Rutgers-Newark Report Explores Gentrification in Jersey City, Newark, and Paterson

Rutgers-Newark researchers have released a first-of-its-kind report on how gentrification is—and isn’t— playing out in three mid-sized New Jersey cities: Newark, Paterson and Jersey City.

The report,  “The Other Cities: Migration and Gentrification in Jersey City, Newark and Paterson,’’ explores how each city fits the traditional model of gentrification and how they depart from it. 

According to the report, Jersey City is fully gentrified while Newark is in transition. Paterson is on a different path.

But in all three cities, long-time residents are being displaced by rising property values, and each lacks the job creation that’s normally part of gentrification, according to researchers from Rutgers Law School’s Center on Law, inequality & Metropolitan Equity (CLiME), which published the report.

Another key difference between gentrification in these cities and others is the impact of international migration.

“The Other Cities are diverse, largely working-class places without the spectacle of affluence known in their bigger cousins,’’ according to the report.

The CLiME report describes housing trends and neighborhood changes in these cities, which have experienced large population growth, a persistent lack of housing affordability, and a decrease in African American residents. 

In the shadow of the metro region’s larger cities and suburbs, mid-sized cities like these, with a population between 100,000 to 300,000, are often overlooked.

 “News coverage and academic study rarely explore these cities. Quietly, their costs are rising and homelessness is expanding. They are grappling with change amid efforts to revitalize and jobs are not attracting newcomers,’’ according to the report.

Each city is also symbolic of patterns emerging nationwide.“Their traits are important bellwethers of urban life across the U.S,’’ CLiME observed. 

Of the three, Jersey City and Newark have seen outward signs of gentrifications, driven by an influx of more affluent newcomers who commute to jobs in New York City, said Daivd Troutt, director of CLiME. 

“Jersey City has a lot more street level gentrification assets, like restaurants, bars, and cafes. Newark, by contrast, privatizes many of those attractions within the developments themselves. That’s why you see buildings that contain their own playrooms, theatres, gyms and other amenities,’’ he said.  

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

In contrast, Paterson is experiencing a sharp increase in real estate values without the trendy commercial spots that often result from gentrification, said Troutt. 

The study divides the cities into three categories:

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.

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 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. 

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.

Additional findings from the report: 

• 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 ten 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. 
•  However, the Other Cities suffer from rapidly escalating homelessness. In all three cities, the count of the homeless population in January 2024 was much larger than it was a year ago.