Beset by a large budget deficit and overwhelming poverty, Newark's local government services director has warned that the city might require state supervision.
Siddhartha Mitter reports that Newark's financial situation has prompted Local Government Services Director Tom Neff to advise new mayor Luis Quintana that the city might need to be placed under state supervision.
The specter of Detroit's bankruptcy situation is influencing Newark's mayoral election (election day is May 13). Writes Mitter: "While fear of becoming another Detroit has become commonplace in urban political rhetoric, Newark loosely shares enough traits with the Michigan metropolis — the spiral of disinvestment, middle-class flight, violence, poverty, a majority African-American population under strain — for the possibility to carry weight. Views differ, however, on just what it means to become another Detroit, let alone how to prevent it."
Good news connected to recent state-subsidized development have been offset by lots of bad news, including a scandal involving Newark Watershed, the agency that oversees sewer and water, and a $40 million budget deficit. "These concerns come on top of Newark’s chronic problems, which a series of big-ticket downtown developments and state-subsidized corporate relocations have not managed to blunt. Nearly one-third of its population and more than 43 percent of its children live below the poverty line. Its high school graduation rate is 68 percent. There were 111 murders there in 2013 — the most since 1990 and a shocking number in a city of 280,000 people."
FULL STORY: In the Battle for Newark, Fears of Becoming the Next Detroit

Maui's Vacation Rental Debate Turns Ugly
Verbal attacks, misinformation campaigns and fistfights plague a high-stakes debate to convert thousands of vacation rentals into long-term housing.

Planetizen Federal Action Tracker
A weekly monitor of how Trump’s orders and actions are impacting planners and planning in America.

San Francisco Suspends Traffic Calming Amidst Record Deaths
Citing “a challenging fiscal landscape,” the city will cease the program on the heels of 42 traffic deaths, including 24 pedestrians.

Half of Post-Fire Altadena Home Sales Were to Corporations
Large investors are quietly buying up dozens of properties in Altadena, California, where a devastating wildfire destroyed more than 6,000 homes in January.

Opinion: What San Francisco’s Proposed ‘Family Zoning’ Could Really Mean
Mayor Lurie is using ‘family zoning’ to encourage denser development and upzoning — but could the concept actually foster community and more human-scale public spaces?

Jacksonville Launches First Autonomous Transit Shuttle in US
A fleet of 14 fully autonomous vehicles will serve a 3.5-mile downtown Jacksonville route with 12 stops.
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