Report Examines ‘Gentrification’ In New Jersey's 3 Largest Cities

NEW JERSEY — It’s an old story: a low-income area sees a boom in real estate investment and wealthier residents – while the old residents of the neighborhood slowly get priced out of their homes. And New Jersey’s largest cities aren’t immune to the effects of “gentrification,” a new study claims.

Rutgers-Newark recently released a report that examines how gentrification is – and isn’t – playing out in three cities: Newark, Paterson and Jersey City.

Read the full study and learn about its methodology here.

Each city is seeing its own degree of gentrification, although it has manifested differently, according to researchers with Rutgers Law School’s Center on Law, inequality and Metropolitan Equity (CLiME).

The study divides the cities into three categories:

JOBLESS GENTRIFICATION – Newark is in the midst of “Jobless Gentrification,” where investment in expensive market-rate new housing and investor-led renovations raise prices without the corresponding job growth seen in traditional gentrification. The city has seen a surge in new units since the pandemic, and although it has taken steps to ensure that a portion of new units are affordable, like Paterson and Jersey City, it still has a shortage. Most people moving into Newark are coming from nearby areas in New Jersey. Others are part of the ongoing flow of people from the Caribbean, South America, and West Africa.

BEDROOM CITY – Jersey City is the “Bedroom City,” a fully gentrified place where population growth and higher prices are associated with its proximity to jobs across the Hudson River in New York City. People moving into and around Jersey City, where development is booming, are more affluent and highly educated than in Paterson or Newark. But in Jersey City, like nearby Newark and Paterson, international migration is still a primary catalyst for growth. Forty-one percent of Jersey City residents are foreign-born, with roughly half of those from Asia, including India, China and the Philippines. But the city attracts residents from all over the world, including Latin America and the Caribbean.

MIGRANT METRO – Paterson is the “Migrant Metro,” a species of municipalities that have become mosaics of working-class immigration whose density alone—not jobs or new housing—have intensified a lack of affordability. So far, it has not received investment from developers, yet it has experienced a dramatic increase in real estate prices, as large as, if not larger, than the others. Its population is at least two-thirds Latino, with a substantial number of Puerto Ricans and Dominicans. Paterson also has a growing Arab American community.

There are some common links between all three cities, researchers added. For example, longtime residents are being displaced by rising property values. Meanwhile, each lacks the job creation that’s normally part of gentrification.

Gentrification is also impacting the way that real estate developers are looking at each city, researchers said.

“Jersey City has a lot more street level gentrification assets, like restaurants, bars, and cafes,” CLiME director Daivd Troutt said.

“Newark, by contrast, privatizes many of those attractions within the developments themselves,” Troutt said. “That’s why you see buildings that contain their own playrooms, theatres, gyms and other amenities.”

“My guess that developers are betting on a future in which public spaces become more developed to reflect these tastes,” Troutt predicted. “In other words, Newark’s gentrified streets will in 10 years look more like Jersey City’s.”

Other findings included:

• Jersey City, Paterson and Newark each challenge the long-held notion that people come to cities as necessary job centers. Instead, immigration is the driver. The report cites “a confounding new fact of urban life: working class centers of immigration are no longer the affordable places they once were. People many not come for work, but [to be with] other people like them.”
• All three cities experienced a displacement of Black residents within the last 10 years. Since 2013, Jersey City has lost 2,936 Black residents and Paterson has lost 4,540 Black residents. Newark has had a large influx of Black, Caribbean and West African people. So, while it has gained 1,810 Black residents since 2013, this suggests some African Americans have left the city, raising questions about where they are going, and public data are not good at capturing that.
• All three cities have seen improvements in some socio-economic factors – including real increases in income, decreases in poverty, and improved educational attainment.
• Researchers also expressed concern about homelessness in the three cities.

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