Cory Booker

 

	Cory Booker   Public servant who has increased affordable housing in Newark, N.J., cut the city's crime rate and wooed more than $1 billion in economic development.
Influence: 131.1 Reach:15.4 Substance: 8.5 Media: 1778 Internet: 1340000	Job: Mayor, Newark, N.J.    Sector: Government/Politics    Location: Newark, N.J.    Age: 42

Cory Booker personifies America's new breed of hip, cerebral black politicians. As mayor of New Jersey's largest and arguably most troubled city, Booker is reinventing the term "people's mayor," opting at one point to live in a Newark housing project to glean conditions firsthand. The Yale Law School graduate is a rabid Tweeter who uses the service to respond to citizens' needs. A longtime champion of education reform, Booker secured a $100 million education grant from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.