Construction jobs like these stadium boondoggles make me sick: The roads and bridges are rotting away (here at least), it would be a better use of money to fix those before stadiums.
Newark is that bad? I had a connecting flight through there ~8-10 years ago, so I didn't get to explore the area. Apparently, I didn't miss much. The mayor, Corey Booker is supposed to be good. Any thoughts on that?
Booker is a step up from his predecessor, a thug named Sharpe James who went to prison after ruling Newarks for years. The government took decades to prosecute him, when he was living far beyond any legitimate lifestyle (when asked how he bought a yatch and shore house, his response to the reporter was, “There’s nothing wrong with a black man in America owning a boat or a house”). However, Booker is the same in holding out his hand to the county, state, and federal governments for more money (by which I mean OUR money); he is a leftist who thought he could change things, but old patterns persist. The construction money would certainly be better spent improving the roads & bridges in the area.
Newark is a little better than Detroit because there is still a vibrant downtown (some big companies, along with the schools abd hospitals), but you can’t stay when the sun goes down - it is a “9 to 5” vibrant, then all of the working people flee from the downtown. Crime is under- or unreported, though they couldn’t hide the fact that their murder rate had gone up a couple of years ago (buses and billboards screamed “STOP THE KILLING”, much to Booker’s chagrin; he was elected in part to reduce the crime).
Newark is rapidly becoming more Hispanic (like most of NJ’s cities), and that is where there hope lies; there is no assumed right to other people’s money, and the people in general are harder working (the Hispanic areas of the city are faring better than the “other” areas, with lots of businesses). It may take a few more years, but Booker may end up being the last black mayor of Newark.