Christie's campaign promises to cities go largely unfulfilled

As a conservative candidate for governor, Chris Christie visited New Jersey's deeply liberal and severely impoverished urban areas. He filmed a campaign ad at Camden's infamous Tent City homeless encampment.

And he released a list of 11 policy promises for "bringing back New Jersey's cities."

But nearly two years into his term, the Republican governor has fulfilled only one of those promises and has not publicly prioritized the others.  (See below for a list.) As many as four tent cities exist in Camden, hungry children are increasingly visiting the city's main soup kitchen, and the depleted police force struggles to fight rising crime.

Other cities across New Jersey have similar hardships, and some mayors and advocates for the poor say the administration has not paid enough attention - or enough money - to address the poverty-related issues of foreclosures, low-income housing, and welfare.

"Too long in New Jersey, politicians of both parties have ignored our cities," Christie said in a 2009 campaign video. "If I'm elected governor, we will make a focus of our administration the revitalization of our cities."

But Christie's budgetary priorities tell a different story. After-school programming for about 3,500 mostly poor New Jersey children was cut, taking with it five programs in Camden, nine in Newark, and one in Gloucester City, according to the nonprofit NJ After 3. Christie has slashed funding for legal aid for low-income residents and reduced the earned-income tax credit for the working poor.

And state-funded nonprofit groups that handle social services, foreclosure counseling, and urban redevelopment say dealing with the administration has grown harder.

"The governor, like most politicians, made a lot of promises, and we haven't seen much in the way of delivery," said Staci Berger, director of policy at the Housing and Community Development Network of New Jersey.

To be sure, a national economy crippled by the recession and decades of urban malaise are the root of the state's urban troubles.

Christie inherited a situation that has bedeviled governors of both parties. But his spokesman said the governor had concentrated on urban issues.

"I think we can live with the criticism of not following through with the naming or branding of an urban agenda, but to suggest we haven't delivered and are not working in this area pretty intensely is flat wrong and in defiance of the facts," Michael Drewniak wrote in an e-mail.