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Location: The place where the road & the sky collide
23,814 posts, read 34,693,648 times
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Originally Posted by NJGOAT
soug is right that the mergers tend to center around shared high schools, hence the logic of Sterling Township as all of those towns feed the same high school and a lot of them already share some basic services like trash collection.
FWIW, the current merger goal has been to force towns with less then 10,000 residents to merge and engage in shared services with other towns. Back in 2008 Corzine porposed and implemented slashing all state aid to towns with less than 5,000 people and halved it for towns of less than 10,000. The hope was that this would force smaller towns to either merge or aggressively engage in shared services.
It's really an odd situation in terms of peoples loyalty back to their towns. I think the people howling the loudest are the ones that stand to lose. Mainly the public sector employees like the mayors, councils, police and fire chiefs, superintendents, etc. Obviously some of them would still be needed, but in a hypothetical Sterling Twp., there could be only one police chief, meaning at least 4 chiefs would be out of a job. In general, I don't think the average person really cares if their town gets merged and they are probably for it if it means stabilization or reduction of property taxes. Ultimately I think the "loss of community identidy" argument is just a convenient cover for those who have a lot more to lose.
Not a bad idea. If that was too big, just rolling the components into Gloucester Twp., Sterling Twp. and Haddon Heights Twp. would have pretty much the same effect.
Location: The place where the road & the sky collide
23,814 posts, read 34,693,648 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by NJGOAT
Not a bad idea. If that was too big, just rolling the components into Gloucester Twp., Sterling Twp. and Haddon Heights Twp. would have pretty much the same effect.
It used to be commonplace to discuss the history & old jurisdictions of the area. I'm not sure why Centre Twp. broke apart, but I doubt that the whole thing could be reassembled. Heights & Lawnside have strong historic roots. If they were joined with Barrington, they'd have to use a totally different name, with each retaining their separate names as sections of the new town.
It used to be commonplace to discuss the history & old jurisdictions of the area. I'm not sure why Centre Twp. broke apart, but I doubt that the whole thing could be reassembled. Heights & Lawnside have strong historic roots. If they were joined with Barrington, they'd have to use a totally different name, with each retaining their separate names as sections of the new town.
Hmm, I think a key part of this has to be that the name of the new municipality doesn't/shouldn't matter. Each section that was previously its own town would maintain its identity, local community organizations (VFWs, Rotary Clubs, etc), and current mailing address. Government consolidation should be purely about increasing efficiency and lowering taxes.
Well, I just got back from a very interesting conference at New Jersey Future.
These are policymakers, politicians, developers, city planners, architects, etc. I feel a lot of what they had to say is relevant to us, especially vis-a-vis schools and smart growth.
Some of the points that were made and my reactions to them:
1) The Baby Boomers (ages 66 - 48) and Millennials (ages 31 - 21) will drive any future development not only in NJ, but nationally. It is these two demographics that developers have their eyes on. Sorry Generation (ages 47 - 32) X. We're talking renovating existing NJ towns and building up, not out. I am not so sure on Millennials. I don't see a 21 - 31 year old housing/ condo/ apt. boom because most have student loan debt & have helicopter parents, thus they're living at home longer. This could be different in North Jersey towns like Hoboken/ Jersey City where the young hold high skilled jobs and are already making big bucks
2) They said that both groups want condo-single family home hybrids with walkable downtowns. While this pretty much seemed contrary to what I see with retirees in Ocean County (sprawl central) and Exit 8A in Middlesex County, one speaker noted that the retirees here are Greatest Generation, not the Boomers.
3) A statistic that blew my mind: 2 out of 3 households in NJ are childless. In a decade predictions are 80% of households in NJ will be childless. More precisely, they predict New Jersey will have only 16% of households with kids. Seems like they were saying you can move to a good school district, pay for a nice house with higher taxes, but when you're old, those Millennials will not want to move into these places. Some stats showed the hardship Boomers are having selling their current sprawl homes. Is this wishful thinking? Will Millennials want bigger houses when they are older? Well, supposedly they are getting married less and not having kids. One 35 year-old woman in Jersey City asked if her husband & 4-year old are demographic pariahs. I don't think this affects South Jersey suburbs as much because let's face it, most of the young people here aren't these overly educated, highly skilled white collar workers.
4) Rentals will be growing in NJ. More affluent people will be renting. And the renters want walkable downtowns. Could the Gloucester County Light Rail make these towns more desirable to new, middle class, Philadelphia working families? Oh, I forgot - no one supposedly cares about Gen. X and Gen. Y aren't having families.
5) The farther you get away from public transportation, the housing values will drop. I was a little skeptical of that, look at Hunterdon/ Somerset. Even with the new Gloucester Light Rail, people like their space. Look at money Burlington County towns: Moorestown, Medford, etc. But supposedly this will change?
6) Bike advocacy groups are becoming a remarkable force in city planning. NJ is way behind the curve here. Yep.
So what's the takeaway?
A) Supposedly planners do not care about Generation X. The numbers are too low.
B) If walkable downtowns with rail/ rapid transit are the future, then what will happen to good school districts in sprawl areas? Looking specifically at the money Burlington County towns. Seems like the Millennials will not care about good schools as much since they are building families in lesser numbers.
C) In reference to B) Will towns without rail start to demand smarter bus service or bike paths?
D) Could NJ be headed for suburban decay bubble? The more people rent out their homes, the less maintenance gets done on them.
E) How applicable is all this to South Jersey?
F) Is this all just wishful predictions by the above group riddled with contradictions? Is having your big home, your yard and sharing no walls too entrenched in South Jersey culture, that we will desire the same thing as the generation before us?
G) NJ is broke and has a Governor not too willing to invest in infrastructure.
Well, I just got back from a very interesting conference at New Jersey Future.
These are policymakers, politicians, developers, city planners, architects, etc. I feel a lot of what they had to say is relevant to us, especially vis-a-vis schools and smart growth.
Sounds like an interesting event, thanks for sharing some of what was said. As for the city planners having worked with a couple in the past, they always have very utopian ideals that then get beaten into submission by the developers once money is on the table, lol.
Quote:
1) The Baby Boomers (ages 66 - 48) and Millennials (ages 31 - 21) will drive any future development not only in NJ, but nationally. It is these two demographics that developers have their eyes on. Sorry Generation (ages 47 - 32) X. We're talking renovating existing NJ towns and building up, not out. I am not so sure on Millennials. I don't see a 21 - 31 year old housing/ condo/ apt. boom because most have student loan debt & have helicopter parents, thus they're living at home longer. This could be different in North Jersey towns like Hoboken/ Jersey City where the young hold high skilled jobs and are already making big bucks
I'm on the cusp, currenty 31 born in 1980. Among my friends, we run the age gamut from 26-35 or so. While there are differing priorities among the ages, there is alos a lot of similarity. I know plenty of Millenials who have bought homes in the recent turn down. What they aren't doing though is stretching for that exurb McMansion or even going after the condos. I know a lot of people that are buying "right sized" homes and a lot that prefer older suburbs with solid histories.
In many cases they are buying the house now at a good price, maybe even with parents backing and then renting out rooms to friends or "co-habitating" with a significant other to share expenses.
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2) They said that both groups want condo-single family home hybrids with walkable downtowns. While this pretty much seemed contrary to what I see with retirees in Ocean County (sprawl central) and Exit 8A in Middlesex County, one speaker noted that the retirees here are Greatest Generation, not the Boomers.
I do see that trend as I said earlier, people around my age and younger who are buying tend to be buying smaller places and looking to finish them nicely, not looking solely at sqaure footage above all else. Large townhomes seem to be particularly appealing. Among the folks I know almost 50% of us (myself included) are living in townhomes. Most are in the 1,700-2,200 square foot range. They are basically houses, they just happen to be connected. Taxes are lower, maintenance is lower, utilities are lower, etc.
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3) A statistic that blew my mind: 2 out of 3 households in NJ are childless. In a decade predictions are 80% of households in NJ will be childless. More precisely, they predict New Jersey will have only 16% of households with kids. Seems like they were saying you can move to a good school district, pay for a nice house with higher taxes, but when you're old, those Millennials will not want to move into these places. Some stats showed the hardship Boomers are having selling their current sprawl homes. Is this wishful thinking? Will Millennials want bigger houses when they are older? Well, supposedly they are getting married less and not having kids. One 35 year-old woman in Jersey City asked if her husband & 4-year old are demographic pariahs. I don't think this affects South Jersey suburbs as much because let's face it, most of the young people here aren't these overly educated, highly skilled white collar workers.
This is simple generational cycles. I'm a big fan of Strauss & Howe and this kind of phenomenon is detailed in their works. The "Homelander" generation (kids born 2001+) are going to be a much smaller group then the Millenials were. This isn't anything new as these types of cycles have repeated for centuries. What it does mean to me is that there will be a lot less stress on public school systems. The Millenials were a big issue that had school planners going crazy trying to accomodate them. As the number of kids drops off, you end up with less pressure on the schools and more resources to put into each child.
Some of those demographics are also the simple fact that people are living longer and we have a greater prevalance of single households. Of course, all that reinforces the point that the giant sprawl houses probably are past their time.
Quote:
4) Rentals will be growing in NJ. More affluent people will be renting. And the renters want walkable downtowns. Could the Gloucester County Light Rail make these towns more desirable to new, middle class, Philadelphia working families? Oh, I forgot - no one supposedly cares about Gen. X and Gen. Y aren't having families.
Rentals make a lot of sense for some people, but I still see a desire to own among many in my age group. Given what they want to own is different, but the desire is still there.
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5) The farther you get away from public transportation, the housing values will drop. I was a little skeptical of that, look at Hunterdon/ Somerset. Even with the new Gloucester Light Rail, people like their space. Look at money Burlington County towns: Moorestown, Medford, etc. But supposedly this will change?
I think this is true in some respects and not in others. When it comes to South Jersey in general, I think we have a difficult case of really considering places like Moorestown and Medford "sprawl exurbs" in the way some North Jersey towns are. Even Medford as rural as it is remains pretty close to the major job centers and is a pretty easy drive to the job centers or to transit. Then in South Jersey we have the case that was brought up earlier in the thread about the diversity of employment centers. The bulk of South Jerseyans work in South Jersey, it changes the dynamics.
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6) Bike advocacy groups are becoming a remarkable force in city planning. NJ is way behind the curve here. Yep.
They are a force. I have yet to meet a city planner that wasn't a bike enthusiast, mainly because it is much easier to plan pretty cities when you don't need to worry about cars. The thing with the biking models that they put forward is that areas need to be very much designed around them and most existing infrastructure is not built to accomodate it.
Quote:
So what's the takeaway?
A) Supposedly planners do not care about Generation X. The numbers are too low.
I agree with that statement somewhat, Gen X is a much smaller group then the Millenials, but it is still a large number of people.
Quote:
B) If walkable downtowns with rail/ rapid transit are the future, then what will happen to good school districts in sprawl areas? Looking specifically at the money Burlington County towns. Seems like the Millennials will not care about good schools as much since they are building families in lesser numbers.
The walkable downtown serviced by rail was the past and is most likely the future. I think this is the way development will trend and Millenials seem to be going this way. However, I don't think they won't care about schools. Millenials are still going to have kids. They may have less of them and at older ages, but they are still going to have them.
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C) In reference to B) Will towns without rail start to demand smarter bus service or bike paths?
I think the answer for some of the towns without rail is "corridor" bus service to the rail. If you then create a drop in demand for cars as primary transportation, you can better accomodate bikes on existing roads. I think the transportation shift will be the elimination of the two car family. One car will be sufficient for "family driving", but commuting will increasingly happen on transit.
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D) Could NJ be headed for suburban decay bubble? The more people rent out their homes, the less maintenance gets done on them.
Perhaps some of the extreme exurbs may experience this, but everything tends to be cyclic. 30 years ago the 'wealth' was fleeing to the suburbs and spreading further and further out. The city cores and even inner-ring suburbs were decaying. Now the development and 'wealth' is flowing back to those areas, but I don't think it means the death of the suburb. If we are to believe what they theorize on values, then prices in the expensive suburbs would drop, making them more attractive again. I think there are enough people who want to live in those places that they could still be viable. What may happen is an end to new developments in those areas, but I don't see many, if any, turning into decaying ghost towns.
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E) How applicable is all this to South Jersey?
Some of it is and some of it isn't. I think we will see a resurgence and interest in the older suburban communities, but only at the expense of new developments in the outlying places. I think South Jersey is simply a very diversified place geographically in terms of job centers and employment. South Jersey really doesn't have the city core employment centers that North Jersey has that allow such robust transit to be effective.
Quote:
F) Is this all just wishful predictions by the above group riddled with contradictions? Is having your big home, your yard and sharing no walls too entrenched in South Jersey culture, that we will desire the same thing as the generation before us?
Some will, some won't. I don't think you can paint broad generalizations about any generation. I think the trend will be to "right sizing" and I think people have an affinity to more established places. However, there will always be the people that want the large homes and suburban/rural lifestyle. Even if all the Millenials live in modern TOD's, there is still plenty of Gen-Xers that most likely want traditional suburban PUD's.
Quote:
G) NJ is broke and has a Governor not too willing to invest in infrastructure.
Yes to the first part, no to the second. I think the desire to invest is there as long as it has clear cut benefits and is worth the investment. At this point we are doing all we can to maintain what we have.
Location: The place where the road & the sky collide
23,814 posts, read 34,693,648 times
Reputation: 10256
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cherno
Some of the points that were made and my reactions to them:
1) The Baby Boomers (ages 66 - 48) and Millennials (ages 31 - 21) will drive any future development not only in NJ, but nationally. It is these two demographics that developers have their eyes on. Sorry Generation (ages 47 - 32) X. We're talking renovating existing NJ towns and building up, not out. I am not so sure on Millennials. I don't see a 21 - 31 year old housing/ condo/ apt. boom because most have student loan debt & have helicopter parents, thus they're living at home longer. This could be different in North Jersey towns like Hoboken/ Jersey City where the young hold high skilled jobs and are already making big bucks
2) They said that both groups want condo-single family home hybrids with walkable downtowns. While this pretty much seemed contrary to what I see with retirees in Ocean County (sprawl central) and Exit 8A in Middlesex County, one speaker noted that the retirees here are Greatest Generation, not the Boomers.
3) A statistic that blew my mind: 2 out of 3 households in NJ are childless. In a decade predictions are 80% of households in NJ will be childless. More precisely, they predict New Jersey will have only 16% of households with kids. Seems like they were saying you can move to a good school district, pay for a nice house with higher taxes, but when you're old, those Millennials will not want to move into these places. Some stats showed the hardship Boomers are having selling their current sprawl homes. Is this wishful thinking? Will Millennials want bigger houses when they are older? Well, supposedly they are getting married less and not having kids. One 35 year-old woman in Jersey City asked if her husband & 4-year old are demographic pariahs. I don't think this affects South Jersey suburbs as much because let's face it, most of the young people here aren't these overly educated, highly skilled white collar workers.
6) Bike advocacy groups are becoming a remarkable force in city planning. NJ is way behind the curve here. Yep.
I'm a boomer. I'll get back to this post later, but wanted to throw out a few things on the generations. The Greatest Generation was renamed by Tom Brokaw. They spent most of their lives as the Depression kids. There is a small sort of sub generation between those two generations.
Boomers are the change-over generation. Because of sheer numbers, we have driven advertising all of our lives. We grew up in the old world & helped to drive the changes along with some of that subgeneration that I mentioned. Many of us started out in small towns or cities, but ended up in the suburban sprawl built for our parents. The Hippies protesting the Vietnam War were the people pushing for living a "green" lifestyle.
It discussed who Strauss and Howe were, what their work encompassed and what their predictions were based on their research. They are one of the leading authorities on the influence of Millenials. It's posted in the thread, but this is how currently alive people break down by generation based on their birth years:
Homelanders (born 2000+)
Millenials (born 1982-2000)
Gen-X (born 1961-1981)
Baby Boomers (born 1943-1960)
Silent Generation (born 1925-1942)
GI Generation/"Greatest Generation" (born 1901-1924)
Their basic theory relates to cycles in history that are governed by four phases and four generational archetypes. Each phase lasts roughly 20 years and each generational archetype has a certain role within that time period. It's the interplay of these generations, how they are shaped and most importantly how they respond to events that drives the course of history.
One of the more interesting observations is their theory that generations are not defined as a response to whom your parents and grandparents were, but as a response to the generation "in power" during your early adult years. For example, a person and their parents could be of the same generation or could be of totally separate generations.
Also, during the cycles/phases or "turnings" as they call them, there are certain general societal trends. These are mentioned in the linked thread and when you start to put the pieces together it tells a very interesting story of where we were, where we are and where we might be going. The most interesting thing though is it attempts to explain why.
I think a lot of what you learned at the conference is very relevant to the huge metros of NYC, DC, Chicago, etc. The kind of unusual thing about South Jersey though is that even the farthest suburbs of Philly are still relatively close. If you think about it, even Hammonton which is literally in the center of South Jersey is only forty-five minutes away. People in parts of North Jersey, Maryland, northern Virginia, etc would kill for that type of commute. So at least in South Jersey, public transportation isn't exactly vital to having a good property value and quality of life, though it's obviously a great resource to have.
I would guess most people like the idea of having a walkable downtown/town center close to public transit and near their house. However, it takes a critical mass of people to actually make such a concept a reality. In the DC area for example, this is being pushed by awful traffic, a soaring economy, and unaffordable prices in downtown DC, causing companies and people to look for a more urbanish lifestyle in the (former) suburbs such as Bethesda, Arlington, and so on. Former park-and-rides all over that region are being transformed into mixed-use neighborhoods. Until Philadelphia hits a big growth spurt, there won't really be a big push to do this and build up in Camden (revitalize is the more appropriate term here), Collingswood, Haddonfield, Glassboro, etc. And even then, there is a ton of empty space in the city that still needs to be built up first. But the city is on the rise so we'll see how it all pans out over the next twenty years or so.
Theres a large Community under Construction in Salt Lake City , its called Daybreak and its built around Transit and Alt Transportation like biking and walking. Theres numerous parks , a University , Retail and Religious buildings all located in one development. While this is a huge Development , theres no reason something smaller like that can't be built... They also have houses tailored to each generation and even Eco-Houses... Daybreak is quickly becoming the future of Suburbia out west...
House Alley (http://www.flickr.com/photos/21202433@N08/6926692511/ - broken link) by Photo Dean (http://www.flickr.com/people/21202433@N08/ - broken link), on Flickr
Daybreak Homes at Sunrise (http://www.flickr.com/photos/21202433@N08/6173179387/ - broken link) by Photo Dean (http://www.flickr.com/people/21202433@N08/ - broken link), on Flickr
Blue Gazebo House (http://www.flickr.com/photos/21202433@N08/6212681620/ - broken link) by Photo Dean (http://www.flickr.com/people/21202433@N08/ - broken link), on Flickr
New TRAX Line (http://www.flickr.com/photos/21202433@N08/6907708779/ - broken link) by Photo Dean (http://www.flickr.com/people/21202433@N08/ - broken link), on Flickr
Across the Valley (http://www.flickr.com/photos/21202433@N08/6352267064/ - broken link) by Photo Dean (http://www.flickr.com/people/21202433@N08/ - broken link), on Flickr
South Jordan Parkway (http://www.flickr.com/photos/21202433@N08/6352267150/ - broken link) by Photo Dean (http://www.flickr.com/people/21202433@N08/ - broken link), on Flickr
Soda Row Panorama (http://www.flickr.com/photos/21202433@N08/6350369579/ - broken link) by Photo Dean (http://www.flickr.com/people/21202433@N08/ - broken link), on Flickr
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