By Donald M. Payne, Jr.

This summer marked the 50th anniversary of the Newark riots. To many, that's the beginning and end of our story. I know better.

Newark and Newarkers are tirelessly fighting to rejuvenate the city's economy, reinvest in our neighborhoods, and reinvent our city. Progress has been slower than hoped, but undeniably steady.

Newark is ready for its next big step.

On Sept. 7, Amazon launched a search for its second headquarters. The project is expected to come with $5 billion of investment into the selected city and bring up to 50,000 high-paying jobs. Newark and New Jersey are uniquely situated to submit a competitive bid for the project because of our robust transportation and freight infrastructure, world-class universities, and proximity to New York City (but with real estate at a fraction of the price).

In its Request for Proposal, Amazon articulates a number of priorities for its host city that Newark meets or exceeds. Let's go down the list:

* A metro area of one million or more people. Newark is the second largest city in a metro of over 23 million people, the largest metro area in the country.

* A business-friendly environment. Two Fortune 500 companies already call Newark home - Prudential Financial and PSEG. Prudential has been headquartered in Newark from its founding over 140 years ago to the present day. Audible, an Amazon subsidiary and the world's largest producer of downloadable audiobooks, is based here, along with Panasonic's American subsidiary.

* A place with an ability to attract strong technical talent. The city of Newark houses the state's paramount technical university, NJIT. Also within the city, we have Rutgers University's Newark campus. Within an hour of Newark are four of the country's oldest and most distinguished universities - Rutgers-New Brunswick, Princeton, Columbia, and NYU. Building relationships with these top universities will create a pipeline of strong talent. An investment in Newark is an investment in these students.

* A site within 30 miles of the region's population center, 45 minutes of an international airport, 2 miles of major highways and arterial roads, and with direct access to mass transit. Newark is less than ten miles from Manhattan. It houses one of the nation's busiest airports - Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR) - within the city proper. Newark is bisected by several major interstates, including: twelve lanes of I-95, the primary north-south corridor on the East Coast; I-280, a spur of I-80 that connects New Jersey to the San Francisco Bay Area; and I-78, which is a major trucking route. Finally, Newark is heavily integrated into the region's extensive mass transit network.

What truly sets Newark apart is its unique confluence of passenger and freight infrastructure that is critical to a company as concerned with supply chain efficiency as Amazon.

In addition to EWR, which saw over 40 million passengers and almost 750,000 tons of cargo last year, the city has the East Coast's busiest seaport. The dredging of the Newark Bay and the raising of the Bayonne Bridge are complete. New Panamax ships capable of carrying loads more than double the old standard can now call to Port Newark-Elizabeth.

Newark has a density of transit options downtown that should be the envy of cities of every size. Six of North Jersey's nine commuter rail lines stop at one of Newark's two downtown stations - Newark Broad Street Station and Newark Penn Station.

Over one hundred Amtrak trains service Newark Penn Station daily, including Amtrak's premier Acela Express service, connecting Newark with Boston, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C. Newark Penn has 24/7 service to Manhattan on PATH rapid transit lines, and the Newark to World Trade Center line will be extended to EWR in the coming years, opening up the city's south ward to new transit-oriented development. Two light rail lines and over thirty bus lines service downtown.

Fifty years after the riots, Newark has come a long way. Businesses have returned to the city. Regardless of Amazon's choice, I am confident about Newark's future. Newark is the city I was born and raised in, and it is the city where I raised my family.

The factories and many of the industrial jobs that helped build Newark left and likely won't return. In their place, a new economy has developed making Newark one of the nation's premier centers for the transportation, logistics, and distribution industries.

Newark and New Jersey have a once in a generation opportunity to attract a company of Amazon's size and caliber, and we should seize it. We should let the last, sometimes halting, fifty years of progress serve as merely prelude to a bright new era for our city. This is the moment to culminate the reinvention of Newark.

Donald M. Payne Jr., a Democrat, represents New Jersey's 10th District in the House of Representatives, where he's a member of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

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