Its purpose, first and foremost, is to amplify the urban voice in the state planning process and build statewide support for the state plan. Additionally, the report highlights the strengths and potential, not just the problems, in the state's largest cities and draws attention to public policies detrimental to the health of New Jersey cities and the future prosperity of the entire state. Major Recommendations Stronger, healthier cities can help New Jersey protect its environment, hold the line on public service expenditures, stem the loss of farmlands, and meet the state plan's other growth management objectives. All the recommendations try to breathe economic life into cities and make urban neighborhoods more livable. Recommendations for fundamental breakthrough approaches to dramatically alter the way the state responds to urban conditions are accompanied by short-term modifications.
Some measures call for changes in the state plan and the state planning commission.
Others lie beyond the plan's scope but are nonetheless needed to improve urban downtowns and neighborhoods. Urban Initiative participants take issue with what they regard, as the state plan's overly pessimistic view of tier-one communities and call on the state planning commission to define cities in functional terms. The state plan's land-use and infrastructure policies are good steps to urban redevelopment. But state government must augment the state plan with policies to improve human resources and community services, two areas especially important to tier-one communities. In addition to the above reforms, the report recommends measures that lie beyond the jurisdiction of the state plan but are nonetheless important for well-functioning, thriving cities.