The seeds of the 1967 Newark riots

New Jersey's premier newspaper, the Star Ledger, has a special retrospective on the 40th anniversary of the Newark riots that left 26 people dead and caused $10 million in damage. The first part in today's paper looks at the dreadful missteps taken by the city's government to manufacture a pressure cooker of despair, then rage. For example, when Newark failed to annex the suburbs, wealthier residents simply packed up and moved out:

In cities that expanded, the movement of well-to-do residents from the core to the periphery had no impact on the bottom line. Those residents still paid taxes to the city.

In tiny Newark, well-off residents looking to leave center city ended up in places like Montclair and Millburn, taking their checkbooks with them. This left Newark with less money for police and schools. It also created a greater tax burden on those left behind. That caused even more people to leave.

By 1967, Newark believed its property tax rate, $7.75 per $100 of assessed value, was the highest in the nation. If taxed at that rate today, an average home in New Jersey - valued at $350,000 - would owe more than $27,000 a year in property taxes.

Even though Springfield and Bergen was largely populated by rental housing, soaring taxes had an impact. Landlords, fearful that making improvements would increase their tax bills, began neglecting their properties.

Astonishingly, the Federal Housing Authority which was designed to help Americans into home ownership approved only 28 loans in all of Newark in 1936. So there was little hope for a private residence, public housing was a disaster, and apartment buildings were falling apart because landlords didn't want to pay oppressive taxes.