There are huge advantages living in close proximity to where all the money is, and New York City, is the financial capital of not only the United States, but of the world. You would think by virtue of being within just a few miles of New York City as well as having a major airport which is utilized for people traveling to and from NYC in Newark, New Jersey, that almost for a certainty, Newark would be a rich and vibrant city in and of itself. In fact, it isn't, its income per capita is significantly below the median for the United States, and a significant amount of that blame can be laid at the feet of the governmental policies of New Jersey.
Assuming that a city like Newark, wants to be a viable alternative to the high cost of living and doing business in NYC, than the first step in order to become that "go to" spot is to undercut NYC on taxes. NYC is not only a high tax city, it resides in a high tax State as well as being a high tax and high cost of living place to conduct business in, yet, as long as you are close to the epicenter of NYC, you don't have to physically reside in NYC in order to provide services to those that are looking to save a little money. This means that because Newark is not NYC, it needs to entice people to their city by saving them money overall and when it comes to money, most everybody, has a desire to save money and NYC is an easy target to take advantage of.
Most people have short memories or just assume that taxes have always been the way that they are, but in fact, taxes change all of the time. For instance, the overall sales tax rate for retail products in NYC is 8.875%, whereas in New Jersey it's 7%, but the thing is, New Jersey didn't even implement a sales tax until 1966. This means, that New Jersey could readily drop their sales tax rate, and probably by doing so, capture significant purchases from people taking the short trip from NYC to Newark in order to transact their business, and so despite a lower sales tax rate, New Jersey would possibly generate more sales tax revenue by so doing. In regards to the State income tax rate, NYC tops out at 8.82%, whereas New Jersey tops out at 8.97%, and while it is true that the lower income tax brackets in New Jersey are taxed significantly lower than lower earners in New York, the upper tax bracket for New Jersey kicks in at $500,001, whereas in NYC it begins at $1,029,250. New Jersey didn't even have a State income tax until 1976, and needs to drop its upper tax rates down significantly in order to entice businesses and their employees that have large amounts of income to move to New Jersey and the only possible way to do so is to reduce their income tax rates.
The American dream for most people is to own a home, and in this area, New jersey, is the absolute worst of the bunch, with the highest property tax rates in the nation, whereas New York, while also being quite high, is lower than the New Jersey rate. There is absolutely no justification for New Jersey's property tax rate being so high, and that hurts its competitiveness with NYC. In addition, the New Jersey corporate tax rate is 9%, whereas NYC recently reduced their rate to 6.5%.
The bottom line is that Newark is not interested in garnering some of that great wealth which is literally right next door to them, because their tax policies are pretty much as bad or worse than NYC's itself. What New Jersey should do, is to understand that fundamentally that taxes matter, and by lowering their taxes, they will be the recipients of and be able to tap into some of that prosperity of NYC. Newark is the prime example of being in the right place in order to become a vibrant city, but it needs to take positive steps to do so, and pretending that what has occurred via its tax policies over the last two generations has helped them is flawed and misguided, to which, they should recognize that they are totally clueless about how to properly pluck the goose, cause it sure seems like they have instead just gone ahead and cooked it.