Over the last several years I’ve compared large urban revitalization project to a hypothetical program I call the down-payment grant.

Government folks hate comparing their revitalization projects to my hypothetical suggestion. They like to point out that the funds they propose to spend are restricted in nature and aren’t available for my crazy scheme. OK, I never said they were, but they shouldn’t argue that those funds are for the purpose of revitalization unless they can be shown to at least approach the simple benefit of the down-payment grant.

Let’s remind ourselves what revitalization means

Revitalization is somewhat in the eye of the beholder. In fact, that’s one of the problems. Our government officials shy away from specifying what they mean by the term.

I propose increased per capita income as a single clear and measurable standard for revitalization.

Economists and sociologist consistently link improved per capita income to better housing and education and to lower crime. Furthermore, it’s a statistic that the Census Bureau measures for us. A city with a high per capita income is better able to afford schools, the arts, charity for the poor and lower tax rates. It will also spend proportionately less on police and fire protection.

The down-payment grant is a good hypothetical way to spend $100M

Read the rest of this entry »

All Trentonians know that our high crime rate isn’t good for the economy. However, not many of us know just how bad it is. It turns out that economists have studied the subject and have asked themselves that very question.

In “CRIME, URBAN FLIGHT, AND THE CONSEQUENCES FOR CITIES”, economists Julie Berry Cullen and Steven D. Levitt worked through quite a bit of crime, census and other data in addition to third party research to build up an econometric model of the effects of crime. It’s worth noting that Steven Levitt later went on to write Freakonomics which is referenced in my earlier article on the economics of crime.

I’ve provided a link to the article but I’ve summarize it fairly simply below. I’ll warn readers of the report in advance that this is an academic paper and some of the conclusions it draws are a bit disturbing to the politically correct mind. Read the rest of this entry »

If you’re a Trenton watcher and haven’t been living in a cave, then you’ve noticed our shiny new $60M train station. The Trenton train station is unique along the Northeast corridor in that not only is it the 6th busiest station but it has both Amtrak, NJ Transit, NJ Light Rail and Septa carriage.

Every day hundreds of people from mainly outside Trenton travel through our station. They typically spend as little time in Trenton as possible.

The city is proposing to change that.

It is leveraging a generous state tax incentive to encourage commercial development around urban NJ’s train stations. I have to say, I’m for the tax incentive. The state and federal government have spent $Billions over the year building roads to increase sprawl, it’s good to finally put some balance in the equation.

With the incentive behind it, the city has courted three developers to build three seperate large projects immediately adjacent to the station. I think this is great and can’t see any downside. I even support demolishing the historic-ish building on the north side of Greenwood Ave. to make way for the building.

However,there are two big questions that come to mind as I review the current version of the city’s development plan for the area and come away from tonight’s (6/25) public meeting on the subject. Read the rest of this entry »

Trenton is far from average

Trenton’s median income is in the bottom 9% of communities in New Jersey. Our schools are in the bottom 2% and our crime is in the bottom 1%. Real median income (adjusted for inflation) in Trenton actually declined 6.7% during the ‘90s while New Jersey’s median income rose 4%.

Because our income level and resulting tax base is so low we receive subsidies from the rest of the state most notably Abbott funding. To be a sustainable community we need to pay our own way which means our income must be in the 50^th percentile, roughly that of Hamilton.

One can argue though that an urban city in New Jersey with “average” income would be a great place to live.

Making revitalization decisions isn’t easy

Trenton has been trying to revitalize for many years but with little success, therefore its time to realize that if revitalization were easy everybody could do it. Read the rest of this entry »

For Trenton watchers who missed the news that a new arts festival called “Art All Night” happened over the weekend (June 21-22), you need to get your glasses checked. The promotion was everywhere.

“Art All Night” is a free event sponsored by Artworks in Trenton that showcases art submitted by anybody that wants to. Every professional and amateur artists was welcome to submit 1 piece and as a result over 600 artists were represented. In addition: films, bands, art demonstrations and food were part of this quirky art event led by Michael Gumpert and now in its 2nd year.

The event moved to a new space this year, a ~100,000 SF former Roebling wire rope factory and attracted many more patrons (probably double or triple) than last year’s already healthy attendance.

But the question is, what does it mean to Trenton? Read the rest of this entry »

Unlike other industrial towns that have re-invigorated themselves (Pittsburgh, Jersey City and even Newark) Trenton has been left behind. Trenton’s Mayor Palmer is a nice guy and seems to mean well but just hasn’t been able to steer the city towards any meaningful revitalization. For the past 17 years during the Palmer administration, we’ve been treated like a welfare state chasing every government handout available and with predictable results. We’ve chased away high income residents and attracted poverty.

The facts speak for themselves.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, from 1999 to 2006 New Jersey’s per capita income has risen 18% while Newark’s has risen 24% and Jersey City a whopping 29%. Meanwhile, Trenton has lost ground with a meager 9% gain in the same seven years moving from $14,621 to $15,933. In 2006, while Trenton was busy electing the mayor that delivered these sad results, the city’s per capita income actually shrunk by 0.4% while New Jersey, as a state, grew 1.3%, Newark gained a respectable 4.8% and Jersey City grew an astounding 14.6% and

Given Trenton’s abysmal record it’s clear that the current administration either doesn’t really want to fix the problem or just doesn’t know how. Furthermore, it pains Trentonians to see the US Conference of Mayors being led to believe that Trenton is a model of economic revitalization. It clearly is not!

As a long time Trenton activist, real estate investor and student of urban economic issues I’m offering this paper as an alternative approach to Trenton’s revitalization.

Read the rest of this entry »

One of, if the not the biggest thing holding back revitalization in American cities is crime.

The facts speak for themselves – cities with high crime rates generally have poor growth rates. Cities that have somehow improved their crime rate do much better.

New York and Washington, DC are great examples of cities that have aggressively attacked their crime issues and have unleashed unprecedented economic growth. Washington used to be the most dangerous city in America and New York was supposed to be leading the country into chaos.

Looking just at New Jersey, two cities, New Brunswick and Newark are overcoming their crime issues and generating positive population growth. Meanwhile, Asbury Park, Trenton and Camden continue to scare their populations away.

Lot’s of people have lots of things to say about crime. The police say they do all they can and blame the courts for a revolving door justice system or the public for not cooperating. Children’s advocates blame lack of after-school programs. Civil rights leaders blame racism. Parents blame everybody and Bill Cosby blames parents.

Read the rest of this entry »

When you get right down to it, the only thing that really counts as re-development is money being spent to improve a property for an economic purpose.

That’s it.

Building a new museum, cleaning the streets and writing a new master plan simply don’t count. They don’t produce direct economic benefit. Often times they DO lead to new economic development because a developer prefers to invest on clean streets next to spiffy new art museums.

With this in mind I found it interesting to compare and contrast two “re-development” articles in today’s Trenton Times (June 18, 2008).

The first article, in the business section, announces that a new supermarket, Food Bazaar, is coming to Ron Berman’s Roebling Market. This is big news!. Whether or not Trenton is actually underserved by grocery stores would take some analysis to figure out, but there is no doubt that adding a large store like Food Bazaar will add variety and competition to the market. We can only assume that Food Bazaar’s management is sophisticated enough to have evaluated both the opportunity and competition in Trenton and the surrounding area. Read the rest of this entry »

My name is Dan Dodson.

Over the years I’ve written quite a bit about Trenton, New Jersey and all of our various issues. The articles were published in the Trenton Downtowner, The Trenton Times and sometimes just my own Trenton Page on Livingonthenet.com.

This blog will attempt to continue the same dialogue with Trenton citizens and policymakers but now with more of a two-way approach.

The blog will accept comments. (Though offensive and incoherent language will not be tolerated).

I look forward to debating the issues of the day affecting our efforts to turn Trenton into a great city.

I’ll be impressed with data driven arguments that guide our policy and approach.