Under the leadership of a long-serving mayor and civil rights movement veteran, Newark has recently been designated as a "Most Livable City" and an "All-America City"; Newark has also won the Environmental Protection Administrator's Award. A major east coast port of entry and the largest city in the most densely populated state in the nation, Newark is a transportation, manufacturing, and education center. Its growing service economy is dominated by medical research, insurance, and high technology research and development activities. The devastating race riots of 1967 that dominated the city's image in the twentieth century have begun to recede into history at the start of the new century. Newark has still not completely rebuilt the stores and neighborhoods destroyed in that conflagration, but efforts to do so are well underway. While the average cost of a home in Newark has remained high, the city has made notable efforts to make housing accessible to all by building handsome, affordable townhouse complexes. Success in the finance and insurance industry has spurred development of more steel towers inhabited by the headquarters of major businesses. A city once known for divisiveness and destruction is now renowned for its renaissance of construction, recycling, and civility.