Newark

Newark exists because Puritans fleeing Puritan Connecticut sought even purer religious freedom—the last Puritan settlement in America, founded 1666 on the Passaic River's tidal reach. This origin encoded a paradox: a community founded on exclusion that would become America's most diverse gateway.

The Passaic's navigable waters created Newark's first niche: leather tanning from the 1700s, exploiting oak bark tannins and river access. By 1870, Newark was 'Patent Leather Capital of the World,' its toxin-tolerant economy foreshadowing industrial resilience. The 1915 opening of Port Newark triggered a phase transition—suddenly Newark controlled the busiest cargo gateway on the Eastern Seaboard.

Peak metabolism came in 1930: 442,337 residents, breweries, jewelry manufacturing, insurance headquarters. But the organism contained its own antibodies. 1967's six-day rebellion, triggered by decades of redlining and police violence, accelerated white flight and corporate exodus. Population crashed to 273,546 by 2000—a 38% decline that left Newark resembling a hollowed exoskeleton.

The regeneration began when Prudential Financial, Newark's keystone species since 1875, committed $1 billion over a decade to downtown revival. This wasn't charity—it was ecosystem engineering, creating conditions for other organisms to return. McKinsey opened a 700-person office. Audible made Newark its global headquarters. Port Newark now handles $200 billion annually in cargo.

By 2025, construction cranes mark transformation: Lionsgate Studios building a $100 million production facility, apartments rising on formerly abandoned blocks, population recovered to 311,549. The 2026 FIFA World Cup will showcase MetLife Stadium just across the Passaic—Newark's century-long nadir potentially ending with global visibility. A Puritan settlement that lost everything is pioneering post-industrial regeneration.