned with the needs of its residents. This means introducing a Bus Rapid Transit system on key corridors, an initiative that NJ TRANSIT has agreed to pursue. It also means overhauling the existing bus system and road network, introducing long overdue changes like coordinated signaling that somehow never made it to Newark.

The GREEN Newark envisioned in the report adds functional open spaces in each of the city’s neighborhoods, connecting the existing major parks. The report also calls for completion of a riverfront park along the Passaic River, a long anticipated project that still languishes.

Newark is a city brimming with universities and school-age children. SMART Newark aims to capitalize on these assets by better integrating both universities and public schools into the fabric of the city. University Heights should be transformed into a vibrant mixed-use district, so that students will start living in Newark rather than just commuting to class. And it is time to bring Newark’s public school students back into contact with the city, avoiding isolated schools and using education as an economic development tool.

Each of these campaigns combine to produce a PROSPEROUS Newark. In addition, the report calls for specific initiatives to bring increased economic development. First, the downtown area should be re-imagined as a mixed-use, 24/7 Central Business District. That means more housing, restaurants and nightlife, and fewer sky bridges and dangerous intersections. The report also calls for capitalizing on the city’s strong transportation and logistics industry by developing the Airport Support Zone into an International Business Center, potentially with major conference or convention facilities.

As the front page story in today’s New York Times makes clear, there is a lot of hard work and a steep learning curve ahead for the Booker Administration. Years of mismanagement and cronyism won’t be erased overnight. But RPA’s Draft Vision shows that with a series of smart short, medium and long term investments, the city can begin to fulfill its unrealized potential. And Newark has more potential than perhaps any other city in the country. More than anything, what Newark has lacked most dearly is strong leadership. But anyone who has ever been in a room with Mayor Booker knows that he is an inspirational leader. With a blueprint for the city’s growth and a strong team to support him, he has become an inspirational leader with a clear vision. The entire nation is hoping that he is given the time, resources, and political support to make it a reality.

– Jeremy Soffin, Vice President for Public Affairs

Three Hundred Million People
As you have probably already heard, the US Census Bureau estimates that America’s population reached 300 million on Tuesday.

But is it crowded?

Of the 300 million residents of this country, some live in densely populated places and some in sparsely populated places. But it does seem that there is more crowding than there used to be – not necessarily density, but the frustrating set of circumstances in which people are stuck waiting for too long. The streets and highways are more crowded, lines seem longer and certain places – mall parking lots come to mind – are much more congested than years ago. It is true that in certain suburbs the experience of walking down the sidewalk or driving through a subdivision is the same solitary experience it has always been, but driving out of the subdivision you are more likely to encounter a traffic jam than a field or an open road.

It’s easy to look at traffic congestion or a long line and blame the growing population. Yet unpleasant crowding is not a feature of all growth, but of auto-dependent single use growth known as sprawl – what some might call ‘dumb growth’ to contrast the popular phrase ‘smart growth’. Auto-dependent development, initially envisioned as a way to escape the city crowds, has brought with it more crowding even as it has afforded to many much larger, more luxurious interior, private spaces than at any time in the past. According to the US Census, the average new single family house constructed in the U.S. in 2005 had 2,414 square feet, up 18% from just 10 years prior. Cars themselves are larger than ever, and more comfortable.

By their nature the large interior spaces of these private places are not available to the public at large. Many of the people who are both creating the crowd and stuck in it are not able to afford ample, roomy interior private spaces. In fact, it may surprise some to learn that of the 300 million people in America right now, most earn less than $25,000 (52% of people age 16 and up). Most households earn less than $45,000 per year (53%). If the price of oil continues to rise, most people will be unable to support their own private means of transportation – their cars – without cutting back on other essentials like housing, health care and food. This country will no longer have the option of continuing the growth patterns that promote large private spaces and crowded public ones.

Sprawl was an attempt to provide more space and less crowding, but it has hit a limit. The new paradox of sprawl is that as we’re spreading out we’re actually becoming more crowded. Whether our urban and suburban areas grow up or out – whether the growing US population leads to more sprawl and crowding or enough density and mix of uses to enable transit – is a crucial question. If advocates take advantage of this opportunity, hitting the 300 million mark could bring a new level of visibility to the issues of sprawl and crowding.

– Alexis Perrotta, Senior Policy Analyst


Book Review: Greater New Jersey: Living in the Shadow of Gotham (University of Pennsylvania Press 2006), By Dennis E. Gale

What Could Be Greater Than New Jersey?
As a lifelong resident of the Garden State and a land use planner, I admit to having a certain positive bias towards living in New Jersey. Three generations strong, we love our State, warts and all. I mean, we pride ourselves on being tough; we have a distinct attitude, and we can take a joke. To buttress my perspective, my wife keeps threatening to buy me the t-shirt that reads “New Jersey, Where the Weak Are Eaten.”

So, when I picked up the book Greater New Jersey: Living in the Shadow of Gotham, I expected another expose on how the New York influence dominates our State. Yes, the book does note the lack of a statewide television station or newspaper and the sporting inferiority that comes from lacking a baseball team and hosting football teams that actually wear “NY” on their uniforms. Indeed, the influences of the New York-based mass media and professional sports on New Jersey’s image and identity loom large. But the book’s author, Dennis Gale, a former Director of the Cornwall Center at Rutgers University in Newark and member of RPA’s New Jersey Committee, finds reasons to believe that the dark shadows are softening.

With great skill, he melds facts and fancy, to heighten our interest, titillate the senses, and make us think about why things are. The prologue takes the reader on a train ride from Morristown to Manhattan, through wealthy suburbs, poor inner ring suburbs, the cities of Newark and Jersey City, and finally the Meadowlands. Recounting the ride, which tens of thousands of people take every day, provides Dr. Gale with the platform to analyze the character of life in north Jersey, especially the complicated social, economic and political relationships with New York City. What makes this book different is the recognition that northern New Jersey has much to offer, and indeed is starting to come into its own.

By examining land use and smart growth, population expansion and density, government fragmentation, and what the author calls the “bistate brokerage of power” through organizations like the Port Authority, Greater New Jersey dares to challenge conventional thinking about the suburbs of Manhattan.

“Squeezed between its larger neighbors, the State appears on a map to be an afterthought, its improbable wiggle-waggle shape lending a tentative, indecisive appearance. But in fact, the Garden State is in a highly strategic location and its myriad transportation corridors funnel millions of people and products through the northeastern United States annually.”

Gale contemplates the potential political power the region could influence if Northern New Jersey and New York could work together. Recalling Jean Gottmann’s Megalopolis, Dr. Gale speaks to the national and international links that have fueled the region, and admits that “the metropolitan region is a forbidding challenge for serious study.”

Dr. Gale introduces the terms “crustal urbanization” and “government granulation” to explore why it will be difficult for Northern New Jersey to realize metropolitan benefits, with so many cities and towns at sizes dwarfed by those of other parts of the country. Here, Gale sees the towns surrounding Newark and Elizabeth forming a “sprawling, amoeba-like ‘crust’” consuming much of Northern New Jersey’s topography and undermining the traditional sense of centrality common in other national and international cities. Just down the road, the Edge Cities of Parsippany and Bridgewater, at the crossroads of Interstates I-287, I-80 and I-78 provide Gale with examples of post-suburbanization, where urban residents find jobs or shopping once found in the downtowns of cities and towns in Northern New Jersey. Dr. Gale correctly cites Morristown, a central place with a New England-like character and significant growth opportunities, as the new model for examining how higher population density, extraordinary social diversity, drastically shrinking land and natural resources, and potentially irresolvable conflicts between growth and preservation further challenge this area.

Lest you think this is all work and no play, Gale examines the role political corruption and organized crime have played in the formation and expansion of Northern New Jersey. Throughout the book, Dr. Gale aptly uses familiar examples and case studies to more closely examine the character of life in New Jersey. And, as Gale demonstrates, there are a lot of characters in New Jersey. Concluding with Frank Sinatra and Bruce Springsteen, which I guess is obligatory for any book about New Jersey, Dr. Gale notes that these lyrical poets cast light on life in northern New Jersey, borrowing culture, image and economy from the metropolis while finding the indigenous and genuine to celebrate.

Greater New Jersey is volume six of the Metropolitan Portraits series, intended to promote discussion and understanding of metropolitan North America at the start of the twenty-first century. It is a must read for anyone willing to contemplate the challenges and opportunities of asserting a regional identity in the face of a looming megalopolis. And, perhaps it could help you answer that familiar Jersey response, “So, what’s it to ya?”

– Thomas G. Dallessio AICP/PP, Vice President and New Jersey Director

Questions or comments on what’s in this issue? Send them to the editor of Spotlight On The Region, Alex Marshall at alex@rpa.org

Today, October 19, 5:00 – 9:00 p.m.
Implementing the State TDR Act. ANJEC, RPA and their co-sponsors are pleased to present this workshop on the NJ State Transfer of Development Rights (TDR) Act. Learn how TDR can enable a community to plan for less consumptive land use, better community design and smarter growth, based on assessment of natural resources and available infrastructure. Highlighted in this program will be the application of a TDR program in the New Jersey Highlands. Morris County Cultural Community Center, 300 Mendham Road, Morristown, NJ. For details or to register call 973.539.7547, or go to http://anjec.org/html/workshops.htm#Implementing.

October 19-20
How To Create Successful Markets. Project for Public Spaces invites you to our popular "How to Create Successful Public Markets" workshop. Contact Julia Day at 212-620-5660 or at jday@pps.org

October 20, 9:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Living With Nature: A Conference on Sustaining the New York Metropolitan Region's Biodiversity Through Local Action. American Museum of Natural History, Kaufmann Theater. There is no charge for this conference, but registration is encouraged, as seating is limited. For a detailed list of speakers and topics, please visit http://sustainnyc.amnh.org or phone. 212-496-3423.

October 24, 6:00 – 8:00 p.m.
Informational Community Forum, with presentation and discussion, to be held at the (lower level) auditorium of the SUNY College of Optometry, 33 West 42nd Street. Admission is free; RSVP at info@vision42.org by sending your name and e-mail address.

October 25, 6:30 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.
Downtown Bridgeport Plan: Urban Design and Place-making Workshop. The final public workshop to gain input on a new master plan for downtown Bridgeport will focus on urban design and place-making, looking at building massing, design guidelines, and streetscape in the city’s core. Downtown Cabaret Theatre (263 Golden Hill Street, Bridgeport).

November 4, 10 a.m. - 3 p.m.
Excursion on NJ Transit Light Rail Routes in Newark N.J. Visit light rail maintenance facility. Event organized by Electric Railroaders Association, NY Division. Advance registration required. 718/784-3643, email furlong@erausa.org or visit www.erausa.org, NY Division.

November 9, 7:30 p.m.
Alex Marshall reads from Beneath the Metropolis: The Secret Lives of Cities. At Barnes & Noble book store, 396 Ave. of the Americas (6th Avenue) at 8th St. in Greenwich Village, New York City. (212) 674-8780.

November 13, 6:30 p.m.
Book Launch: Beneath the Metropolis by Alex Marshall (Carrol & Graf, November 2006). Journalist and Regional Plan Association Senior Fellow, Alex Marshall, author of How Cities Work (2001), shows that the world below the sidewalks of 12 of the world’s big cities is as revealing as that above. Reception and book signing to follow talk by author. At the Museum of the City of New York at 1220 Fifth Avenue (at 103rd Street). mcny.org. Reservations suggested. 212-534-1672 x 3395.