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Newark population: 280,000
Irvington: 61,000
East Orange: 64,000
Orange: 30,000
West Orange: 45,000
South Orange: 16,000
Maplewood (not an Orange, but wouldn't really make sense not to include it): 24,000
Tell me who is going to be running things once such a merger is done? Put all the other municipalities together and they're still not as populous as Newark, so the answer is Newark politicians are still running things. Put all the poor ones together and they're WAY more populous than the other three, so you get the western suburbs sucked dry to support the rest. And when the money runs out, you have the City of Newark, maybe with a "showcase" downtown, surrounded by an even larger decaying area like much of Newark, E.O and Irvington today.
Oh, I didn't finish. The new city charter would also mandate a return to a free society, the elimination of all welfare, privatization of 90% of everything currently being mishandled by government, elimination of all public pensions to be replaced by individual self-management of one's retirement, and indeed one's life, and a corresponding tax reduction of 75% across the board. I'm sorry I neglected to mention that.
Once that is put in place, the merger will simply introduce economies of scale, while returning to the people their freedom and autonomy, and it will no longer matter that the poorest city and some very rich cities will be merged into one city. A city of opportunity without victims and without collectivistic corruption and without crony anti-capitalism. A city that will demonstrate that there is nothing beyond freedom and dignity.
What are you doing, just drawing lines on a map? Or checking out some old maps; that's not far from the original Newark grant. It didn't work out so well. I can assure you that no one in any of those places, with the possible (but not likely) exception of Irvington, wants to be governed from Newark City Hall. Nor would any of those places, including Newark itself, again with the possible but unlikely exception of Irvington, benefit from such an arrangement.
You can't just draw lines on the map, not when people already live there. You have to look at the demographics (particularly economic) of the communities involved.
If you merge a large poor community and a small wealthier one, the result is predictable as clockwork: the combined government will see the wealthy enclave as a source of tax money for redistribution to their poorer constituents, until the wealthy are driven out and the whole thing becomes a larger poor community. One barrel of sewage + one teaspoon wine = one slightly larger barrel of sewage.
On the other hand, if you merge a large wealthy community and a small poor one, there are several things which can happen. The wealthy community can essentially make no change, treating the poor enclave differently than the wealthy one. The worst outcome is that they'll spend disproportionately more money on the poor enclave (perhaps as the result of Federal or state mandates), have to raise taxes on the rest of the municipality to make up for it, and end up slowly driving the wealthy out -- one barrel of wine + one teaspoon sewage = one barrel of sewage. There are other possibilities; the wealthy community could act in ways to drive the poor out (gentrification), for instance. But I don't see any really good outcomes. In any case, even if they're benefitting from it, the poor community will resent being essentially ruled by the wealthy one.
If you merge a small town and a large one, when they're similar demographically, the small will likely be swallowed by the large. Sometimes this is OK, sometimes it is not.
There are municipalities you could merge -- South Orange and Maplewood are halfway there already. Millburn and Short Hills (no, I'm kidding -- they're already one, just don't tell that to the people in Short Hills).
Harrison doesn't need Newark's problems and Newark doesn't need Harrison's debt.
Jersey City is a slum with a small cash-cow area sustained because of its easy access to New York (that it took so long for J.C. to make even that area habitable says a lot about the city government). Hoboken is pretty much just a cash-cow area in former slum (same comment about their government), with little remaining slum; I'm sure J.C. would like the taxes but I'm not sure how it would benefit Hoboken. Same goes for Weehawken; how would it benefit them to be governed from J.C.? And J.C. has problems enough of its own, why would it want WNY or Union City?
You're contradicting yourself here. Development in the downtown of Newark doesn't really benefit people in the Upper Montclair neighborhood so much -- and they'd be funding it.
I'm sure the poor City of Camden would love to annex rich Camden County for its tax money. But the result would be a poor City and County of Camden.
There are probably municipalities you could merge to reduce administration costs. Maybe Verona/Cedar Grove/Montclair/Glen Ridge, though I imagine few residents of those towns would like that. South Orange and Maplewood, but once you merged those you could combine with Millburn, though the Millburners would scream bloody murder -- we'll call the township Burn Orangewood :-). Possibly then combine the result with West Orange. That's about as big as I'd go, though if you were to combine only school districts you could make it bigger.
I wouldn't combine the poor municipalities at all. I think it's easier for, e.g., Orange or East Orange to get it together separately than for a combined municipality to do so.
You make some good points, but there are some things I'd like to point out.
Newark isn't ready for a merger as you suggest, but if surrounding towns merge over time (making themselves larger) then they wouldn't be so easily swallowed by a larger neighbor (we're talking 50+ years from now).
Camden would be a better candidate b/c it's smaller. Merging w/ surrounding Camden county would not equate to a large poor city of Camden. Camden county is over half a million, while Camden isn't even 100k.
Current Camden city proper would just be big poor neighborhood w/ a nice waterfront in the new larger Camden.
Counties support their largest city right now (property taxes and such). I agree w/ you in that poorer areas shouldn't merge b/c it would be much harder to reclaim.
Lastly, development in downtown Newark DOES affect folks in surrounding suburbs, albeit not directly. A more built-up downtown means more money to Newark which means more self-sufficiency which itself equates to less of a drain on the state. Additionally, downtown Newark is a job-center so it affects it surround either way you slice it.
Newark isn't ready for a merger as you suggest, but if surrounding towns merge over time (making themselves larger) then they wouldn't be so easily swallowed by a larger neighbor (we're talking 50+ years from now).
You still haven't said whet the benefit would be for the other towns. Suppose we combine South Orange, West Orange, Livingston, Millburn, Verona, Cedar Grove, Montclair, Glen Ridge, and Bloomfield into "Essex Ridge" or whatever. What would "Essex Ridge" gain by combining with Newark?
You still haven't said whet the benefit would be for the other towns. Suppose we combine South Orange, West Orange, Livingston, Millburn, Verona, Cedar Grove, Montclair, Glen Ridge, and Bloomfield into "Essex Ridge" or whatever. What would "Essex Ridge" gain by combining with Newark?
Economies of scale in contracting for goods and services. Less schools, firehouses, sewer plants, libraries, police stations, fire stations, etc. Larger organizations with better management. Less fiefdoms, less corrpution, less cronyism. And of course, the lower taxes that could result from all those economies.
Economies of scale in contracting for goods and services. Less schools, firehouses, sewer plants, libraries, police stations, fire stations, etc. Larger organizations with better management. Less fiefdoms, less corrpution, less cronyism. And of course, the lower taxes that could result from all those economies.
That's what we get in your ideal world above (which isn't going to happen anywhere, let alone NJ, whose license plate motto should be 'The Police State'). I'm talking about real live basket-case Newark here.
nothing good comes from combining a good area with a crappy area. why would an area where I currently live (weehawken) which has a very good school system have the need to be corrupted by the crap that comes from jersey city? As of right now I have a voice in my town...in a combined mega city i have NO VOICE. I have a friend that is close to a lot of politicians in newark (for business purposes) and he tells me all these corruption stories all the time. Big joy to bring corrupt newark politics to others.
Does anyone realize Jersey City is only 15 square miles? Newark is 23sqm
Baltimore is 80sqmi, DC is 60 square miles, Minneapolis is 50, San Francisco is the size of Hudson County.
I won't even bother mentioning southern cities.
The way NJ has mapped out its cities has always been its weakness, that's why outsider depict us as being a "lesser" state when we're actually perfectly capable of having larger cities than the ones mentioned above. A major airport, football/soccer/hockey stadiums, the most vital shipping port in the northeast, an extensive transit system, more shopping malls than anywhere else, etc
You still haven't said whet the benefit would be for the other towns. Suppose we combine South Orange, West Orange, Livingston, Millburn, Verona, Cedar Grove, Montclair, Glen Ridge, and Bloomfield into "Essex Ridge" or whatever. What would "Essex Ridge" gain by combining with Newark?
Essex Ridge would have a higher say on 'Newark' politics, and open downtown up to real development. There are more upwardly mobile voters in Western Essex that could sweep and clean house at city hall. There are things that go down in Newark on the political level that Western Essex simply wouldn't stand for. There isn't a huge population of registered voters in Newark (as evidenced by recent elections) and turnout isn't particularly high.
nothing good comes from combining a good area with a crappy area. why would an area where I currently live (weehawken) which has a very good school system have the need to be corrupted by the crap that comes from jersey city? As of right now I have a voice in my town...in a combined mega city i have NO VOICE. I have a friend that is close to a lot of politicians in newark (for business purposes) and he tells me all these corruption stories all the time. Big joy to bring corrupt newark politics to others.
Not Weehawken by itself maybe, but if all of Hudson county consolidated it would be different.
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