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Good for you. No knock on the folks who live there, but that whole area near Woodbridge and surrounding towns is uniquely awful: polluted environment, terrible air quality, ridiculous amounts of traffic, takes forever to drive anywhere, etc. One of the least natural feeling places I have ever been to....it's has all the concrete and development of NYC without any of the benefits. I can't even imagine paying a quarter that much to live there. Prime example of NJ being a "rip off" state.
Well...it's where the Parkway and Turnpike meet! I think that's at the heart of Woodbridge's features as you described them.
Interesting post. It's a bit strange that Mass is so fiscally responsible yet so blue in elections...I guess it's the cultural blue. Reminds me of NH as well.
Exactly - they always votes blue for presidential elections because the national GOP is too far to the right of most residents on social matters. I would describe the general political climate of the state as "left leaning libertarian ". Very liberal on social issues, pretty moderate ("fiscally responsible") in terms of economics. Most of NH is slightly more conservative on economics, about as liberal on social matters these days. All of the New England states are unique in that they offer direct democracy at the town level, so there is a greater perception that your "voice" matters.
^^ Notable exception being Connecticut (but no one really considers that a New England state anyway). CT is about as much of a corrupt "nanny state" as NJ and downstate NY.
The county governments aren't the problem, it's all the separate municipalities funding their own services. Fun fact: NJ, the 4th smallest state by land area has 565 municipalities. CA, the 3rd biggest state has 482.
More fun fact: California's total tax burden right up there with NJs, depending on how you count it. The only reason it doesn't have absurd property taxes is the remnants of Proposition 13.
The county governments aren't the problem, it's all the separate municipalities funding their own services. Fun fact: NJ, the 4th smallest state by land area has 565 municipalities. CA, the 3rd biggest state has 482.
I once told someone I know from the Midwest this (who now lives here), that NJ has over 500 municipalities/more than CA, and he didn't believe me. I could not convince him. I had to look it up on my phone and show him.
He was also mind-blown when I told him that every inch of NJ is part of a municipality, we have no unincorporated "county" land. You go from town to town to town until you hit water or cross a state border.
I once told someone I know from the Midwest this (who now lives here), that NJ has over 500 municipalities/more than CA, and he didn't believe me. I could not convince him. I had to look it up on my phone and show him.
He was also mind-blown when I told him that every inch of NJ is part of a municipality, we have no unincorporated "county" land. You go from town to town to town until you hit water or cross a state border.
Yup!
Back in the '70s, as I drove a friend from Cincinnati around NJ, I would identify each town as we entered it, and my announcements came along very often, due to the relatively small size of many of the municipalities. His reaction was something along the lines of...There is no vacant land between these towns and if you had not told me I would think that this was just one contiguous city.
I thought my statement was qualified with the word Among the state's highest taxes. My bad. Obviously, I don't know the tax rate of every single town in TX - and I'm sure some others than the ones I listed are higher. That said, Dallas and Collin counties have average tax rates around the 2.18 mark, which are among the highest in TX.
It wasn't qualified seeing as you didn't actually use the word "Among." Anyway, you should at least take a glance at tax rates in other cities before claiming they are among the highest taxes
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I have no idea what you're trying to say in your second paragraph as you appear to be speaking in circles. Suffice it to say, TX can afford to not levy an income tax, because it's heavily reliant on the feds to fund its state gov't instead of funding it itself. States like NJ that pay more into the federal treasury than they get back are subsidizing the governments of states like TX that take more than they contribute.
Receiving most revenue from the federal government is NOT the same as taking more than it contributes. Texas is the only "Red state" that often, though not always, takes less than it contributes. That is part of the reason Texas ranks so low in your own link on the part talking about "State Residents’ Dependency."
Massachusetts is a MUCH better run state than NJ....I used to live there (and oh do I wish I still did!) and you can't even compare the the two. ...
...Mass also simply does not have highly concentrated poverty on the level of Newark/Camden/etc. which receive the bulk of the income tax revenue in NJ. It has its fair share of poorer areas, but since towns in Mass are much larger in land area and school districts are frequently regional, there is just more tax revenue to draw on compared to NJ.
I could go on, but having lived in both, it really is noticeable how clueless this state is in terms of the way government is structured.
Greetings fellow (former) Bay State-ah!
I might clarify that MA does have its share of hyper-impoverished areas (think Lawrence, Lynn, Brockton.. to a lesser extent, Lowell). Otherwise, I share much of your observations. I dont 'get' the township-town-county thing. I've been in NYC/NJ area approaching 20 years now, but it still doesnt make sense to me
I might clarify that MA does have its share of hyper-impoverished areas (think Lawrence, Lynn, Brockton.. to a lesser extent, Lowell). Otherwise, I share much of your observations. I dont 'get' the township-town-county thing. I've been in NYC/NJ area approaching 20 years now, but it still doesnt make sense to me
NJ has towns, townships, villages, and boroughs, and of course cities, which are just different styles of municipal governments. They're all municipalities. Unless they're the bigger cities like Newark, I call most municipalities "towns" because on the surface there is no distinction between towns and the other forms of government. We also have counties with their own governments but they're not very powerful at all and basically don't need to exist. The biggest thing a county does is host a prosecutor's office and courthouse for more major crimes that aren't on the municipal level (like multiple DUIs or a homicide as opposed to going to municipal traffic court to contest a ticket).
NJ is actually similar to New England because our county governments are weak. "New Jersey's system of equally powerful townships, boroughs, towns and cities is the most similar system to New England's." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_England_town Local governments are municipality, not county, based. Most municipalities have their own school districts and services like snow plows and salt trucks. Counties basically run the county jails (for those going to county court), county parks (some parks are municipal some are county), and county roads. They don't do much else, other than the jail function, municipalities could easily completely take over these services. The state could take over the jails. We could get rid of counties in a day, but keep the geographical boundaries officially like CT, and no one would really notice because not much would change.
NJ has towns, townships, villages, and boroughs, and of course cities, which are just different styles of municipal governments. They're all municipalities. Unless they're the bigger cities like Newark, I call most municipalities "towns" because on the surface there is no distinction between towns and the other forms of government. We also have counties with their own governments but they're not very powerful at all and basically don't need to exist. The biggest thing a county does is host a prosecutor's office and courthouse for more major crimes that aren't on the municipal level (like multiple DUIs or a homicide as opposed to going to municipal traffic court to contest a ticket).
NJ is actually similar to New England because our county governments are weak. "New Jersey's system of equally powerful townships, boroughs, towns and cities is the most similar system to New England's." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_England_town Local governments are municipality, not county, based. Most municipalities have their own school districts and services like snow plows and salt trucks. Counties basically run the county jails (for those going to county court), county parks (some parks are municipal some are county), and county roads. They don't do much else, other than the jail function, municipalities could easily completely take over these services. The state could take over the jails. We could get rid of counties in a day, but keep the geographical boundaries officially like CT, and no one would really notice because not much would change.
It would take an act of God. No politician is going to vote for less control and what you are proposing means a dramatic decrease in government bureaucracy. The first roll of government, for those too naive to understand this is the furtherance of government power. The beast exists to feed itself.
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