Of course, relations between Occupy protesters and their city can be inherently fragile. In Philadelphia, despite consistent expressions of sympathy from much of the local government, protesters were asked on Sunday to abandon their encampment, where they had been for weeks.

Still, throughout the Newark protest, acrimony has been minimal, participants say, because unlike in Lower Manhattan, few bankers or corporate executives pass the site during the day.

The city’s median household income from 2005 to 2009 was $35,507, according to the Census Bureau, barely half of the state median and roughly $15,000 less than the national figure.

Occupy Newark remains small, attracting no more than a few dozen participants to a typical meeting. Many are from Newark; others come from neighboring cities and towns; a few are alumni of Occupy Wall Street, dispatched from across the Hudson River to dispense advice on how to expand the protest.

At the meeting Tuesday of the Municipal Council — where residents often speak too close to the microphone as they air grievances, and a fan blows through a dirty slit in the wall to make the American flag wave when the National Anthem is played — protesters said they planned to shout down council members and enumerate the demands of their occupation.

But as the meeting entered its fourth hour, some began to lose their nerve.

“Should we do a mike check?” one whispered to a peer, referring to the movement’s hallmark call-and-response tactic. “That’s what we do, right?”

After officials praised their cause, the group decided against an interruption.

For many protesters, the message has remained persistently local, particularly when compared with the sprawling ambitions of the gatherings in Manhattan and other cities.