This is honestly Newark, and NJ’s, blessing and curse. We’re so close to NYC so we can take advantage of the jobs, entertainment, culinary options, etc. But then there’s much less of an investment in our own cities because so much of peoples time, money, energy, etc is put into NYC and then people who aren’t from these cities have very little attachment to them.

On top of this because a good chunk of the “new” residents moving into Newark work in NYC the state and city are not seeing any of that tax money so you get new residents but they don’t actually pay in any money to the tax coffers (unless they pay property taxes). So NYC get the benefit of having white collar (and even blue collar) workers who pay into their taxes without having to deliver as much in the way of services and not housing people, while Newark has to provide service, housing, etc for people who work and spend a lot of money elsewhere.