Perception of NJ from out of staters (Newark, East Orange: buy, living)

[tahiti]

Originally Posted by FlyersFan

OK.....lets analyze that just a bit.......we can't change the industrial picture but how about the areas they travel through......they are filthy......rundown.....trash stewn.....crime ridden.....that gives the picture that the people who live here just don't care.....they must be content to live in squalor because no one does anything aout it ? We can't change the location of the airports but we can change the area around them.....but no one does. Whos fault is that ? We have a bad image because the image is BAD !!! Unless we're willing to change that image what right does anyone here have to whine about it ? We've earned that image.

a cab takes you on the tpke to the holland tunnel, so all you see is the "industrial picture" - and that's the perception people have, so nothing really to analyze, right, since you yourself said we can't change it.

[clevedark]

I totally do not see putting our industrial areas next to major roadways as a flaw! It's good planning!! That way the goods can get where they need to go.

It's much better to have roadways in industrial areas than, say, spanning major waterfront areas like alot of cities do.

[JerseyCity201]

Originally Posted by tommyc_37

Are you serious with this post? LOL. This makes me really love that I live in NJ. You are the antithesis of class...

FYI, the only area of NJ that really has a high population of Indian-Americans is the Edison-Woodbridge area. If it bothers you so much, I'd suggest that you move to a different area of NJ...there are many beautiful areas here.

Edison and Woodbridge does have a high percentage of Indians but Jersey City has thousands more. Jersey City is 5.4% Indian so thats about 44,000 in 2000. Its 2009 now so since they are one of the fastest growing immigrant populations in JC it should be higher by now. My high school year book from when I went to Dickinson has four pages of the last name Patel and one page of Shah alone.

[pbergen]

Originally Posted by JerseyCity201

Edison and Woodbridge does have a high percentage of Indians but Jersey City has thousands more. Jersey City is 5.4% Indian so thats about 44,000 in 2000. Its 2009 now so since they are one of the fastest growing immigrant populations in JC it should be higher by now. My high school year book from when I went to Dickinson has four pages of the last name Patel and one page of Shah alone.

no offense, but how did you determine that jersey city has 44,000 asian indians? the numbers simply don't back up your assertion.

according to the 2000 census, jersey city was indeed 5.4% indian - but as the total population of jc was 240,055, that only comes out to 12,973 indians.

the total asian population in jc - including indians, filipinos, chinese, vietnamese, koreans, and others - amounted to 38,881, which is still lower than your estimate of 44,000 for indians alone.

and according to 2005-2007 3-year estimates (which are very preliminary), jersey city's indian population is approximately 17,228. that's a large number, but a far cry from your tally.

meanwhile, 17.3% of edison's 97,687 residents were of asian indian descent in the 2000 census. that comes out to 16,898 indians, which by itself eclipses jc's indian community. and the 2005-2007 3-year estimates for edison counted 24,320 indians out of 102,175 total residents.

in iselin, there were 2,843 indians out of 16,698 total residents (17%) according to the 2000 census. this doesn't even include the rest of woodbridge township, of which iselin is a section.

if you look at woodbridge township as a whole (including iselin, colonia, avenel, etc), there were 8,592 indians, or 8.8% of the 97,203 total residents. according to 2005-2007 estimates, there were 12,584 indians out of 99,306.

i do agree with your basic premise that jc has a lot of indians - just not to the extent of the edison/woodbridge area. jc is the #2 indian enclave in the state as far as population and influence, with parsippany probably #3.

[MiamiGringo]

Originally Posted by clevedark

Don't laugh, but when I would come home from my business trips to Southern California I would gaze out the window from my taxi ride from Newark to Manhattan and think how charming our industrial wasteland was compared to what I saw in So CA--shuttered broken down cheap stucco buildings in the middle of busy intersections and looping roadways. You could tell they had been open for about fifteen minutes before pooping out. Just depressing.

I live in Miami now and like it but spent much of my childhood in New Jersey. Last year, I was in NJ with a friend from California who made the usual jokes. We had the afternoon free so I offered to give him a real tour - of the industrial, crowded parts since he had seen the Palisades, Delaware Water Gap, Lambertville etc on other trips.

I took him through the Ironbound, showed him Sacred Heart Cathedral (one of the prettiest churches in the Northeast) and Branch Brook Park, stopped in Kearny, toured him around Jersey City, then drove up along the Hudson, stopped in Englewood for coffee and wound up with dinner in So Hackensack. The next day we met in Hoboken for lunch. He was pretty blown away and while he's not uprooting, got a pretty good view of what NE Jersey has to offer and was impressed.

I think that's the problem with the image. There's no point in fighting it. Show it off. It's great to show the Northwest NJ region and how pretty that it is and some of the other areas but NJ could really benefit from embracing its idiosyncratic charms.

One note however, which will probably get me assaulted. The Jersey Shore is nothing. If it wasn't convenient, it wouldn't get looked at twice and I don't mean in comparison to more famous beaches like Florida or California, I mean in comparison to Eastern LI or even Rehoboth. It's not terrible but even the upscale parts look like prefab ghettos.

I'll duck and run now.

[mike0421]

Originally Posted by MiamiGringo

I live in Miami now and like it but spent much of my childhood in New Jersey. Last year, I was in NJ with a friend from California who made the usual jokes. We had the afternoon free so I offered to give him a real tour - of the industrial, crowded parts since he had seen the Palisades, Delaware Water Gap, Lambertville etc on other trips.

I took him through the Ironbound, showed him Sacred Heart Cathedral (one of the prettiest churches in the Northeast) and Branch Brook Park, stopped in Kearny, toured him around Jersey City, then drove up along the Hudson, stopped in Englewood for coffee and wound up with dinner in So Hackensack. The next day we met in Hoboken for lunch. He was pretty blown away and while he's not uprooting, got a pretty good view of what NE Jersey has to offer and was impressed.

I think that's the problem with the image. There's no point in fighting it. Show it off. It's great to show the Northwest NJ region and how pretty that it is and some of the other areas but NJ could really benefit from embracing its idiosyncratic charms.

One note however, which will probably get me assaulted. The Jersey Shore is nothing. If it wasn't convenient, it wouldn't get looked at twice and I don't mean in comparison to more famous beaches like Florida or California, I mean in comparison to Eastern LI or even Rehoboth. It's not terrible but even the upscale parts look like prefab ghettos.

I'll duck and run now.

I might be one of the few that agree with you on this, after visiting various California beaches (Coronado, Newport, La Jolla, OB, etc) many times. But that's just me. I love where you have dramatic cliffs and vistas that blend with the beach. Maine and Hawaii beaches as well.

[tommyc_37]

Originally Posted by MiamiGringo

I live in Miami now and like it but spent much of my childhood in New Jersey. Last year, I was in NJ with a friend from California who made the usual jokes. We had the afternoon free so I offered to give him a real tour - of the industrial, crowded parts since he had seen the Palisades, Delaware Water Gap, Lambertville etc on other trips.

I took him through the Ironbound, showed him Sacred Heart Cathedral (one of the prettiest churches in the Northeast) and Branch Brook Park, stopped in Kearny, toured him around Jersey City, then drove up along the Hudson, stopped in Englewood for coffee and wound up with dinner in So Hackensack. The next day we met in Hoboken for lunch. He was pretty blown away and while he's not uprooting, got a pretty good view of what NE Jersey has to offer and was impressed.

I think that's the problem with the image. There's no point in fighting it. Show it off. It's great to show the Northwest NJ region and how pretty that it is and some of the other areas but NJ could really benefit from embracing its idiosyncratic charms.

One note however, which will probably get me assaulted. The Jersey Shore is nothing. If it wasn't convenient, it wouldn't get looked at twice and I don't mean in comparison to more famous beaches like Florida or California, I mean in comparison to Eastern LI or even Rehoboth. It's not terrible but even the upscale parts look like prefab ghettos.

I'll duck and run now.

Pre-fab GHETTOS? LOL, what upscale part of the Jersey Shore looks like any sort of ghetto? There is nothing "pre-fab" in Spring Lake or Sea Girt. Have you ever been to Cape May? Cape May blows away Rehobeth Beach and most parts of Eastern LI.

[nutleynut]

I think the roads are placed in the industrial areas rather than industry placed near the roads. The roads would displace a lot of people and ruin the quality of life of those nearby if they were in nicer areas.

NJ story as told to me by a friend from Berkeley;

My buddy was working at UC Berkeley and had a friend who had just moved their from NJ. I think it was for work.
The friend from NJ constantly complained of having nothing to do and not being able to find anything outside work to make him feel at home. This went on for weeks and months. Finally my buddy says to him jeese haven't you gone to see any of the sites? Have you seen a redwood yet? The NJ friend says "no". So one day my buddy takes him to a grove of redwoods on campus and walks up to the trees standing under them he points up and says "well?" The Jersey guy looks at the redwood, looks at my buddy looks back at the redwood and says
"It's a f***in pine (pronounced Poin) tree!"
Jersey guy went home a few weeks later. True Story.

I love that story, and I love Jersey.

[dhanu86]

Originally Posted by JerseyCity201

Edison and Woodbridge does have a high percentage of Indians but Jersey City has thousands more. Jersey City is 5.4% Indian so thats about 44,000 in 2000. Its 2009 now so since they are one of the fastest growing immigrant populations in JC it should be higher by now. My high school year book from when I went to Dickinson has four pages of the last name Patel and one page of Shah alone.

that would mean 1 million people live in JC, half a million live in hudson county but JC is where most of those Indians are.

I bet NJ has tooken the title for most Indians even beyond california or new york. Indians are growing in many states but the immigrants like NJ because it's closer to India, jobs, relatives, etc. NY leads in it's Paki population

[justfarr1030]

Originally Posted by tommyc_37

OK, so for my whole life, I always defended NJ to naysayers from out of state who have no idea what they're talking about.

Over the past couple of years, I stopped being so overly defensive, and I just let ignorant people remain ignorant, for the most part. Partly due to the fact that stupid people will just never get it, and partly due to the fact that I was fine with letting NJ remain America's best kept secret.

But over the past 2 or 3 weeks, I have had THREE incidents where I could not help but be very defensive of NJ. All 3 of these NJ critics were from NY.

Incident #1
Date: Late October
Perpetrator: Young woman in her 20's
Description: This girl was from Oregon, yet relocated to Westchester County recently. Had been in NJ once or twice total. Upon finding out that I was from NJ, this girl made a disgusted face and said "why would anyone live there?". As you can imagine, tommyc_37's blood began to boil. When I explained that NJ is in fact quite nice, and asked her if she was aware that NJ is also the country's wealthiest state, she said "I don't believe it. Oregon is much more ritzy than NJ".


Incident #2
Date: Early November
Perpetrator: Woman in her 30's
Description: In a social situation in Manhattan, the perpetrator (from Russia, relocated to Brooklyn roughly 10 years prior) could not understand why a mutual friend of ours was living in NJ. I asked her politely if she had ever been to NJ, and she said "Passing through, yea. Oh, and also I was in Seaside Heights once. It was so trashy!!!" I said, "Seaside is indeed trashy...but did you find it as trashy as Coney Island, Miss Brooklyn??"


Incident #3
Date: Last night
Perpetrator: Woman in her mid 40's
Description: This woman (sort of a colleague of mine), who is from Long Island, and I were out to dinner in Manhattan entertaining some business associates (who were from Germany). When the Germans asked about "The Garden State", this woman from Long Island replied "Yeah, that's what they call it, but I don't believe it". I replied "You know, there are a LOT of farms in NJ, have you ever been to rural NJ??". She replied, "I've really only been on the highways, and in Newark airport". Oh...my...God. I had to control myself since this was a business dinner


So, my point is...it's starting to BOTHER me again!! I mean, here are 3 people, who are educated and otherwise quite intelligent, rational people, who all LIVE within 20 miles of NJ...and they STILL think that it's an industrial wasteland!!! The one that really got my goose was the one from Long Island...Long Island = NJ, just with MORE traffic!!!

How is it that NJ has STILL not overcome this huge perception problem? The State should really hire one of the top PR firms to get a really robust PR campaign going. Because this is rediculous. Why do NYers frown on NJ so much?

LOL, very entertaining post.

Dont mind New Yorkers, as we all know they hate on EVERYTHING not New York (shame I have to admit it). The years in my life that I spent not living in New York helped me see how ignorant we are as a whole.

I lived in Jersey and I know there are good parts, bad parts, country (rural) parts and city parts. To me the greatest STATE (not city, that belongs to NY) of all. Most diverse state (IMO).