[gaspar]

This has got to be a first (and the lamest excuse ever): I have never heard anyone from New Jersey say they love the place.

[P.O.E.]

Charlie Baltimore: "I got myself out of Beiruit once, I think I can get out of New Jersey."

Mitch Henessey: "Yeah, well don't be so sure. Others have tried and failed. The entire population in fact."

[since1868]

I agree I was born and raised in NJ, I now live in VA. never looked back.

[Snerfling]

I have never heard anyone from New Jersey say they love the place.

Then you've never been there. Outside of the dregs of Newark/Trenton, there's a reason it's called the 'garden state'. I'm from CA, and whenever I've been back there for business, the locals always seemed a little defensive. It took a west coast guy to get them to open up about how pretty the country side is. If it wasn't, half the pop of Philly wouldn't be buying 1 acre plots across the river for their suburban homes.

[TedsGarage]

There's "Jersey" (the gritty suburbs of New York), and there's "New Jersey" (Princeton, the Pine Barrens, Cape May, Atlantic City). I know several New Jerseyans who love the latter. Patrophilia -- love of one's homeland -- is a universal impulse. I drove through North Dakota over the weekend, and I'll bet some people love that isolated steppe.