THE FIGHT TO PULL THE CITY
BACK FROM THE BRINK WILL “LIVE
AND DIE” ON WHETHER PEOPLE CAN
FEEL SAFE IN NEWARK AGAIN
—CORY BOOKER
lic sector jobs, from teachers to tax
collectors, have disappeared since
Obama took office in 2008.
Police departments are not immune. In the wake of the Great Recession, cities of all sizes and in every
state have cut back on police staffing, in some cases drastically. For
wealthier cities with low or manageable crime rates, such cuts can be
seen as a reasonable source of savings
in tough economic times. For poorer
cities with serious crime problems,
these cuts may mean that the cost of
the current austerity climate will one
day be tallied not just in dollars and
cents, but in bloodshed and tears.
In cities like Stockton, Calif., and
Flint, Mich., sharp contractions in
police staffing were accompanied by
an explosion of violence that shows
no sign of abating. It is a situation
that Newark’s leaders desperately
hope to avoid.
“A DANGEROUS VIEW”
The struggles of municipalities have
emerged as a potent issue on the
campaign trail, with President Obama
and his Democratic allies in Congress
pushing a new stimulus bill allocating tens of billions of dollars for local
public safety and education hiring.
Republicans in Congress dismissed
the bill out of hand, calling it porkbarrel spending that will only add to
the ballooning deficit.
The Republican push toward
smaller government—premised on
the idea that spending cuts and lower taxes will stimulate the economy
and revive struggling cities—has
been even more successful on the
state level. For many conservatives,
a model to emulate is Wisconsin,
where the newly-elected Tea Partyallied Republican governor slashed
pay, pensions and health care for
the state’s public sector employees,
then stripped their unions of collective bargaining rights.
Mitt Romney, the Republican presi-