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Newark's Mayor Cory Booker has a reputation for his devotion to his rough New Jersey city.

“I felt something powerful as I was coming to the city as a younger man and then eventually in law school, I was very much passionate about urban issues and very much passionate about this idea in America, then American dream can be made real in urban areas,” Booker said in an interview with CBS News' Randall Pinkston.

Pinkston asked the mayor to grade the once crime riddled city at the half way point of his term. “I'm a tough grader,” Booker said, “so definitely above average but we are not at the A level that I want to be.”

“I think we can go a lot further in the final two years, if you compare us to other cities I think we are showing a tremendous amount of success but I demand more,” he said.

The mayor added that in the last two year period the city has seen a forty percent drop in murders and shootings, “which is very dramatic.”




In 1998, Booker controversially set up permanent residence in one of Newark’s worst projects.

“I was living across the street from it for a few years and the folks in that community where so powerful in my life, still to this day," he said. "I always say I got my B.A. from Standford but my Ph.D. from the streets of Newark and some of the best professors, elders and friends of mine were living in that housing complex.”

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Arleen Lebe is a writer for CBS News Radio.

Struggling American cities can expect a helping hand and bold new initiatives from the incoming Obama administration, Newark Mayor Cory Booker says.

Booker was an early supporter of Mr. Obama and has had ongoing communication with Mr. Obama’s transition team. In Booker’s view, Mr. Obama’s urban roots and his time as a community organizer in Chicago make him especially receptive to the needs of urban America.

The new administration will have a White House Office of Urban Policy and that is all to the good, says Booker. But he tells CBS News Radio that local leaders and not the new young president will have ultimate responsibility -- with federal support -- for making changes that will make life better for city residents. Booker recently brought together a group of mayors in New Jersey to prepare a policy paper to assist the transition team in developing new policies to assist America’s cities.

In an interview with CBS News' Nick Young, Mayor Booker identified some of the priorities the mayors brought to the attention of the incoming administration. These include federal support for “greening” the cities as a way to create jobs and a better quality of life. They want federal investment in -- but not handouts for -- their cities. And they are especially concerned that the incoming president’s economic stimulus program balances the needs of urban and suburban areas in allocating federal money for infrastructure improvements.

Click here to listen to the Cory Booker interview.