Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
No, but at least I'm not living in a state that's 48th in size but 7-9 in population. NJ has way too many people and has corupt politics. Just read the NJ.com board for Manalapan and you can see what I'm talking about, and no I don't post there, read only.
The root cause of all the worlds problems and not just NJ is overpopulation. To all you selfish people out there with more than 2 kids. It's partly your fault.
When those bozo's who run this country stop listening to the church maybe they will come up with a plan to help reduce or at the very least stabilize our population. Those of us who were around when only 100M populated the US, nobody complained about crowded schools, crowded highways, long checkout lines in every store.
No, but at least I'm not living in a state that's 48th in size but 7-9 in population. NJ has way too many people and has corupt politics. Just read the NJ.com board for Manalapan and you can see what I'm talking about, and no I don't post there, read only.
Why on earth would you leave NJ because you hate it and spend so much time reading and writing on the NJ boards? And now it's not just here, you also read NJ.com boards.
UKOK - Many of us who left NJ don't hate it. It's just that the quality of life there is not what it used to be. I may be like Pier Angelli, the Italian actress that played Lot's wife in "Sodom and Gommorah" who turned into a pillar of salt for turning back and gazing at her old digs. I read the Bergen Record online everyday after I finish the local paper here. I still have most of my family living in several North Jersey towns.
There are many reasons why NJ is a place where people are leaving. Most of them are financial in nature. Home town rule is a major cost of this. Duplication of services are endless in NJ. This adds to the overall costs of living there.
The whole suburbanization of America basically took place after WW2. Madison Ave sold this country a bill of goods as to how life was to be lead and in the 50's the population bought right into it. I remember when I was a kid watching the movie "The Best Years of Our Lives" with Dana Andrews saying all he wanted was a little place on the outskirts of town to settle down in. That movie came out in 1947 when vets were returning home and the baby boom got underway. I must have seen it in the early 60's back when it would have been an NBC "Movie of the Week" or the like. I said to my father even then, that his generation was the impetus for the 'burbs. Remember shows like "Leave it to Beaver" and "Father Knows Best"? This was the picture of how life was supposed to be. Beaver never had a black friend and "Princess" never had a date with a Puerto Rican guy. Ward and June might have taken a trip to NYC to see "West Side Story" in 1957 but they sure as hell never told Wally and the Beav about it.
When I was a kid we went shopping in downtown Paterson to places like Quackenbushes and the other big department stores. Cities like Paterson in NJ actually had people from suburban towns like Ridgewood or Wayne go shopping there. But with the advent of malls and the ever-expanding suburbs it was easier to go by car and have a parking space that you didn't have to pay for, at a mall, than to go shopping downtown. Thus the downtowns of the big NJ cities slowly became ghost towns. The black migration from the South in the 50's filled the gaps in the downtown areas as people left. This hastened the exodus from the cities to the suburbs. So NJ has turned into the Suburbs State.
When I lived in Kentucky during graduate school in 1974, Lexington KY annexed all of Fayette county into it. Can you imagine the screaming that would take place if all of Passaic county became Paterson, all of Essex county became Newark and all of Bergen county became Hackensack. Well, folks that is what of the rest of the country has done. One school system, one police department - and that saves a lot of money! But NJ will never do anything so bold - witness the fighting between Oradell and River Edge over their combined school system. Haledon, Prospect Park and North Haledon have been doing the same thing. At least NJ could go to a county school system like most of the rest of the country. No more Abbott Districts - everyone gets the same amount. If you don't like it too bad so sad. Adjust.
Here in NC everyone likes to say that the builders control the state. In NJ the state employees, teachers, and cops control the state. Can anyone ever say no to the Teachers Union NJEA. Someone has to tell them the party is over. No one has developed the b**** in NJ to do that. If taxes are to be reigned in anytime soon someone has to tell the state pension plan that the Taxpayers in NJ are not an infinite source of money. The state should adopt a system like the feds where you pay 28% of your health benefit costs and contribute a little more to your pension costs or you may find that the state employees will end up like the steel workers.
For those of you that like to complain about your high taxes remember that approximately 70% is school related and that 70% of the school money is salaries. Do the math.
That's not a problem at all. I applaud you for being the only octogenarian I have ever come across who even vaguely knew what a computer was! More power to you! I wish more senior citizens would make a concerted effort to experience all the Internet has to offer to them from medical advice and purchasing prescription medications online to receiving e-mails with photos of their grandchildren to possibly even creating a personal ad for widows/widowers on Internet dating sites. It's an asset to have an 89-year-old on City-Data! I'm very proud of you, and I hope you have many more years to enlighten us with your wisdom!
While supposedly extending an olive branch to one party you post inflamatory remarks towards others. I read some of your posts. The one thing commendable about you is your idealism. Our argument looked ridicules to you because you're an idealogue. You decided, being judge and jury of the Garden State, for which you don't nor have ever resided, to take Nexus' side in DEFENSE of promoting the city of Newark as one with "potential". I felt that he was irresponsible in NOT discouraging the poster from looking there and our debate began. Why would you put yourself in the middle of something that you had no knowledge? By your own admission you had never been there.Yet at least Nexus and I both resided there and have a thorough knowledge of the city. I wouldn't profess to know the first thing about Scranton, nor any part of Pa. And I certainly couldn't fathom injecting myself into what was becoming a heated debate. The very sad irony was that our argument was PRIOR to the horrendeous crimes that took place there this week-end. We had a few more words and agreed to let the matter go. Yet. lo and behold I stumble upon your most offensive post towards me. Shame on you.
I honestly can't believe that you are once again taking someone's remarks out-of-context and so utterly personally. Trust me, if I had $1 for every time I heard a manager or co-worker make a disparaging remark about homosexuals in my presence (unaware that I happen to be one) or for every time I was shoved in high school for committing this same "offense" of being a minority, I'd be wealthy enough to move out of the suburbs. It's called growing a thicker skin. I realize that most of America views me as a sub-standard creature that should be shot in the head, so I've just accepted that fact and have moved on. If you're going to take such offense to something as trivial as being told an argument you were involved in made you both resemble "middle-school students," then you're going to be in for an eternity of arguments and fist-fights in your future.
Yes, you and Nexus WERE acting immaturely by descending a thread into such an argument (that will likely now be repeated by us as well since I have a difficult time backing down from a debate). Shame on me? Why not shame on YOU for once again capitalizing upon something that you took out of context to once again view as a personal attack in attempt to further yourself somehow? Your attention has shifted its focus from Nexus to myself, and then likely to a moderator when he/she locks this thread.
NJ maybe small but a lot could be said for a place so tiny with such a large populace. NJ does have people bulging out of every seam, but I refuse to believe all 8mil+ are 'stuck'. 48th in population it maybe so I think NJ's large populace is it's greatest strength and greatest weakness
SWB/NJtina-As far as acting like 'middle-school students': guilty as charged lol. But before history repeats itself on this thread let's get back on topic before the moderators lock it
SWB/NJtina-As far as acting like 'middle-school students': guilty as charged lol. But before history repeats itself on this thread let's get back on topic before the moderators lock it
Agreed. I'm ending the argument with that reply. She can continue to claim herself as an offended victim as much as she'd like from now on, but she won't have me to argue with either.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I wish more senior citizens would make a concerted effort to experience all the Internet has to offer to them from medical advice and purchasing prescription medications online to receiving e-mails with photos of their grandchildren to possibly even creating a personal ad for widows/widowers on Internet dating sites. It's an asset to have an 89-year-old on City-Data! I'm very proud of you, and I hope you have many more years to enlighten us with your wisdom! 
