So what does this say? New Jersey has more households with 2 or fewer people, and they are buying homes with more space. That's a function of wealth.
If you look through the census site (as I did several years ago, when I was curious about the sprawl thing) you'll see that the average household size in the 50's and 60's was a little over six people per household. Now, it's down to a little over two. As all the baby boomers will soon be living by themselves or with one other person (and they are still the demographic driver), this problem is going to fix itself. It's unlikely the average houshold size will fall under 2, as that would mean very few people have children and most live by themselves. It certainly can't fall under one. Once the smallest practical household size is reached (and we're close now), "sprawl" will magically stop. Not that no new places will be built, but as demand falls off the prices of existing homes will fall, making it cheaper to buy used than to build new.
Actually, I won't be surprised to see, in the next decade or two, serious real estate devaluation for this reason. Of course, if government continues it's recent pattern of excessive land use regulations, they may restrict supply enough to keep prices up, defeating their own purposes ;-)
The environmentalists who keep screaming about this issue are often the ones themselves contributing to it by living ALONE, instead of sharing their home with other family members or the poor homeless...
This is really an issue created because focus groups said it would work. The real purpose is to meet the Agenda 21 goal of putting all land use decisions in the hands of government and taking them away from the property owners. Private ownership (or control) of property interferes with the UN's goals of social justice and income equity.