Governing reports:
In Newark, N.J., where the unemployment rate is well above the state and national average, less than 20 percent of the jobs are filled by Newark residents. In Baltimore, a third of residents have jobs in the city where they live. In New Orleans, it’s 46 percent.
Among the city’s 20 biggest employers — colleges, hospitals and corporate headquarters — only three percent of the money they spend on buying goods and services goes to vendors in Newark.
This helps to explain why one in three Newark residents live below the poverty line and why the city lost population for decades. But Newark Mayor Ras Baraka wants to turn those numbers around. His solution — an initiative called Hire. Buy. Live. — could provide other local governments with a playbook, some say, for spurring economic development in a way that prioritizes the welfare of residents…