The northern portion of
New Jersey,
the Garden State.
North Jersey is half good and half
smelly, and being from the good part, I sort of feel like I have to explain myself when people say "Oh, you're from
North Jersey, hehe." You see.. northeast
NJ, specifically
Newark and surrounding areas, is simply a yucky
place. It's an industrial outcropping of
New York City, and has really become more so in the past 35 years. It's known as being 'a
garbage dump' and simply 'a
road from
Philadelphia to
New York'. It's even been refered to as '
the armpit of America' But, people who can afford to have moved 10 or 20 miles further west, into counties like
Morris County or Sussex or Somerset, which is part of the '
good part'.
So the next time you think about North Jersey (or even all of New Jersey) as a
horrible,
smelly place, remember the 'good part'.. and if you decide to work in New York and make lots of
money, you just might want your
suburban home to be located not in
Long Island or Westchester, but only 45
minutes west in beautiful North Jersey. By the way, this good part has some
public schools that are on par academically with many
private schools.. but I guess the catch is that
property taxes are a bit
high.
But that's just the beginning of the story.
The GREAT thing about North Jersey is its
LOCATION. Location, location, location. You're basically always fifteen minutes from
anywhere --
restaurant,
mall,
theater, stores of all kinds.. I heard there's a
theory that everyone from North Jersey has at least three large malls within 20 minutes. I suppose that's true for me in
Morristown.. I've got about five of them. Also, northern NJ is
perfect driving distance (and New Jerseyans do A LOT of driving. That's what all the
highways are for!) from a whole lot of awesome stuff. You've got
skiing, all of the
cultural shit in
the city, and then some not-too-shabby beaches from Sandy Hook all the way down to Cape May. When you're
down the shore, Long Beach Island is a nice relaxing place to spend a week or so in August.
Trenton keeps all the highways in nice shape, especially
Interstate 287, the jewel of North Jersey. Also, NJ is right smack in the middle of the
east coast strip of cities, and on average, an hour's drive to
Philly or to New York.
There are the best
diners in the world here, too. I'd say if one diner is packed, drive only 5 miles to the one next door. Yep, there really are that many of them. Such a wide selection of a wide selection.