Sustainable Newark

Newark is in good company.

As with the other cities along the Northeast corridor, Newark is struggling with aging infrastructure and a complicated industrial legacy. But Newark does not have to look as far as Providence, or even Bridgeport, to understand how older cities are tackling sustainability. Just across the river, New York’s Million Trees initiative is one of the most ambitious and comprehensive urban forestry initiatives in the nation. And an hour to the south, Philadelphia leads the nation in best-practices urban stormwater management. Discrete sustainability actions such as these ones need to be developed within the overarching need for a comprehensive strategy that focuses on local priority areas and that coordinates implementation mechanisms with a fiscal point of view. The City of Newark should establish an ongoing planning exchange with both of these potential partner cities and take advantage of both the good will and the technical expertise they have to offer.

Our research here suggests that Newark is as well, if not better positioned than these other cities to leverage sustainability for urban revitalization. The exceptional variety of built and open space environments creates opportunities for sustainability initiatives of almost every kind and scale: from retrofitting older building stock with new energy technologies to best practice storm water management in the parks, wetlands and watersheds. A highly diversified economy, with a changing but still well positioned industrial base, creates unique opportunities for green manufacturing and ​‘eco-industry” where waste streams and input streams among industries are linked.

Newark is already well underway as a sustainable city. City-wide initiatives with important implications for sustainability include the restoration of the Passaic River Waterfront and the development of green affordable housing stock. The City is actively engaging the citizenry, including the previously incarcerated, in a variety of green jobs initiatives. There are new opportunities for subsidized weatherization and energy reduction programs as well. At the neighborhood level, both the Lincoln Park and Ironbound neighborhoods are implementing best practice stormwater management techniques and are actively promoting green jobs and green building practices. These are all excellent initiatives and the city and the neighborhoods should build on the energy and capital already invested to bring these to full fruition.

In addition, the legal and institutional infrastructure is in place to support a model city-wide sustainability initiative. The detailed audit of the Newark ordinances that was undertaken as part of this study suggests that while the ordinances are neither assertive enough nor clear enough about specific standards to be as effective as they could be, the foundation is broad enough and strong enough to enable the most progressive sustainability measures.

As suggested above, Newark must continue to build on the neighborhood-scale initiatives that are underway and should reinforce the strong legal and institutional framework for sustainability that already exists. In addition, this report recommends the following:

• Find New Partners: Find new opportunities for public-private partnerships as well as partnerships with institutions such as NJIT, UMDNJ and Rutgers University.
• Leverage Industrial Strength Sustainability: As suggested above, Newark should take advantage of its extensive industrial landscape that offers a variety of opportunities including wind harvesting, solar arrays, green roofs and storm-water capture and reclamation as well as more complex opportunities for green jobs ​“eco-industry.”
• Work Together: An integrated approach to sustainability requires that different agencies and departments within agencies work closely together. Reinforcing the role of the Environmental Commission is strategic here.
• Get the Word Out: The Newark case studies suggest that there could be better communication between the communities and the City, both in terms of what each is trying to achieve for sustainability and what each is struggling with.
• Re-Focus on Health: The city should highlight the role that sustainability can play in addressing Newark’s health issues, especially as they relate to asthma, active living and food choice

Finally, one of the strongest themes to emerge from our survey of national case studies was the role that outreach and advocacy play in comprehensive sustainability programs, whether in New York, where the web site for the Million Trees initiative allows residents to post ​“planting stories” and to suggest sites for tree planting; or in Portland, where Smart Trips program volunteers go door-to-door to distribute information about transportation alternatives. In Newark, there has been no shortage of planning, but civic engagement continues to be a challenge. A comprehensive sustainability initiative can point the way to addressing this challenge because sustainability initiatives lend themselves to incremental, but potentially highly visible results that citizen stakeholders can truly take ownership of. By leveraging sustainability to achieve new levels of citizen empowerment, it is Newark that will be the next national case study in sustainable cities.