Posted on 03/09/2006 6:48:25 AM PST by Huck
Who's laughing now?
New Jersey, the state that spawned a thousand wise-guy bumper stickers and became the butt of a million late-night jokes, is actually a nice place to live.
The research group Morgan Quitno crunched the numbers this year and yesterday ranked New Jersey the fifth-most-livable state.
As for its neighbors?
Pennsylvania finished 30th, New York 32d.
"The people we talk to say they wouldn't live anywhere else, and I have to go along with that," said Mark Moran, a Bloomfield resident and one of the editors of Weird New Jersey magazine. "Whether it grows on you or people just don't know any better, I don't know."
New Jersey has long had a tragically poor reputation, earned by corrupt politicians, homicidal mobsters (real and fictional), surreal traffic patterns (who invented the jughandle, anyway?), toxic waste, and big hair.
The state's image has been so bad that even then-acting Gov. Richard Codey took the time last year to rollick in some of the more humorous entries in his public slogan contest.
Among the favorites: "New Jersey: You got a problem with that?" and "New Jersey: Most of our elected officials have not been indicted."
Morgan Quitno, a Kansas-based publisher of statistical data, based its rankings on 44 factors, and New Jersey shined in many.
The state moved up from eighth place a year ago. New Hampshire was judged the most livable state for the third year in a row.
The study determined that New Jersey has excellent schools; an educated, wealthy population; and relatively low rates of crime and poverty.
"We don't claim to be finding the most exciting place or the best place to take a vacation," said Scott Morgan, president of Morgan Quitno. "It's just looking at very basic things. Other people can choose to look at other factors."
In other words, the things that make Jersey so Jersey didn't count against it. (Except for the toxic waste: Morgan found New Jersey had the most "hazardous waste sites on the National Priority List per 10,000 square miles.")
Moran also noted that if auto insurance and property tax rates had been considered, New Jersey's ranking would have sunk like a stone.
But in Morgan Quitno's world, livability is measured by factors such as student-teacher ratios and per-capita spending on the arts, and New Jersey excelled in both.
For Moran, there is no conflict in a state's combining livability with a tradition for the weird and absurd.
"You've got to take the good with the bad," he said. "The fact that it's such an odd and unique place... certainly makes it more livable for me."
Morgan visited the state last year and made a swing through Camden, the city his publishing company has famously labeled the most dangerous the last two years.
"We didn't advertise who we were," he said.
2 :-)
lol. yeah, well, i don't really go in for "rippers" myself, but it's yet another example of the smorgesborg that is NJ.
Hey you've got a have a few $$ to live in New Jersey. It's totally corrupt and you get taxed to death. Most of us have our kids in private schools. Public schools, "blue ribbon" are liberal havens for the godless. Indeed you will get a first class education in liberalism. I believe the state extorts 12K per pupil for our lovely public schools.
Turn our noses up at Cali? I haven't noticed that. I think California is the holy grail. I think the San Fran area is one of the most beautiful parts of the country. Amazing place. Don't care for the occasional earthquake, but it's a fabulous place. Hey, it was good enough for Ronaldus!
Condolences, condolences my friend. My sincerest condolences!
This author is on drugs.
New Jersey is a godless viper den.
Most of the folks who leave New Jersey go to Florida to retire or as tax exiles. Few go to your hayseed states and those that do think the locals are brain dead.
Quote: "Oh man, you can have Massachusetts. But you can't live in Carolina and Colorado and Massachusetts AT THE SAME TIME. That's the point."
Oh, if that is the point, then I will take NH, where I once had the privlige of living. In NH, you can have the mountains that BLOW the Pocohills away, Ocean, lakes, scenery, everything and with a HELL of alot less hastle than NJ and those things BLOW NJ away.
And no, NJ drivers might just be on par with Mass drivers as the worse. Or have ya noticed that none of the insurance companies are beating down the doors to do business in Joisey.
Oh, and I would gladly give up the Ocean for a chance to live in the Rockies. By the way, there is more than one state in the Rockies, for example, Utah or Washington (Whistler is nearby as is the Ocean, I believe). Trust me, it doesn't take forever to get to the ski slope on a Saturday at either place and the skiing is worth it.
Yes, Joisey has a little of everything and alot of people who want to enjoy that little making everything overcrowded and overwhelmed and, well, to little. On the Joisey shore every square inch of space has a house on it. As for Mass, my point was that the rate Joisey is going, there will be NO difference between it and Joisey when it comes to the drawbacks of living in Mass v. Joisey.
You forgot pulled pork! Hey stainlessbanner, one thing I will say, the south has some of the nicest people I've ever met. I have family down south. I lived in the south, even went to school down south for a little while. I'm talking Dixie, not Mid atlantic. And I almost moved there because the people were so charming.
I grew up by a cementary even older than that. I use to sneak in to read the tombstones when I was little.
There are graves there from the 1700s. Rumor had it that one of the tombs there was had a passage to the underground tunnels.
I was never brave enough to try to look for that in a grave yard, but some of the stones really had spooky stories on them.
NH is nice. But I can't take New England. Just rubs me wrong.
What's up with the trademark symbol on Borders, Language, Culture?
And so you demonstrate your fear of God by insulting people you've never met? How very Christian of you.
The only folks who move to Pennsy either work in the western part of the state (not bad to commute from Milford to Hackettstown) or are folks who believe that you should have a new large house on a lower middle class salary. Of course, the last group of morons whine about their 30 minute commutes and the high price of gasoline.
There's an old Dutch cemetary near my house that dates from the 1740s. I totally know what you mean about reading the old headstones.
The Rockies aren't in Washington, are they? I don't think the Cascades or the Olympics are part of the Rockies. Nice mountains, though.
Quote: "The only folks who move to Pennsy either work in the western part of the state (not bad to commute from Milford to Hackettstown) or are folks who believe that you should have a new large house on a lower middle class salary. Of course, the last group of morons whine about their 30 minute commutes and the high price of gasoline."
Yep, but the bottom line is that people are moving to Penny. The Lehigh Valley is booming, so is Bucks and many towns along the Delaware. Why, if NJ is such a wonderful place are the people moving away?
One thing is for certain, with the skyrocketing property taxes in NJ, it is difficult to retire here and it is difficult to accumulate wealth.
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