Urban Revitalization Strategic public investments to attract private capital are boosting revitalization efforts in Newark, the state's largest city. Cultural facilities, such as the New Jersey State Aquarium at Camden, are important to the State's urban revitalization efforts. The essential elements of the Statewide Policies for Urban Revitalization are to revitalize distressed communities by strategically investing public resources to leverage private investment in jobs and housing and to provide comprehensive public services to enhance the social and economic opportunities of urban populations.
Communities prosper and decline.
Their changing fortunes are rarely the result of social forces within the control of single local jurisdictions. Communities are not simply built forms. They are social arrangements, either continually attracting investment in both human and financial terms, or falling into disrepair and decay. Not all municipalities have shared in the half century of robust economic expansion that has characterized the post World War II era in the State. An irony is that this expansion undermined the fiscal health and economic viability of our Urban Centers.