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N.J. has last laugh: No. 5 in livability
Philly Inquirer ^ | Thu, Mar. 09, 2006 | Troy Graham

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.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; US: New Jersey
KEYWORDS: corzine; fuhgeddaboudit; gardenstate; gardenstateparkway; gsp; jersey; joisey; lautenberg; mcgreevey; newjersey; nj; njtp; sopranos; thegardenstate; toricelli; turnpike; whatexityouat
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To: Calpernia

I mean on the forum. I just don't usually suspect the nastier posters of being female. The belligerent posters, I mean. but you are right, they exist. it's just a prejudice. I give the fairer sex the benefit of the doubt, right or wrong.


321 posted on 03/09/2006 9:55:35 AM PST by Huck (space for rent)
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To: Huck

You are NW NJ, right? We often go fishing at Cranberry lake and this is also one of our favorite stops up there:

http://lakotawolf.com


322 posted on 03/09/2006 9:59:08 AM PST by Calpernia (Breederville.com)
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To: Clemenza
Yes, it was actually quite a lot of fun - for the summer, at least. We had a huge house between the three of us, with a balcony and a yard with a swimming pool.

The rent was $466 a month!

323 posted on 03/09/2006 10:02:23 AM PST by jjbrouwer (Falling down that hill)
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To: Calpernia
Bass fishing? I don't fish Cranberry. I fish from a small canoe, and iirc, Cranberry has personal watercraft? Lots of nice fishing lakes up here, with pretty good bass fishing, too. I love Kittittiny State Park--Lake Aeroflex, Gardner's Pond, White's Pond. Swartswood is pretty nice. Muscanetcong is ok, too.

The stocked trout fishing is pretty good too. I used to fish the Rockaway river for trout. I'm not a fly fisherman. they fish up in Stokes. I forget the names of the places.

324 posted on 03/09/2006 10:03:09 AM PST by Huck (space for rent)
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To: Dr. Scarpetta
That's because $350,000 IS dirt cheap. Where I lived in BAY RIDGE (see Saturday Night Fever) the Chinese were paying $600,000 for a two-bedroom/one bath frame bungalow on a postage stamp sized piece of property.

Most folks I have met who move to the Poconos tend to work in western New Jersey. It is suicidal to commute all the way to Manhattan, bus or not.

Then again, some people just need to have the huge new house on a large plot of land, even if it means a 60 mile commute. The rest of us think they are morons.

325 posted on 03/09/2006 10:03:28 AM PST by Clemenza (Dick Cheney is a big middle finger to the "other directed" Sheeple. My kind of guy!)
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To: Huck

We go to Kittittiny and Muscanetcong also.


326 posted on 03/09/2006 10:06:15 AM PST by Calpernia (Breederville.com)
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To: Huck; Calpernia

Speaking of fishing. Round Valley Resevoir made the Paul Harvey Show today regarding the drowned fishermen who have been lost there over the years.

Many people don't realize that parts of the lake are over 160 feet deep. I have dove in the lake and it is pretty amazing. With good water clarity, it is possible to still see stone house foundations and dirt roads of the farming community that was in the valley before they dammed everything up.

The resevoir has excellent fishing and is notable as one of the few places in NJ where you have a shot at bagging a nice size lake trout (20 inch minimum).


327 posted on 03/09/2006 10:14:38 AM PST by XRdsRev (The Democrat Party - Keeping Black folks on the "Plantation" since 1790)
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To: XRdsRev

I heard about that reservoir on the news this morning. Might have to add it to our wonderings this summer. I've not been there.

I never thought of diving in lakes. I've done it in the ocean.


328 posted on 03/09/2006 10:19:59 AM PST by Calpernia (Breederville.com)
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To: Huck

Surlely, the female posters are more likely to be belligerent, as they spend more time here, which increases the odds.


329 posted on 03/09/2006 10:22:33 AM PST by jjbrouwer (Falling down that hill)
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To: Clemenza
Then again, some people just need to have the huge new house on a large plot of land, even if it means a 60 mile commute. The rest of us think they are morons.

I don't know how they can stand the commute. The bad thing is that these commuters are increasing the student population at the public schools here.

330 posted on 03/09/2006 10:24:03 AM PST by Dr. Scarpetta (There's always a reason to choose life.)
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To: XRdsRev

Carpetbagger. Well, no offense, but were you born and raised here. If you were, fine. If not, then you my friend are a carpetbagger as well. And just how many people who live in NJ are born and raised? Come on now, NJ has as many people as it does because so many choose to transfer here as opposed to the least favorable alternatives, namely, the expenses of living in NYC and Philly.

As long as I live here, I will continue to try and change the place. But it is frustrating and I am not going to put rose color glasses on just because I live here. In other words, take a "well, I live here so it must be perfect, approach." I call it like (or as in my opinion) I see it.

As for me being an outsider, what constitutes an outsider? If I live here, aren't I an insider? I propose that perhaps you have lived in NJ for so long you are the one who has lost some objectivity especially since your arguments are highly ethnocentric.


331 posted on 03/09/2006 10:47:11 AM PST by FlipWilson
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To: Clemenza

Clemenza, you are talking to a life-long resident of Union Co. I once lived in Linden for 7 years, Elizabeth for 25!!! Unequivocally yes Linden was far better 20 years ago, before the immigration flood. Besides, most of the immigration I see in Linden has always tended toward Polish/Slavish. For decades Linden was 1 and 2 family homes, blue-collar, a nice place to live. Now I see lots of Apartments going up near the center of town and I'm sure things will take a turn for the worst---just like what happened to cities like Elizabeth and Paterson a generation ago--lots of big city problems, welfare, crime, domestic violence, etc. the kind of things that rarely ever happened in the past.


332 posted on 03/09/2006 10:54:54 AM PST by BombHollywood
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To: BombHollywood
Depends on your perspective. My aunt and uncle have lived in Linden since the early 1980s. It was not really that great back then. Bad schools, smelly refineries, pollution and poor quality of life. They would have been better off taking my grandma's house in the "good" part of Rahway.

Only parts of Union County that have gone from ho-hum to bad have been Roselle and Hillside.

Summit and Cranford looked great last time I was there. I understand Scotch Plains is, for the most part, the same. Other than that I have always thought of Union County of being filled with pollution, crappy (by my standards, I'm a bit of a snob) neighborhoods, and the corruption that Jersey is noted for.

333 posted on 03/09/2006 11:05:58 AM PST by Clemenza (Dick Cheney is a big middle finger to the "other directed" Sheeple. My kind of guy!)
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To: Cagey

Do you pronounce it like "New Joisey?" ;)


334 posted on 03/09/2006 11:28:06 AM PST by MotleyGirl70 (Most cats are democrats - did you ever meet a creature with such an inborn sense of entitlement?)
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To: NativeNewYorker

"The Sopranos" starts on HBO soon--can't wait.


335 posted on 03/09/2006 11:32:31 AM PST by MotleyGirl70 (Most cats are democrats - did you ever meet a creature with such an inborn sense of entitlement?)
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To: XRdsRev

I heard about that. Did they find anything? Lake Aeroflex is over 100 ft deep too.


336 posted on 03/09/2006 11:34:14 AM PST by Huck (space for rent)
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To: Dr. Scarpetta
...new houses here for $350,000 and they think that's dirt cheap

That'll buy you a SMALL one bedroom condo in Brooklyn, 5 stops from Manhattan.

337 posted on 03/09/2006 11:43:23 AM PST by NativeNewYorker (Freepin' Jew Boy)
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To: FlipWilson

Flip,

Yes I was born and raised here as was my father. His father before him came to NJ around 1900, so we have only been here a bit over 100 years. My distant ancestors hail from Massachusetts and New Hampshire where they got off the ship Elizabeth in 1634. My earliest connection to New Jersey (that I know of) was when my ancestor 1st Lt. Benjamin Kimball (1st New Hampshire Regiment) marched through my town during the "Retreat Across New Jersey" in November/December 1776 and again in January 1777 after the Battles of Trenton and Princeton. He was just travelling through with Washington's Army and didn't settle here. As a matter of fact, he never got back to New Hampshire either since he was killed by Indians during Sullivan's Indian Expedition in 1779. I do know more than a few people locally who can trace their New Jersey ancestry back to before the American Revolution.

I don't have a personal gripe with you and it is a free country so you can stay in NJ or leave, as is your wish. I however am a native New Jerseyan and despite its shortcomings and flaws, I am proud to live here in a place where more battles of the American Revolution were fought than any other state, where the lightbulb and phonograph were invented, where the first fully submersible submarine was built, the Colt revolver, the first drive in, the first American steam railroad, first National Historical Park, the oldest highway in America, first baseball game, first professional basketball game and where people like George Washington, Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein etc. etc. lived worked and fought.

New Jersey is my home and will always be a part of me. Imagine if you will that I willingly came into your home to live and then told everyone who would listen that it sucked and was a filthy stinking hole. Even if I had some merit in saying so, how would you feel if I, as a virtual stranger, came in and did that ?

I agree with you on some of what you said. Many New Jerseyan's feel the same way and have the same frustrations. At least 45% of us are not stupid, we can see and have lived through what has happened here politically and socially and the last thing we need is someone else coming here and trumpeting every problem we have in the mistaken belief that we hadn't already noticed.


338 posted on 03/09/2006 11:45:20 AM PST by XRdsRev (The Democrat Party - Keeping Black folks on the "Plantation" since 1790)
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To: freeperfromnj

Well, we can't do anything about the likes or Corzine or any other politician who just doesn't care but...he won't be in power forever nor will ANY politician so they will fade from memory. However, I will ALWAYS and forever remember and feel good about how wonderful it was growing up along the Jersey shore. Nothing will ever take that away. Got the sand in our shoes and always will have. They can say what they want about those other cities...but unless they have ever lived along the shore they cannot know what they are talking about. No way. No how. It was special and everyone felt it.


339 posted on 03/09/2006 11:50:21 AM PST by cubreporter (I trust Rush. He has done more for this country than we will ever know. Thanks, Rush!)
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To: ohioman

There are twerps all over the world.


340 posted on 03/09/2006 11:51:22 AM PST by cubreporter (I trust Rush. He has done more for this country than we will ever know. Thanks, Rush!)
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