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NJ has a good amount of swamp lands and by law, we preserve them and don't develop them. For example, we have the Troy Meadow Wetlands in between Hanover, East Hanover, and Parsippany. We have the Great Swamp Wildlife Refuge in between Chatham and Gillette. But, there are also weird patches of woods in more populated towns that are not swamp land or not considered a "preserved land". For example, on Google Earth, there are patches of woods east of Livingston Mall on South Orange Avenue and then eventually you bump into South Mountain Reservation.
What do you think NJ would have developed if such patches of woods and swamps didn't exist (This would overwhelm the population)?
NJ has a good amount of swamp lands and by law, we preserve them and don't develop them. For example, we have the Troy Meadow Wetlands in between Hanover, East Hanover, and Parsippany. We have the Great Swamp Wildlife Refuge in between Chatham and Gillette. But, there are also weird patches of woods in more populated towns that are not swamp land or not considered a "preserved land". For example, on Google Earth, there are patches of woods east of Livingston Mall on South Orange Avenue and then eventually you bump into South Mountain Reservation.
What do you think NJ would have developed if such patches of woods and swamps didn't exist (This would overwhelm the population)?
You must be young, because many of us remember when there WERE patches of woods and swamps where we lived that are now cut down or filled in with houses or condos built on top of them.
When I was a kid in Bergen County in a town about 30 miles NW of Manhattan, there were woods and a field behind me that were separated from my our backyard by one of those old unmortared stone walls built by the old Dutch farmers a couple of hundred years ago when they cleared the rocks from their fields. The next house up the street was an old farmhouse, part of which was built before the Revolution. The owners kept a horse and a pony that would sometimes come down to our yard and we'd give them apples. I also used to go back there with my books and hide under a type of bush that formed a sort of a tent and read for hours.
Across the street was woods. We didn't play in those much because we knew the owners didn't want kids in there, but at the end of the street was more woods that didn't belong to them. There were two paths in the woods, one of which led to "the swamp", a pond fed by a creek in which we caught bullfrogs and box turtles.
My mother still lives in the house in which I grew up. Now the woods behind her are gone. There are four houses between her house and the pre-Revolutionary war house that used to be the next house up the street. The woods across the street are gone, replaced by fourteen houses and two cul-de-sacs. The swamp was filled in years ago and houses built on top of it, and the creek is now a concrete drainpipe.
Those "patches of woods and swamps" that you see now may very well not exist one of these days, either.
a not-for-profit actually did a study recently to determine what NJ would look like right now if they didnt have so many protected woods/swamps/preserved land. they came up with a rendering:
You must be young, because many of us remember when there WERE patches of woods and swamps where we lived that are now cut down or filled in with houses or condos built on top of them.
When I was a kid in Bergen County in a town about 30 miles NW of Manhattan, there were woods and a field behind me that were separated from my our backyard by one of those old unmortared stone walls built by the old Dutch farmers a couple of hundred years ago when they cleared the rocks from their fields. The next house up the street was an old farmhouse, part of which was built before the Revolution. The owners kept a horse and a pony that would sometimes come down to our yard and we'd give them apples. I also used to go back there with my books and hide under a type of bush that formed a sort of a tent and read for hours.
Across the street was woods. We didn't play in those much because we knew the owners didn't want kids in there, but at the end of the street was more woods that didn't belong to them. There were two paths in the woods, one of which led to "the swamp", a pond fed by a creek in which we caught bullfrogs and box turtles.
My mother still lives in the house in which I grew up. Now the woods behind her are gone. There are four houses between her house and the pre-Revolutionary war house that used to be the next house up the street. The woods across the street are gone, replaced by fourteen houses and two cul-de-sacs. The swamp was filled in years ago and houses built on top of it, and the creek is now a concrete drainpipe.
Those "patches of woods and swamps" that you see now may very well not exist one of these days, either.
Yeah, I am young and not from your time at all. The patches of woods you described sound like some good old days of NJ. Well the street I live in was farm land probably in the 80s I assume. I wonder what was before the farm land. NJ has a lot of hidden history, and a lot of the hidden history seems undocumented.
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Because of stricter environmental laws today, I doubt certain patches of woods will develop in my lifetime.
If you look at the city of Albuquerque on Google Earth, you will notice there are unpaved, undeveloped residential roads that have no houses, because Albuquerque was supposed grow, and somebody way older than me predicted to me those unbuilt roads will never develop in my lifetime. I think NJ is finished growing. Also, it is against the law to develop on swamp land, but my high school was built on a swamp land, which is why it only has one floor.
Swamps absorb, hold, and slowly release runoff, so if you eliminate them completely you basically just end up with a lot of flooding. Bound Brook, Wayne, Little Falls, Manville, and other NJ towns infamous for flooding are so because they were originally swampland that was developed over hundreds of years. Swamps, or wetlands, weren't really protected until the 1970s but by then millions of acres of swamps had already been drained and built on. My "swamp" serves as the drainage for all of the farmland in the valley, the drainage then feeds the Spruce Run which was dammed in the 1960s to create Spruce Run Reservoir.
a not-for-profit actually did a study recently to determine what NJ would look like right now if they didnt have so many protected woods/swamps/preserved land. they came up with a rendering:
That picture looks fake like those "futuristic" cartoon depictions. That picture is basically Wayne. Wayne is considered a suburb, but that's how bad it looks, because it is overdeveloped. The roads are damn complex, so many overpasses, and has an evil population of NJ's rudest drivers and NJ's most aggressive drivers.
Swamps absorb, hold, and slowly release runoff, so if you eliminate them completely you basically just end up with a lot of flooding. Bound Brook, Wayne, Little Falls, Manville, and other NJ towns infamous for flooding are so because they were originally swampland that was developed over hundreds of years. Swamps, or wetlands, weren't really protected until the 1970s but by then millions of acres of swamps had already been drained and built on. My "swamp" serves as the drainage for all of the farmland in the valley, the drainage then feeds the Spruce Run which was dammed in the 1960s to create Spruce Run Reservoir.
My parents came to America in the 1970s, and yes, they said the environment in general was not protected until years later. There was a land fill on a piece of land on the side of where I-280 enters into NJ-7 (if you want to drive towards Jersey City). Now people know better. That was time when Love Canal in upstate NY was a huge issue.
Shameful they developed the swamplands to build Wayne. Wayne is full of concrete and it sucks!
Yeah, I am young and not from your time at all. The patches of woods you described sound like some good old days of NJ. Well the street I live in was farm land probably in the 80s I assume. I wonder what was before the farm land. NJ has a lot of hidden history, and a lot of the hidden history seems undocumented.
'
Because of stricter environmental laws today, I doubt certain patches of woods will develop in my lifetime.
If you look at the city of Albuquerque on Google Earth, you will notice there are unpaved, undeveloped residential roads that have no houses, because Albuquerque was supposed grow, and somebody way older than me predicted to me those unbuilt roads will never develop in my lifetime. I think NJ is finished growing. Also, it is against the law to develop on swamp land, but my high school was built on a swamp land, which is why it only has one floor.
It will depend upon who is running the municipalities. In 2009. I moved from the Bergen/Passaic County area, where I spent all of my life and watched as they just kept building and building and building and taking every last patch of woods, to Monmouth County, which seems to have had more foresight in that regard.
Eastern Monmouth County is also building, building, building. In the nine years I've been here, I've seen condo complexes and McMansion developments spring up and the traffic has gotten noticeably worse.
However, Monmouth County's park system is nationally recognized. They've done their job in putting aside substantial amounts of land that will stay part of the park system. Despite the overbuilding, there is lots of open space to walk, canoe, hike, fish, whatever, because they looked ahead. I hope that other areas of New Jersey do the same.
That picture looks fake like those "futuristic" cartoon depictions. That picture is basically Wayne. Wayne is considered a suburb, but that's how bad it looks, because it is overdeveloped. The roads are damn complex, so many overpasses, and has an evil population of NJ's rudest drivers and NJ's most aggressive drivers.
Quote:
Originally Posted by potanta
Wayne is full of concrete and it sucks!
You do realize that not everyone you might encounter on a road in Wayne might not actually live in Wayne?
Here is your simple solution since you hate Wayne so much, just don't go there.
i have never been to wayne. that may explain why i am so happy.
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