Newark: Community or Chaos

Abstract

This paper is an attempt to record the events and decisions surrounding the creation of the Medical College in Newark out of the seeds of the New Jersey College of Medicine and Dentistry. This issue, although often cited as an underlying cause of the Newark riots in July 1967, is also illustrative of what may happen constructively when the poor and the alienated confront the system with a series of demands. The Newark case indicates that the Model Cities Program, in conjunction with urban renewal and other federal programs, can be one of the mechanisms for increasing the competence of both City Hall and the ghetto to deal with the complex and interlocking problems of the neighborhood and the city. It offers insights into new levels of federal, local, and interagency coordination that can make agreement possible.

The confrontation between the poor citizens threatened with displacement and City Hall clearly showed that the "urban problem" is not only the sense of alienation felt in the ghetto community but also the capacity of a local government to solve its problems. If poverty is defined as the inability to command the events that affect one's life, both City Hall and the ghetto can be described as "poor."

This case study of the proposed relocation of a medical school begins with background sketches of Newark's politics, racial composition, health, education, and housing problems. There follows a survey of the chronology of events over a two-year period surrounding the site choice and acreage demands of the school in the face of ghetto area opposition. Interagency cooperation at federal, state, and local levels during the school's planning phases and application for funds is also depicted. The lessons of Newark are many. It is the intent of this paper to focus on a few acts from the urban drama.