Gay Marriage May Accelerate Boom in Newark

My friend Joe in Belleville emailed me a November 26th opinion piece in the New York Daily News titled "Gay rights could pay big dividends", in which Richard Florida and Gary Gates suggest that if New Jersey's Legislature enacts civil unions for same-sex couples, and especially if it authorizes gay "marriage" as such, a lot of gay people now living in New York could pick up stakes and move to New Jersey, bringing their talents, and money, to the Garden State.

This will be a big deal — not just for same-sex couples, but for New Jersey's economy.

Why? Because, despite some rumblings in Albany, New York is likely to be years away from allowing same-sex marriage or civil unions. That will give [New] Jersey a serious competitive advantage in attracting gay couples and the economic benefits associated with their calling a place home.

A forthcoming study by UCLA's Williams Institute finds that revenue from weddings and wedding tourism alone (if the [New] Jersey legislature approves marriage, not civil unions) would add nearly $103 million per year in business to the state for at least the next few years.

But the economic impact could go way beyond that. Our research on what makes cities and regions grow shows that urban economic vitality today turns on openness to new ideas, new people and different lifestyles. Artistic, technological and cultural innovators and the more than 40 million workers who are part of what we call "the creative class" are drawn to places that are diverse and tolerant.

And when they settle somewhere, these people, who tend to have disposable income to spend in restaurants, bars and coffee shops, attract more of each other and fuel all kinds of economic activity.

Manhattan has long atracted gay men from all over the world. I myself left New Jersey for Manhattan in 1965, and stayed there for 35 years until the crammed-jammed, frazzled existence of that overcrowded and increasingly expensive island propelled me back to New Jersey, where I have SPACE and TREES and FLOWERS in a semi-suburban part of Newark a half hour car ride from the Village. Now, in addition to the push of overcrowding and high expenses of all kinds in Manhattan, New Jersey could also benefit from the pull of a society even more tolerant than New York, where they can actually marry and enjoy the economic security of being able to pool their resources to buy a house (and guys, remember that I will soon have my real-estate license, so I can help you find a very nice house in a very nice neighborhood in Newark) and enjoy legal protection of marital assets.
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"Marriage" is the key, NJ Legislators. Massachusetts had the guts to call their same-sex legal status "marriage". New Jersey must not be less courageous. There's money to be made in courage.
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Today's foto is of the serendipitous liting in late afternoon whereby a shadow falls just at the natural architectural break between segments of the skyscraper 15 Washington Street just below a set of pilasters.

This building, which overlooks splendid, statuary-filled Washington Park and adjoins the Newark Public Library, is to be created into a dormitory for married Rutgers-Newark students within the next year and a half. That should bring 24-hour liveliness to that part of Downtown. I look forward to it.