A fair NYT editorial on the opportunities -- and challenges -- Cory Booker faces after his landslide victory last week.

Often, after winning an election, a newly christened mayor, governor or president notes that the hard part is yet to come. Campaigning is like playing tennis without a net. Governing is like playing football without a helmet.

In Cory Booker's case, however, it seems unfair to diminish the obstacles he faced to win Newark's mayoralty last Tuesday. After all that Mr. Booker has been through since he tried and failed to unseat Sharpe James four years ago, governing Newark may actually seem easy.

For about a day.

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May 14, 2006

Editorial

A New Day in Newark

Often, after winning an election, a newly christened mayor, governor or president notes that the hard part is yet to come. Campaigning is like playing tennis without a net. Governing is like playing football without a helmet.

In Cory Booker's case, however, it seems unfair to diminish the obstacles he faced to win Newark's mayoralty last Tuesday. After all that Mr. Booker has been through since he tried and failed to unseat Sharpe James four years ago, governing Newark may actually seem easy.

For about a day.

Mr. Booker inherits a city that remains too poor, too badly governed, too underserved, too dangerous and, at times, too hopeless. Municipal cheerleaders like to assert that Newark is in the middle of a renaissance. Yes, there has been some improvement in parts of the city. But the renaissance imagery rings true mainly because Newark's political culture resembles that of the Borgias.

Mr. Booker will enter office with an impressive mandate from the city and with the good will of many New Jerseyans, especially those of the Newark diaspora scattered throughout the state. Like characters in a Philip Roth novel, former Newark residents now living in Morris County or down the Shore have never let go of their Newark memories. They could not vote in last week's election. But they certainly followed the results.

Among Mr. Booker's first priorities will be public safety. While overall crime in Newark dipped during the last years of the Sharpe James era, it remains stubbornly unacceptable. The new mayor has promised to redeploy hundreds of officers in an effort to make the city's beleaguered citizens safer, and its visitors — expatriates included — more at ease. So much of Newark's unrealized potential can be attributed to a single issue: public safety. As New York and other cities demonstrated in the 1990's, private investment can follow public safety.

As Mr. Booker tries to reinvigorate Newark, he needn't look very far to find a model. That model is New Brunswick, a mere 40 minutes down the New Jersey Turnpike.

Thirty years ago, as Newark was caught in a spiral of flight and disinvestment after the riots of 1967, New Brunswick was teetering on the edge. Crime was high, moving vans were traveling in only one direction, and downtown was boarded up. John Lynch, who is now counted among New Jersey's most influential political bosses, was elected mayor in 1979 on the strength of the same hopes Mr. Booker inspires today.

Working closely with Johnson & Johnson, Rutgers and the city's health care industry, Mr. Lynch laid the groundwork for the New Brunswick of today, where the shops and restaurants of George Street and its environs bustle by day and by night. The comparison with James-era Newark is instructive: New Brunswick rebuilt itself storefront by storefront, not by hitching its fate to large capital projects, like, for example, a downtown hockey arena.

There is little Mr. Booker can do to reverse course on Broad Street, where Newark's new arena is beginning to rise, though he can surely reverse the city's reputation as a bad place to do business. His connections to New York financiers will not hurt, but business leaders and real estate developers ultimately will judge him by the caliber of people he brings to City Hall.

Newark has suffered for more than a generation, unjustly so. The city and its 280,000 residents do not lack for assets. It has easy access to public transportation, neighborhoods like the Ironbound are as vital and as interesting as any in New York, tens of thousands of college students study in the city, and institutions like the Newark Museum and the New Jersey Performing Arts Center offer first-class exhibits and shows.

Newark deserves a fresh start. With luck, it has begun.