Paterson is a city in and the county seat of Passaic County, New Jersey. It's New Jersey's third-most-populous city.
Paterson was once a working class community - a hub for manufacturing, including the textile, firearms, silk, and locomotive industries, which provided jobs for thousands of workers. In 1913, it was also the site of the six month-long Paterson silk strike, which, though defeated, demanded the eight-hour work day and better working conditions.
However, this source of employment and prosperity began to fade away when many factories shut down or moved to locations where they could enforce harmful anti-union conditions.
Upscale neighborhoods nearby, like Wayne and Paramus, which were filled with large department stores (some of them anti-union), also took shoppers away from Paterson and forced the closing of many small businesses, further hurting the city.
Patterson Mayor Jeffery Jones has taken some innovative steps in an attempt to revive the city, by opening the city up to international manufacturing and trade. His eight day economic development trip to India, was received with mixed reactions. Should cities like Patterson look across the Atlantic in hopes of a more prosperous future? And is Patterson the poster child for many other cities across the country?
Share your views with me on twitter: @susanmodaress
2 окт 2024