Home prices have crept up as people priced out of Rochester suburbs look east toward Newark and the surrounding area. Long-timers say the town feels less like itself — newcomers say they're bringing investment. Who's right?
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Add your commentLived here my whole life, 61 years old this October. Honest answer? Both sides are right and both sides are wrong. The newcomers aren't villains. The old-timers aren't just being sentimental. What's actually happening is change is moving faster than the town's institutions — the schools, the housing authority, the local businesses — can absorb it. That's the real problem. Speed. Not people.
Born and raised on Mason Street, and I'll tell you exactly what's changed: used to know every face at the Tops. Now I'm lucky if I recognize one person in the whole store. That's not 'investment,' that's displacement with a nicer word slapped on it. My parents bought their house for $67,000. Same size house two streets over just sold for $189,000. Who exactly is that helping?
Nope. Hard disagree with the 'bringing investment' crowd. Investment in WHAT exactly? I've seen exactly zero new local businesses open because of this influx. What I have seen is my neighbor — retired, fixed income, lived here 40 years — get priced out of her rental because the landlord realized he could charge Rochester prices now. That's not investment, that's extraction.
Someone in this comment section is going to tell me Newark has always been welcoming and open to newcomers, and to that person I say: come talk to literally any Black or Latino family who tried to buy in certain parts of this town twenty years ago. The 'authentic Newark character' some folks are mourning wasn't exactly a golden era for everyone.
The character argument is a little rich coming from people whose 'character' included a downtown that had three empty storefronts for every one open business. I love this town but let's not romanticize what it looked like circa 2018.
I commute to Rochester every day and I resent being treated like some kind of invasive species at Wayne County planning meetings. We pay taxes here. Our kids go to school here. I volunteer at the food pantry on Driving Park Road. At what point do I get to have an opinion about this community without someone implying I don't belong?
My grandmother ran a diner on West Union Street for 22 years. She always said Newark survives because it bends without breaking. I think about that a lot lately. The town has absorbed change before — the canal era, the factories, the farm consolidations. This is just the next wave. Doesn't mean it's painless, but it's not the end either.
Okay I have to correct something I keep seeing in this thread — Newark is NOT in Monroe County, people keep mixing it up. It's the county seat of Wayne County. This matters because the county services, tax base, and planning decisions are completely separate from what Rochester or Monroe County decides to do. The growth pressure here is real but the local government actually has more tools to manage it than people realize if they'd bother showing up to village board meetings.
moved here from Greece (the town, not the country lol) about two years ago and honestly newark gets a bad rap it doesnt deserve. yeah its different from the suburbs but thats kind of why we came? we wanted something with actual history and character not another neighborhood that looks like it was assembled from a kit. we're not here to change anything we just wanted a house we could actually afford
lol the town's character. what character. no offense to lifers but the bowling alley closed, the movie theater's been gone since before i was born, and the best restaurant option for years was the Burger King on 31. if new people moving in eventually means we get like... an actual sit-down restaurant that isnt a diner... maybe that's okay
Can someone who actually lives there tell me — is the Farmer's Market on the square still going strong? I moved away to Buffalo four years ago and I think about that market more than is probably healthy. That market WAS Newark to me every Saturday morning. Just curious if that's held on through all this.
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