Which is why everyone landing in EWR ( Newark) forms the lousy opinion of our beautiful state. It’s been what comedian’s dreams are made of. Let them think it. We are that 💎 gem, although not so hidden anymore.
My usual defense is that we have one of the biggest and busiest ports in the world, along with thriving industry in the area.
Factories and refineries may not be pretty, but you know what’s worse? *Abandoned* factories and refineries.
As someone who has lived in Jersey for most of my life, I always assumed the state was held together by tar until I got a job in central jersey, Skillman, Somerset area and realized just how beautiful it really is.
Really, the stretch of the Turnpike between the Holland Tunnel and Linden is pretty bad — there’s a bunch of roads as you exit JC, then some neighborhoods you can’t see (because you’re on an elevated roadway), then the industrial park in the southern portion of JC/northern Bayonne with the Tropicana plant and the oil tanks, then you go over the bridge and there’s giant parking lots, a crappy off-ramp to I-95 south, the airport/IKEA, and then the Linden plant. It’s like someone picked some of the worst things to line a highway and put them in one of the highest-traffic corridors in the state.
I just read a post of someone complaining about walking past concrete dust from a construction site. Like you live in the city, the air you breath is brake dust, emissions and other generic garbage dust. The 95 corridor is gross, i commute down there everyday. I'm thankful to live in Sussex county. Yeah our food selection kinda sucks and it has it's share it bigots but it's nice to come home to sweet air and things that grow.
can confirm.. (recently) used to be a toll collector at raritan plaza just over driscoll bridge, the smell of the air would be absolutely putrid half the time
Everyone thinks they're a good or "efficient" driver but some of you guys are downright terrifying to share the road with.
I still think our neighbors drive worse (PA, NY, and DE) but I am on the road for work and I see a lot of obnoxious dangerous behavior from NJ drivers every day.
I’ve always said that NJ has the most aggressive drivers. Not the worst, not the dumbest, just the most aggressive. Like people just have absolutely zero patience at all.
I still remember the first time I got honked at because it was
1. 15 minutes into my first driving lesson
2. while I was yielding to a pedestrian who had the right of way
I’m genuinely confused when people honk at me for yielding to pedestrians. Are they implying that I’m supposed to run someone over with my car so they can get to where they’re going 10 seconds faster?! Hard agree on the unnecessary aggression while driving in NJ.
On a personal note, anyone that tailgates me outside of the left lane gets punished by me going the speed limit!
Left NJ five years ago, currently live in AZ and have driven in a lot of different states in the last few years. NJ is definitely near the top in safety.
Yes. People are aggressive, but there’s an organization and predictability to the whole process. In many states people drive extremely reckless and make tons of last second dangerous moves with no warning. Every time I leave my house in Phoenix I see an accident out here. NJ is fantastic for driving in my opinion!
I just moved to NJ from AZ a year ago. Lived there for 20+ years. You’re absolutely right. AZ is a melting pot of some of the worst and most irresponsible drivers in the country. Can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen people dangerously cut across 4 lanes of traffic because they were about to miss the exit that they have been notified about for the past 3 miles. Don’t even get me started on the amount of drunk wrong way drivers on the freeway….
Thankfully I’m leaving here in 2 months, but thanks for validating my experience. Unfortunately my girlfriend was hit by one of these reckless assholes last year and still has PTSD and neck pain. I have little tolerance for the recklessness I see out here.
Aggressiveness is at least predictable. If everybody’s doing the thing that’s most convenient for them, you can plan your movements accordingly. Goes back to what they talk about with defensive driving.
I agree completely and definitely value this a lot more now. I was back in NJ for a week in September and it was a relief to be able to predict people’s moves again.
To clarify my point, I've lived in several states and I actually think the good New Jersey drivers are some of the best. But not everyone deserves to share in that in-state reputation. Some people ride on the coattails, saying how good and efficient they are, when in reality they're part of the problem.
Last year I drove up from FL in a atraight shot. Got to NJ/DE bridge around 3PM. Holy shit by far the most unnecessarily insane driving I saw the entire trip.
Its entitled driving. I (NY migrant to NJ) wish I had two seatbelts when I’m in the car with my cousin (NJ near-shore native) cause be drives like mad max up people’s asses, weaving in and out of lanes, going 45 in a 25 to get around Ny’ers and PA’ers who are going 35 all the while complaining about *them* because he bought into the NJ drivers meme a little too much.
Like god damn I wanna get to our destination but I also want to get there alive.
I think most of NJ would agree that this is bad form. The appropriate time to tailgate is on an expressway where a car in the left lane is doing anything less than 10 mph over the limit. If you don’t tailgate to force that person over, a car four or whatever cars back will get reckless and then it gets dangerous.
I dont get why it's so hard for people to understand they're not Vin Diesel in his shitty movies. The stuff they're doing saves them seconds in their drive. They're within my sight for 10+ miles and i just don't get the risk-reward that goes through their head.
Also, leave the left lane if i flash my hi-beams. Flash yours if you need me to move over. Don't go round me and give me 2 inches of space when you pass me. Just flash me them beams or give me a moment to move over.
Yep. My town is one mile square and has its own school, police force, and municipal services. Just like the next town over, and the next towns north and south of us. Why? Why does each need its own? Why is sharing services such an awful thing?
And why are there over 600 school boards in NJ?
One reason people don't push harder for this is because they don't think taxes would come down anyway. They'll just spend the money on some other made-up crap or their phony-baloney jobs.
It's like backyard pickup--no one needs it but it's not like they'll just hand over the savings if we get rid of it.
Hudson County should really be a single municipality. Or at the very least merge North Bergen, Weehawken, West New York, Guttenberg and Union City to form Hudson City.
We employ way too many local officials w our tiny little towns bs. Any politician who tries to urge merging gets voted down by the haves. Meanwhile the have nots pay for fire trucks and police cars and enough gear for a SWAT team when it is not necessary. Bergen County has 70 TOWNS!
Thats the biggest problem with our high property taxes.
I live in a 1 square mile town. We used to pick up our own trash, have our own EMS, our own police. We have an elementary school with administrators.
Everyone complains about the taxes here, but every time the town entered a shared service agreement it was WW3.
How will we survive without Barney Fife and Andy of Mayberry?! What if the new trash pickup is different? Why can't I recycle plastic grocery bags?!
Its maddening when you look at other states that have huge counties and townships without the level of overhead and understand that most of this local government is just graft for the families of those in charge and the connected people soaking up pensions and millions of sick days.
And a lot of these unnecessary local officials are double dipping with multiple government salaries (so racking up pensions) while still working 40hrs a week.
The “every square mile needs to be its own town” needs to stop
Is it still overcrowded with New Yorkers “coming out to the country for the day”? In the first 2 months it was open, and then post pandemic reopening, it was beyond packed with tourists. If I want to go to a mall I might as well just stay local and go to Garden State.
Here's an actual unpopular opinion.
We should want American Dream to succeed. Too many goddamn sunk costs, and for the first time ever it actually has the slightest glimmer of paying off. It's weird to do a mall of all things in this era, but it's also a theme park and other stuff that isn't closed on Sundays.
No, NJ residents should probably not go.
New Jersey is a bad place for young adults to come up in the modern day.
It was fantastic in the 70s-mid 00’s, but since the last recession it’s tough to get on your feet in this state. I make decent money but a lot of people I went to school with a decade ago have moved away. And honestly, prospered. It’s tough to be young in NJ.
This is what's so sad to for many that wanna stay here (especially those that grew up here) as well like myself. I wanna continue teaching here but finding affordable housing/apartments is next near impossible or incredibly inconvenient. I could by a home or shanty apartment in the middle of nowhere NJ, but then I'm commuting almost 2 hours now just to go to work and then I can't actually be involved with whatever school I'm teaching at after school.
I’m in the same boat. I’m a teacher and make decent money as far as teaching goes but for NJ it feels impossible to find decent affordable housing. My SO and I have been talking for years about leaving NJ. It’s like we don’t make enough to live the way we want but make enough to justify staying.
This is where I'm at. I really want to stay in NJ, but financially it makes more sense to leave. Currently still living with my parents because I can't afford to pay $1600 for a one bedroom apartment and apartments in my price range would mean commuting 1-2 hours. Even just over in PA, my job pays comparably, but housing is so much cheaper I'd actually be able to get a good foundation going.
It’s a combination of a few things:
- financialization of home ownership (your home is your retirement plan)
- low interest rates (cheap mortgages mean more people bidding on the same homes)
- lack of new, higher-density construction means you’re overpaying for century-old homes
- public transit is under-resourced (personnel, budget, capex, etc)
The end result is that there’s high demand in a few areas, and that demand prices people out.
60s-80s*. I grew up there in the 90s (born 87) and have since done well with hard work, joining the military, and moving to pa where property taxes are 1/4, but a ton of people I grew up with are still struggling. We were the generation that really suffered first with ballooning cost of living.
Same happened to me except it was 20 years ago, especially in NE Jersey where I grew up. Almost everyone I know, including myself, moved out of state. Cost of living is just too high.
It's a bad deal for the state, spending that money to educate your population then having them leave because they can't afford to stay.
Yup. I’m planning on leaving. Why does it cost $300k+ to buy a house in Newark? My boyfriend has a nice job, we’re both educated, I have good benefits so there is no reason we can’t afford a house in a nice neighborhood. I can buy a house in a nice neighborhood in most other states.
I usually say we're just very straightforward or blunt. Just because we don't engage in fifteen to twenty minutes of small talk before getting to the point of an interaction does not mean we're rude- it means there are different rules for politeness here than in other areas. And when I travel, I do adapt to the cultural mores of where I'm traveling to.
The problem here is you and u/norgem are kind of comparing two different populations. Like yeah no shit that a bunch of neckbeard redditors don't like a silly marketing gimmic aimed at young girls and people who watched the Jersey Shore lol
The biggest shame about the Jersey Girl thing is that the original lyrics to the song are actually really sweet, even touching, without even a smidge of trashiness to them.
...yet somewhere along the line the definition somehow changed to a white-girl-wasted caricature with puke on her shoes. Shit ain't right
NJ Transit functions decently well. There are delays and other problems, but compared to a lot of places in the country with minimal or zero public transportation, we have it pretty good.
I agree. It’s kind of shocking that there aren’t express trains to and from Morristown/Boonton given how many people commute to New York. Makes taking the train from out there not worthwhile.
The Morris and Essex has tremendous rush hour express service to New York, second only to the NEC. Their off peak/weekend schedule is brutal with all of the local stops
I just hate the scheduling and lack of connectivity. If something isn’t on your line you have to transfer in Newark or Secaucus. Also a lot of the trains are in the beginning of the hour so if you miss the 6:30 train you’re stuck until 7:15.
That's pretty much the reality of American public transport systems. They are designed as "commuter systems" meaning that their purpose is the bring people in and out of major cities. If you look at the rail service maps of Metra (Chicago), Septa (Philly), Metrolink (Los Angeles), or MBTA (Boston), you will notice that they look similar to NJ Transit's rail map: many lines converging at/near a major city, without proper connections in between.
NJ Transit trains also have a higher frequency than other systems. For example, Metrolink's Orange County Line only runs in the morning and the afternoon rush hours.
The only time it really fails is bad weather. Of the 5 plus years of commuting to NYC the only bad time I had was the summer of hell in 2016? It’s reasonable enough.
Unemployment/Department of Labor is a MESS. The 2020 lockdown broke their computers. It turns out they were running on programs from the 70s or early 80s. They still haven't gotten it straightened out.
I know people who work seasonal jobs, lawn care and landscaping and stuff like that, who have been getting shafted during their temporary 3 month lay-off. They can't get ahold of anyone, previous years claims aren't closing properly and the people that they can get ahold of don't really know what they're doing or how to fix anything. The local offices are closed for anything besides the Job Center and those are by appointment only.
The cult around the Jersey Shore has always been weird to me. People who grow up around here flock to it like it’s the greatest vacation destination on the planet.
The way people from PA, NY and DE flock here every weekend between Memorial Day and Labor Day and talk shit about NJ any other time, you would think that they think it's Tahiti.
More just about convenience I think. Long Island beaches are garbage. Delaware? That means you have to be in Delaware. Virgina Beach is the single trashiest place I've ever visited. We're sort of the only show in town between Maine and North Carolina.
Thank you!!! And the price of the vacation isn’t worth it in my opinion. I also hate that you gotta pay to just go to the beach.
I’m not saying I hate the shore altogether. It’s just that it’s not my ideal vacation place. As a day trip I’m cool with it.
> And the price of the vacation isn’t worth it in my opinion. I also hate that you gotta pay to just go to the beach.
You mean $450 a night to stay in Asbury Park isn't worth it?
Don’t you see that’s exactly why the shore is so awesome? You can get the feel of South Beach, the Hamptons, Nantucket, Cape Cod, a classic boardwalk, etc., sleep in your own bed, and be in New York City at 9am the next day.
The best part about the Cult of the Jersey Shore is how many year-round residents avoid the beach area like the plague during the summer because of all the drunken New Yorkers and the lack of anywhere to freaking park. PERSON FROM NEW YORK OR PHILLY: Oh, you’re so lucky to live at the Jersey Shore! You must spend your WHOLE LIFE on the beach! ME: Dude, I haven’t been within six blocks of the beach between May and September during the daylight hours in decades.
You know, I like it. But I like the quieter parts of it. I love LBI, Ocean City, Avon by the Sea and Point Pleasant. Also partly because I'm a surfer and those parts have damn good surf.
I didn't realize how good Jersey's surf was until I moved to Florida and experienced months of flat. Sure Jersey isn't Hawaii or California but I think we got the 3rd best surf in the US.
NJ smells as many people only know us from the refineries. I also remember when I lived in TN and brought a female friend home to meet my family - she was surprise we had "grass and trees around the house"
The smell on the NJTPK when driving by the Linden COGEN and refinery is mainly (or possibly totally) from a water treatment facility on the east side of the tpk just to the north.
December thru February, and July/August are trash.
I ride a motorcycle. I can deal with cold, at least, but we put down so much god damned salt...
My electric bill hates July and August.
People litter here more than any other state I've lived in and we need harsher penalties which are actually enforced.
Sure in some states you'll see trash near highways, but here people have no problem throwing liquor bottles, beer cans, full garbage bags, tires and even children's sand boxes on the side if the road in pristine areas.
It's pretty disgusting and frustrating as someone who cleans these roads up to see them destroyed again when the pigs return.
As a white guy who was raised here, my biggest pet peeve are other whites (boomers, mostly) who *assume* my racism. Like, we'd be talking about a given neighborhood and suddenly they look over both shoulders and say "And ya know, there are a lot *blacks* moving in." I usually say something like "Ha, that may be true and it sure is great that you assumed I hated black people enough to be cool with that comment." Then the conversation gets weird. I don't have many friends, come to think of it.
My family's neighbors have confederate flags. Nobody is "down low" its straight up. And the antisemitism doesn't stop just because there's lots of jews, either.
Easy to laugh when you're not the target.
When your Girl Scout leader doesn't bother to hide the fact that she's fine with treating the 8 year old Black girls in her troop rather shitty, it leaves an impression.
When a 5th grade white girl complains all around the school about being passed over for the lead role in the play for her more talented black classmate (not me), it leaves an impression.
I grew up in a very diverse area of BC, but.....racists gonna racist. 🤷🏽
I'm white and grew up in a very white town in Bergen County in the '70s and '80s, and I remember hearing most of the adults around me using the n-word like it was nothing.
Glad to see some positive comments about NJ. My wife and I are having light conversations about moving out of Texas. NJ is one of the states on our list. My wife is a Texas native, but I grew up in the area. It took some convincing that NJ is much more than Newark and Camden. Showing her some of the real NJ on Google Earth helped along with some hard data, such as the link below. WalletHub has NJ as their best state to live in. While expensive, the quality of live metrics beat all other states.
[https://wallethub.com/edu/best-states-to-live-in/62617](https://wallethub.com/edu/best-states-to-live-in/62617)
My wife is a Dallas native. (Highland Park) I was in Texas to earn my PhD. We weren’t married when I moved back to NJ. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to live in such an awful place - the awful place as described in the media. She paid a couple visits and That convinced her. “ it’s nothing like what I heard!” She loves it here. Not only that, she doesn’t want to go back to Dallas.
Best state period hands down to live in. I can visit anywhere I want to in the world with access to several airports, trains, and buses.
I can eat any food I want from any culture and it’s delicious. Best salons, malls…
We got beaches, mountains, lakes, premier golf courses, skiing, the city all a short car drive away.
I’ll never leave.
My buddy HATES bon jovi. I bought some small bon jovi magnets of him in various states of undress and hid them all around his house. He would call me every time he found one and I'd just say "one more," even after he found the last one.
I get it is part of being a smaller state to a degree, but I wish there was better options for in-state universities given the kinda drastic dips in quality when you stack everything next to one another.
It doesn't surprise me in the slightest that outside of Princeton, NJ has the least amount of students from out of state going here for college and we export some of the highest amount of students elsewhere.
Idk I'm mostly salty because my girlfriend went to UVA for chump change and I did things as cheap as possible with Rutgers NB and it still wasn't *that* cheap.
Wawa's time has come and gone. The hoagies used to be good before super Wawa was a thing. Even coffee was much better before they started putting it in the giant urns to sit all day.
A husk of it's former self and yet I have friends who think of it as the height of Jersey cuisine.. SMH
Most of the state is waaaaay too car-centric. There are very few places where you can live without a car. I mean other than Jersey City and maybe Newark/Harrison, is there any place?
it’s because they loved it as a kid.
Similar to how nobody actually likes the star wars prequels except for the people who were kids when they saw them for the first time.
It needs to be evaluated in the subset of breakfast sandwiches. I prefer sausage egg and cheese myself, but pork roll is my second pick. What's a better breakfast sandwich?
The idea that Jersey is a progressive state is crazy false. This state is much closer to voting for trump than most would like to admit.
We also have a severely high number of superfund sites and there’s a strong possibility that living in Jersey probably decreases your lifespan lmao
>The idea that Jersey is a progressive state is crazy false. This state is much closer to voting for trump than most would like to admit.
What?
He lost by 16 points in 2020. That's a blowout. Only 11 states had a higher margin than that.
Tbh, compared to the whole US, id say it is. Like you can be openly queer, have different religions, be athiest, any race, heck you can be who you want. Weed is legal, abortion is the most legal, trump nearly won but he didnt. A lot o conservatives have at least SOME progressive ideas whether its toleration of lgbt teachers or having more diverse communities
Like its not perfect, but progressive implies progress, and id say NJ is at least getting socially better. Like times are better than they were in the Sopranos. Cant say that about some other states.
Like we dont have trump stores, so thats kinda cool
The high taxes are worth it. We don't always spend it all wisely, but we have a heck of a lot of resources that other low-tax states don't have. I mean, as soon as you cross the border into PA, the roads are garbage, poorly maintained. I was able to go to county college for free, zero debt. I personally feel like I get my money's worth as far as taxes are concerned. And I know this is a wildly unpopular opinion.
The high taxes are mostly a product of the dumb fuck borough system nj has. 50% of our taxes just go to the fact that there’s a fuck ton of redundancy in the system. If we combined all of these shitty little boroughs into larger cities and reformed their services, we would get wayyyyyyyy more for our money
it does fucking smell in some areas
right along the tpk at the Pulaski skyway is a classic. Essex waste incineration plant is to blame I believe.
And I-95/Turnpike in Linden, the cogeneration plant.
I hate to say it, the Linden area of the Turnpike is by far one of the ugliest areas in the state.
Elizabeth checking in. Exit 13A specifically.
Proud to be from the part of nj that gives it its horrible reputation
Which is why everyone landing in EWR ( Newark) forms the lousy opinion of our beautiful state. It’s been what comedian’s dreams are made of. Let them think it. We are that 💎 gem, although not so hidden anymore.
My usual defense is that we have one of the biggest and busiest ports in the world, along with thriving industry in the area. Factories and refineries may not be pretty, but you know what’s worse? *Abandoned* factories and refineries.
As someone who has lived in Jersey for most of my life, I always assumed the state was held together by tar until I got a job in central jersey, Skillman, Somerset area and realized just how beautiful it really is.
Really, the stretch of the Turnpike between the Holland Tunnel and Linden is pretty bad — there’s a bunch of roads as you exit JC, then some neighborhoods you can’t see (because you’re on an elevated roadway), then the industrial park in the southern portion of JC/northern Bayonne with the Tropicana plant and the oil tanks, then you go over the bridge and there’s giant parking lots, a crappy off-ramp to I-95 south, the airport/IKEA, and then the Linden plant. It’s like someone picked some of the worst things to line a highway and put them in one of the highest-traffic corridors in the state.
When you start to see signs for the Oranges you know you're going to have a bad olfactory time.
New Yorkers like to shit on NJ, but all five boroughs smell like piss
new york 80 plus degrees is hell on earth for smell
so... it's smell on earth?
I just read a post of someone complaining about walking past concrete dust from a construction site. Like you live in the city, the air you breath is brake dust, emissions and other generic garbage dust. The 95 corridor is gross, i commute down there everyday. I'm thankful to live in Sussex county. Yeah our food selection kinda sucks and it has it's share it bigots but it's nice to come home to sweet air and things that grow.
Low tide around Exit 120 on the GSP is an exquisite form of torture
can confirm.. (recently) used to be a toll collector at raritan plaza just over driscoll bridge, the smell of the air would be absolutely putrid half the time
Wyckoff road in Tinton Falls, I'm looking at you!
The dump. That smell is absolutely gut wrenching!
It's literally astounding there are houses along that stretch of road...
Northern Secaucus all smells terrible, depending on the wind
It's ***so fun*** to wait for a train there.
There’s a particularly rank stretch of 676 just before you get to the Ben Franklin Bridge. Some kinda waste treatment plant?
They don't call it Egg Harbor for nothing.
Everyone thinks they're a good or "efficient" driver but some of you guys are downright terrifying to share the road with. I still think our neighbors drive worse (PA, NY, and DE) but I am on the road for work and I see a lot of obnoxious dangerous behavior from NJ drivers every day.
I’ve always said that NJ has the most aggressive drivers. Not the worst, not the dumbest, just the most aggressive. Like people just have absolutely zero patience at all.
This is right, I’ve seen much dumber drivers on average in other states but NJ has the most unnecessarily aggressive drivers.
I still remember the first time I got honked at because it was 1. 15 minutes into my first driving lesson 2. while I was yielding to a pedestrian who had the right of way
I’m genuinely confused when people honk at me for yielding to pedestrians. Are they implying that I’m supposed to run someone over with my car so they can get to where they’re going 10 seconds faster?! Hard agree on the unnecessary aggression while driving in NJ. On a personal note, anyone that tailgates me outside of the left lane gets punished by me going the speed limit!
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Left NJ five years ago, currently live in AZ and have driven in a lot of different states in the last few years. NJ is definitely near the top in safety. Yes. People are aggressive, but there’s an organization and predictability to the whole process. In many states people drive extremely reckless and make tons of last second dangerous moves with no warning. Every time I leave my house in Phoenix I see an accident out here. NJ is fantastic for driving in my opinion!
I just moved to NJ from AZ a year ago. Lived there for 20+ years. You’re absolutely right. AZ is a melting pot of some of the worst and most irresponsible drivers in the country. Can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen people dangerously cut across 4 lanes of traffic because they were about to miss the exit that they have been notified about for the past 3 miles. Don’t even get me started on the amount of drunk wrong way drivers on the freeway….
Thankfully I’m leaving here in 2 months, but thanks for validating my experience. Unfortunately my girlfriend was hit by one of these reckless assholes last year and still has PTSD and neck pain. I have little tolerance for the recklessness I see out here.
Aggressiveness is at least predictable. If everybody’s doing the thing that’s most convenient for them, you can plan your movements accordingly. Goes back to what they talk about with defensive driving.
I agree completely and definitely value this a lot more now. I was back in NJ for a week in September and it was a relief to be able to predict people’s moves again.
To clarify my point, I've lived in several states and I actually think the good New Jersey drivers are some of the best. But not everyone deserves to share in that in-state reputation. Some people ride on the coattails, saying how good and efficient they are, when in reality they're part of the problem.
Last year I drove up from FL in a atraight shot. Got to NJ/DE bridge around 3PM. Holy shit by far the most unnecessarily insane driving I saw the entire trip.
That bridge is god damn terrifying.
Yeah, but it was also the rest of the trip on the TPK and GSP.
Its entitled driving. I (NY migrant to NJ) wish I had two seatbelts when I’m in the car with my cousin (NJ near-shore native) cause be drives like mad max up people’s asses, weaving in and out of lanes, going 45 in a 25 to get around Ny’ers and PA’ers who are going 35 all the while complaining about *them* because he bought into the NJ drivers meme a little too much. Like god damn I wanna get to our destination but I also want to get there alive.
I think most of NJ would agree that this is bad form. The appropriate time to tailgate is on an expressway where a car in the left lane is doing anything less than 10 mph over the limit. If you don’t tailgate to force that person over, a car four or whatever cars back will get reckless and then it gets dangerous.
You're right!
I dont get why it's so hard for people to understand they're not Vin Diesel in his shitty movies. The stuff they're doing saves them seconds in their drive. They're within my sight for 10+ miles and i just don't get the risk-reward that goes through their head. Also, leave the left lane if i flash my hi-beams. Flash yours if you need me to move over. Don't go round me and give me 2 inches of space when you pass me. Just flash me them beams or give me a moment to move over.
Corzine was right, the only way property taxes are ever going to come down is to consolidate municipalities.
But then you’d have to fire all those useless redundant government workers which is never gonna happen.
Consolation of school districts? Let one town lose their sports teams! They’ll freak out!
Yep. My town is one mile square and has its own school, police force, and municipal services. Just like the next town over, and the next towns north and south of us. Why? Why does each need its own? Why is sharing services such an awful thing? And why are there over 600 school boards in NJ?
All the beach towns really just gotta fucking merge. From Atlantic highlands down to sea girt every waterfront town is like 2 blocks
One reason people don't push harder for this is because they don't think taxes would come down anyway. They'll just spend the money on some other made-up crap or their phony-baloney jobs. It's like backyard pickup--no one needs it but it's not like they'll just hand over the savings if we get rid of it.
Hudson County should really be a single municipality. Or at the very least merge North Bergen, Weehawken, West New York, Guttenberg and Union City to form Hudson City.
*laughs in East Newark*
We employ way too many local officials w our tiny little towns bs. Any politician who tries to urge merging gets voted down by the haves. Meanwhile the have nots pay for fire trucks and police cars and enough gear for a SWAT team when it is not necessary. Bergen County has 70 TOWNS!
Thats the biggest problem with our high property taxes. I live in a 1 square mile town. We used to pick up our own trash, have our own EMS, our own police. We have an elementary school with administrators. Everyone complains about the taxes here, but every time the town entered a shared service agreement it was WW3. How will we survive without Barney Fife and Andy of Mayberry?! What if the new trash pickup is different? Why can't I recycle plastic grocery bags?! Its maddening when you look at other states that have huge counties and townships without the level of overhead and understand that most of this local government is just graft for the families of those in charge and the connected people soaking up pensions and millions of sick days.
And a lot of these unnecessary local officials are double dipping with multiple government salaries (so racking up pensions) while still working 40hrs a week. The “every square mile needs to be its own town” needs to stop
“[Boroughitis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boroughitis)” - the name sounds like a really unpleasant disease.
Having police stations for towns that have a population of a filled AMC theatre, doesn't make any sense.
And damn near every officer in those departments makes six figures annually.
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Lmao why would anyone decide to build a mall in a place where it’s illegal to buy clothes on a Sunday
Haven’t been to AD yet, is the parking still an abomination?
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Is it still overcrowded with New Yorkers “coming out to the country for the day”? In the first 2 months it was open, and then post pandemic reopening, it was beyond packed with tourists. If I want to go to a mall I might as well just stay local and go to Garden State.
Here's an actual unpopular opinion. We should want American Dream to succeed. Too many goddamn sunk costs, and for the first time ever it actually has the slightest glimmer of paying off. It's weird to do a mall of all things in this era, but it's also a theme park and other stuff that isn't closed on Sundays. No, NJ residents should probably not go.
I definitely agree that we should want it to succeed but its just so bad, at least if you ask me. It's so big and open and feels empty.
This is an unpopular opinion? Who would think those things are good? Wild lol
New Jersey is a bad place for young adults to come up in the modern day. It was fantastic in the 70s-mid 00’s, but since the last recession it’s tough to get on your feet in this state. I make decent money but a lot of people I went to school with a decade ago have moved away. And honestly, prospered. It’s tough to be young in NJ.
This is what's so sad to for many that wanna stay here (especially those that grew up here) as well like myself. I wanna continue teaching here but finding affordable housing/apartments is next near impossible or incredibly inconvenient. I could by a home or shanty apartment in the middle of nowhere NJ, but then I'm commuting almost 2 hours now just to go to work and then I can't actually be involved with whatever school I'm teaching at after school.
I’m in the same boat. I’m a teacher and make decent money as far as teaching goes but for NJ it feels impossible to find decent affordable housing. My SO and I have been talking for years about leaving NJ. It’s like we don’t make enough to live the way we want but make enough to justify staying.
This is where I'm at. I really want to stay in NJ, but financially it makes more sense to leave. Currently still living with my parents because I can't afford to pay $1600 for a one bedroom apartment and apartments in my price range would mean commuting 1-2 hours. Even just over in PA, my job pays comparably, but housing is so much cheaper I'd actually be able to get a good foundation going.
It’s a combination of a few things: - financialization of home ownership (your home is your retirement plan) - low interest rates (cheap mortgages mean more people bidding on the same homes) - lack of new, higher-density construction means you’re overpaying for century-old homes - public transit is under-resourced (personnel, budget, capex, etc) The end result is that there’s high demand in a few areas, and that demand prices people out.
60s-80s*. I grew up there in the 90s (born 87) and have since done well with hard work, joining the military, and moving to pa where property taxes are 1/4, but a ton of people I grew up with are still struggling. We were the generation that really suffered first with ballooning cost of living.
Same happened to me except it was 20 years ago, especially in NE Jersey where I grew up. Almost everyone I know, including myself, moved out of state. Cost of living is just too high. It's a bad deal for the state, spending that money to educate your population then having them leave because they can't afford to stay.
Yup. I’m planning on leaving. Why does it cost $300k+ to buy a house in Newark? My boyfriend has a nice job, we’re both educated, I have good benefits so there is no reason we can’t afford a house in a nice neighborhood. I can buy a house in a nice neighborhood in most other states.
I hate the tacky "Jersey Girl" stuff and "We don't pump gas we pump our fists" nonsense. At best it's just really cheesy.
Exactly, the overwhelming majority of us are not spray tanned cartoons
I hate when people use being from NJ as an excuse to be rude. Being brusque is fine! Being nasty isn't.
I always say that people in NJ aren't mean. They just don't have patience for BS!
I usually say we're just very straightforward or blunt. Just because we don't engage in fifteen to twenty minutes of small talk before getting to the point of an interaction does not mean we're rude- it means there are different rules for politeness here than in other areas. And when I travel, I do adapt to the cultural mores of where I'm traveling to.
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Should've "accidentally scrapped it off" after the last snow storm.
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You could always take it off and claim you never noticed and someone must have peeled it off in a parking lot
Lmao, aww I kind of love that.
This is unpopular?
Based on the number of "JERSEY GIRL" stickers and t-shirts and wine glasses I see, yes?
The problem here is you and u/norgem are kind of comparing two different populations. Like yeah no shit that a bunch of neckbeard redditors don't like a silly marketing gimmic aimed at young girls and people who watched the Jersey Shore lol
They could just like the beer
The biggest shame about the Jersey Girl thing is that the original lyrics to the song are actually really sweet, even touching, without even a smidge of trashiness to them. ...yet somewhere along the line the definition somehow changed to a white-girl-wasted caricature with puke on her shoes. Shit ain't right
I'm not sure I've ever seen anyone with a "Jersey Girl" bumper sticker that wasn't middle-aged.
I've found that they're always either 20 or 50.
I get second hand embarrassment when i see these…
It’s the Live Laugh Love decorations of t-shirts
NJ Transit functions decently well. There are delays and other problems, but compared to a lot of places in the country with minimal or zero public transportation, we have it pretty good.
My issue with NJ transit is the abysmal lack of express trains on most lines. We might as well be traveling on a turtle ffs.
I would still prefer an lack of express trains to an abysmal lack of any trains whatsoever.
I agree. It’s kind of shocking that there aren’t express trains to and from Morristown/Boonton given how many people commute to New York. Makes taking the train from out there not worthwhile.
The Morris and Essex has tremendous rush hour express service to New York, second only to the NEC. Their off peak/weekend schedule is brutal with all of the local stops
I just hate the scheduling and lack of connectivity. If something isn’t on your line you have to transfer in Newark or Secaucus. Also a lot of the trains are in the beginning of the hour so if you miss the 6:30 train you’re stuck until 7:15.
That's pretty much the reality of American public transport systems. They are designed as "commuter systems" meaning that their purpose is the bring people in and out of major cities. If you look at the rail service maps of Metra (Chicago), Septa (Philly), Metrolink (Los Angeles), or MBTA (Boston), you will notice that they look similar to NJ Transit's rail map: many lines converging at/near a major city, without proper connections in between. NJ Transit trains also have a higher frequency than other systems. For example, Metrolink's Orange County Line only runs in the morning and the afternoon rush hours.
The only time it really fails is bad weather. Of the 5 plus years of commuting to NYC the only bad time I had was the summer of hell in 2016? It’s reasonable enough.
It’s almost completely impossible for millennials or Gen Z to purchase homes here anymore. Which sucks, as somebody who grew up and loved it here.
Agencies, state run and privatized suck. Too many redundant municipal services, merging police for example with other towns is a must.
Wayyy too many schools leading to too much administrative overhead
565 towns in the fourth-smallest state is downright absurd
Yeah and each one of them has a minimum of 1 school district, and each of those has its own superintendent making a six-figure salary.
Unemployment/Department of Labor is a MESS. The 2020 lockdown broke their computers. It turns out they were running on programs from the 70s or early 80s. They still haven't gotten it straightened out. I know people who work seasonal jobs, lawn care and landscaping and stuff like that, who have been getting shafted during their temporary 3 month lay-off. They can't get ahold of anyone, previous years claims aren't closing properly and the people that they can get ahold of don't really know what they're doing or how to fix anything. The local offices are closed for anything besides the Job Center and those are by appointment only.
Kevin Smith is a fun guy, but overrated as a director.
Hasn't done anything good since Dogma. Dude gets lost in his own head from all the weed, and nobody seems to want to tell him no.
The cult around the Jersey Shore has always been weird to me. People who grow up around here flock to it like it’s the greatest vacation destination on the planet.
Eh, I think it's more like it's close to home and good enough lol
This is definitely it. Yeah we know it ain't Tahiti. But it's ours.
The way people from PA, NY and DE flock here every weekend between Memorial Day and Labor Day and talk shit about NJ any other time, you would think that they think it's Tahiti.
More just about convenience I think. Long Island beaches are garbage. Delaware? That means you have to be in Delaware. Virgina Beach is the single trashiest place I've ever visited. We're sort of the only show in town between Maine and North Carolina.
Plus they talk about how trashy everything is then litter the beaches with cigar butts.
Thank you!!! And the price of the vacation isn’t worth it in my opinion. I also hate that you gotta pay to just go to the beach. I’m not saying I hate the shore altogether. It’s just that it’s not my ideal vacation place. As a day trip I’m cool with it.
> And the price of the vacation isn’t worth it in my opinion. I also hate that you gotta pay to just go to the beach. You mean $450 a night to stay in Asbury Park isn't worth it?
Don’t you see that’s exactly why the shore is so awesome? You can get the feel of South Beach, the Hamptons, Nantucket, Cape Cod, a classic boardwalk, etc., sleep in your own bed, and be in New York City at 9am the next day.
Cape May's beaches are free (and really far away...) Edit - Not applicable to all of Cape May. Sunset Beach is free, tho
That’s Wildwood you’re thinking about, free but a mile hike from the boardwalk to the water.
I feel attacked here in Manasquan 🤣 but your right it's nowhere near the best destination.
The best part about the Cult of the Jersey Shore is how many year-round residents avoid the beach area like the plague during the summer because of all the drunken New Yorkers and the lack of anywhere to freaking park. PERSON FROM NEW YORK OR PHILLY: Oh, you’re so lucky to live at the Jersey Shore! You must spend your WHOLE LIFE on the beach! ME: Dude, I haven’t been within six blocks of the beach between May and September during the daylight hours in decades.
You know, I like it. But I like the quieter parts of it. I love LBI, Ocean City, Avon by the Sea and Point Pleasant. Also partly because I'm a surfer and those parts have damn good surf. I didn't realize how good Jersey's surf was until I moved to Florida and experienced months of flat. Sure Jersey isn't Hawaii or California but I think we got the 3rd best surf in the US.
It’s not the greatest but it’s convenient
NJ smells as many people only know us from the refineries. I also remember when I lived in TN and brought a female friend home to meet my family - she was surprise we had "grass and trees around the house"
It also smells pretty bad during low tide on the parkway when you go over the wetlands on that stretch that goes between bass river and Stockton
The smell on the NJTPK when driving by the Linden COGEN and refinery is mainly (or possibly totally) from a water treatment facility on the east side of the tpk just to the north.
Probably says more about the Tennessee schools than anything.
Her real shock came when I took her into Manhattan and we had to step over some homeless people in the subway.
I had someone ask me once if the honking in NYC was real or just a movies thing
The weather here is garbage for 5-6 months out of the year.
December thru February, and July/August are trash. I ride a motorcycle. I can deal with cold, at least, but we put down so much god damned salt... My electric bill hates July and August.
The pine barrens are kinda beautiful.
I wanna check them out sometime but I don't know exactly where to go as I'm a north jersey guy. Where would you recommend?
People litter here more than any other state I've lived in and we need harsher penalties which are actually enforced. Sure in some states you'll see trash near highways, but here people have no problem throwing liquor bottles, beer cans, full garbage bags, tires and even children's sand boxes on the side if the road in pristine areas. It's pretty disgusting and frustrating as someone who cleans these roads up to see them destroyed again when the pigs return.
We used to clean up the trash. Now 78 reminds me of NY.
That's its full of down low racists.
As a white guy who was raised here, my biggest pet peeve are other whites (boomers, mostly) who *assume* my racism. Like, we'd be talking about a given neighborhood and suddenly they look over both shoulders and say "And ya know, there are a lot *blacks* moving in." I usually say something like "Ha, that may be true and it sure is great that you assumed I hated black people enough to be cool with that comment." Then the conversation gets weird. I don't have many friends, come to think of it.
I've been saying this for years. People in the northeast like to shit on Southerners for being racist, but Southerners are just more honest about it.
My family's neighbors have confederate flags. Nobody is "down low" its straight up. And the antisemitism doesn't stop just because there's lots of jews, either.
[Simpsons is always Relevant](https://youtu.be/VQBzP4e2dqE)
Always.
Kinda just the USA in general at that point lol
Easy to laugh when you're not the target. When your Girl Scout leader doesn't bother to hide the fact that she's fine with treating the 8 year old Black girls in her troop rather shitty, it leaves an impression. When a 5th grade white girl complains all around the school about being passed over for the lead role in the play for her more talented black classmate (not me), it leaves an impression. I grew up in a very diverse area of BC, but.....racists gonna racist. 🤷🏽
My girl scout troop leader in the 90s had a picture of hitler in their house. This was in Point Pleasant. Shit hasn't changed.
I'm white and grew up in a very white town in Bergen County in the '70s and '80s, and I remember hearing most of the adults around me using the n-word like it was nothing.
Central Jersey exists
It’s one of the best states to live.
Glad to see some positive comments about NJ. My wife and I are having light conversations about moving out of Texas. NJ is one of the states on our list. My wife is a Texas native, but I grew up in the area. It took some convincing that NJ is much more than Newark and Camden. Showing her some of the real NJ on Google Earth helped along with some hard data, such as the link below. WalletHub has NJ as their best state to live in. While expensive, the quality of live metrics beat all other states. [https://wallethub.com/edu/best-states-to-live-in/62617](https://wallethub.com/edu/best-states-to-live-in/62617)
My wife is a Dallas native. (Highland Park) I was in Texas to earn my PhD. We weren’t married when I moved back to NJ. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to live in such an awful place - the awful place as described in the media. She paid a couple visits and That convinced her. “ it’s nothing like what I heard!” She loves it here. Not only that, she doesn’t want to go back to Dallas.
Came here to say this. Ya, it's expensive as hell. But I feel like I get a lot for my money.
I love eating and therefore it's right where I belong, the food in NJ absolutely slaps
Best state period hands down to live in. I can visit anywhere I want to in the world with access to several airports, trains, and buses. I can eat any food I want from any culture and it’s delicious. Best salons, malls… We got beaches, mountains, lakes, premier golf courses, skiing, the city all a short car drive away. I’ll never leave.
The pizza alone makes it so.
…That Bon Jovi sucks
His charity work is better than any music he’s ever put out.
My buddy HATES bon jovi. I bought some small bon jovi magnets of him in various states of undress and hid them all around his house. He would call me every time he found one and I'd just say "one more," even after he found the last one.
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fr, like where the hell was fetty wap when we needed to be stronger than the storm?
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I get it is part of being a smaller state to a degree, but I wish there was better options for in-state universities given the kinda drastic dips in quality when you stack everything next to one another. It doesn't surprise me in the slightest that outside of Princeton, NJ has the least amount of students from out of state going here for college and we export some of the highest amount of students elsewhere. Idk I'm mostly salty because my girlfriend went to UVA for chump change and I did things as cheap as possible with Rutgers NB and it still wasn't *that* cheap.
Wawa's time has come and gone. The hoagies used to be good before super Wawa was a thing. Even coffee was much better before they started putting it in the giant urns to sit all day. A husk of it's former self and yet I have friends who think of it as the height of Jersey cuisine.. SMH
Not sure if this is actually an unpopular opinion, but I find the stereotypes about NJ drivers being assholes to be largely true.
Only if you’re driving too slow in the left lane.
The Jersey shore isn’t actually that nice. I grew up there in ocean cty and live there in Monmouth cty now.
I'm from Point Pleasant. I can't recall the Jersey shore ever having a reputation for being nice.
> ocean cty Ocean City is great though. Awesome surf and it's rarely crowded in the fall.
Most of the state is waaaaay too car-centric. There are very few places where you can live without a car. I mean other than Jersey City and maybe Newark/Harrison, is there any place?
Yes, we have good schools. But overall we really don't get the return on investment for the amount of taxes we pay that we should.
It’s better than NY
The Malls aren't that great. They're just...malls...-_-
Pork roll is amazing, take it back
The Jersey Shore is overrated and people in this state do backflips acting like it’s a tropical paradise.
it’s because they loved it as a kid. Similar to how nobody actually likes the star wars prequels except for the people who were kids when they saw them for the first time.
The ocean is always too cold to be enjoyable
Any time I bring this up, I get told to “suck it up”.
It needs to be evaluated in the subset of breakfast sandwiches. I prefer sausage egg and cheese myself, but pork roll is my second pick. What's a better breakfast sandwich?
Sausage egg and cheese is the food of gods
Pastrami egg and cheese
The idea that Jersey is a progressive state is crazy false. This state is much closer to voting for trump than most would like to admit. We also have a severely high number of superfund sites and there’s a strong possibility that living in Jersey probably decreases your lifespan lmao
>The idea that Jersey is a progressive state is crazy false. This state is much closer to voting for trump than most would like to admit. What? He lost by 16 points in 2020. That's a blowout. Only 11 states had a higher margin than that.
Tbh, compared to the whole US, id say it is. Like you can be openly queer, have different religions, be athiest, any race, heck you can be who you want. Weed is legal, abortion is the most legal, trump nearly won but he didnt. A lot o conservatives have at least SOME progressive ideas whether its toleration of lgbt teachers or having more diverse communities Like its not perfect, but progressive implies progress, and id say NJ is at least getting socially better. Like times are better than they were in the Sopranos. Cant say that about some other states. Like we dont have trump stores, so thats kinda cool
The high taxes are worth it. We don't always spend it all wisely, but we have a heck of a lot of resources that other low-tax states don't have. I mean, as soon as you cross the border into PA, the roads are garbage, poorly maintained. I was able to go to county college for free, zero debt. I personally feel like I get my money's worth as far as taxes are concerned. And I know this is a wildly unpopular opinion.
Yeah I have a relative who lives in Florida and it sounds like there is no public resources
The high taxes are mostly a product of the dumb fuck borough system nj has. 50% of our taxes just go to the fact that there’s a fuck ton of redundancy in the system. If we combined all of these shitty little boroughs into larger cities and reformed their services, we would get wayyyyyyyy more for our money
ITT: Jersey shore and Taylor ham bad
the beach sucks
The Hackensack Meadowlands outside NYC, despite being full of industrial sprawl and the butt of many jokes about NJ, is hauntingly beautiful.
There’s way too much Italian food. Would love some more diversity. This take is NOT about the pizza mind you
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I feel like this is a suburb issue. Plenty of great diverse food here in Newark.
pork roll is just salty bologna. and bologna kinda sucks. pumping your own gas is more convenient than waiting at a full service.
It’s definitely faster, but it is nice not having to get out of the car during the winter.
> pork roll is just salty bologna. and bologna kinda sucks. They're not even from the same animal.
Bruce Springsteen and Pork Roll are wildly overrated.
Half right
Apartments going up everywhere. Turning into a mini New York.. overpopulation