Gentrification in Newark

latest in Front Porch Republic

Those of you who know me know about my love for Newark, where my family is from, and for its Ironbound section, where I once lived. Thus why I’m incensed by the prospect of gentrifying the neighborhood. In this piece for Front Porch Republic, I focused in an a specific example of how corporate interests destroy the cultural fabric of places like the Ironbound.

The fact that most of the businesses are locally owned means that owners and managers are personally invested—it means something to them, filling them with a sense of pride but also of duty (think of Sal and his pizzeria in Do The Right Thing). Oftentimes, running the business is a family affair, and (in the best cases) employees become part of the family. Surely the lack of bureaucratic structure makes workers more vulnerable to mistreatment, but this also makes it easier for them to be treated like actual people. I think of the numerous friends I have who have worked for these businesses, whose bosses helped them out during rough times—whether that was financially, or giving them time off or moral support when they needed it.

This “personal touch” bleeds over into the dynamic between owners/workers and patrons, who are more likely to be treated as familiar faces rather than anonymous walking dollar signs. One restaurant owner who attended the school I taught at (and whose son I taught) would always roll out the red carpet when members of the school community came to eat at the restaurant, offering drinks on the house and making time to come by the table and catch up on the latest gossip.

The sense of communal belonging extends beyond the business into the neighborhood in the form of sports team sponsorships or involvement in churches, street festivals, or chambers of commerce. The owners’ personability and involvement in the community earns them respect. When trouble arises, everyday people will usually step up to support and protect the business.

This is hardly the case in the chain stores. A friend who works in one of these businesses tells me the horrors that have been ensuing. An uptick in shoplifting and violent crime has unveiled the stark differences between the two business models. This particular store is located near the border of the Central Ward, home to both poverty and crime and rapid gentrification. The nexus between the two wards is Newark Penn Station, where homeless people and drug addicts congregate. The conditions near Penn have been exacerbated by the increase in joblessness and mental health issues post-Covid, as well as the stress put on homeless shelters by short-sighted city policies that once did a better job alleviating the conditions of those below the poverty line or living on the streets.

Those struggling mentally and who lack access to basic necessities are often driven to steal out of desperation, though much of the stealing is also done by those “up to no good”—looking to sell products on the black market—so my friend tells me. Needless to say, it’s much easier to shoplift from a chain store where the depersonalized ethos of anonymity makes managers, workers, and patrons more apathetic, as there are no incentives to be personally invested in the safety of the store or for potential shoplifters to have any sense of remorse for the repercussions of their actions on faceless bureaucrats.

Though the management used to pay private security guards to keep the store safe, the loss in profits from increased shoplifting has led them to forego the guards (except for during the wee hours of the night). The effect on workers is twofold: they are afforded no protection, and their hours are cut in order to save money. The overworked and underpaid workers are then left to fend for themselves and stop shoplifters—risking their own safety—all the while attempting to carry out their regular tasks.

I’ve been told that workers have had to step away from the register while checking out paying customers to chase away repeat shoplifters as they hurled all kinds of epithets at them…on top of one elderly worker having a milkshake hurled at her face. As much as middle management feels bad for the workers, there is little within their power to alleviate the situation, as most of the power is in the hands of distant (and indifferent) bureaucrats.

read the rest of the story here.

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photo taken in Newark.