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I would like to see Hudson county and Essex county merge into a 2 borough system. Kind of like how New York city is set up. That would give us our own Major city.
There was definitely talk of annexing the one o m ore of the Oranges
Yes, in 1895. Of course, neither the Greater Orange nor the Greater Newark happened. At the time, East Orange and South Orange were prosperous residential communities. Orange was still a manufacturing center, and West Orange (the least populated of the Oranges at the time -- Orange itself was by far the largest) was split between the two. You see from those articles that few favored a consolidated Orange -- except as a way of preventing annexation to Newark.
Things are much different now. East Orange is the most populous of the Oranges (by far), but it is by no means a center of anything the way Orange was. Orange and East Orange are populated mostly by poor minorities (and not the same minorities, either -- E.O. is overwhelmingly black while Orange is largely Hispanic), while West Orange and South Orange are a wealthier mix -- and include among their more well-off minorities quite a few who fled Newark and E.O. A consolidation of the Oranges makes no sense when the only thing in common is the name.
Hehe, not really, with the new shoprite and surrounding residences that are starting to get built on Springfield ave, along with a new residential tower by the NJPAC, prudential towers being built by military park, the restoration of older buildings (with soon to be tenants ie. whole foods and hotel indigo), a new and expanding waterfront park in the ironbound, a redesign/reconstruction of Military Park, new college buildings by NJIT, the whole redevelopment of streets around the old St. Michaels hospital building, and teachers village by prudential center, there's also some stuff happening on 21, idk what though. So yeah, it's starting to happen in Newark, mainly downtown and surrounding areas though
Yes, in 1895. Of course, neither the Greater Orange nor the Greater Newark happened. At the time, East Orange and South Orange were prosperous residential communities. Orange was still a manufacturing center, and West Orange (the least populated of the Oranges at the time -- Orange itself was by far the largest) was split between the two. You see from those articles that few favored a consolidated Orange -- except as a way of preventing annexation to Newark.
Things are much different now. East Orange is the most populous of the Oranges (by far), but it is by no means a center of anything the way Orange was. Orange and East Orange are populated mostly by poor minorities (and not the same minorities, either -- E.O. is overwhelmingly black while Orange is largely Hispanic), while West Orange and South Orange are a wealthier mix -- and include among their more well-off minorities quite a few who fled Newark and E.O. A consolidation of the Oranges makes no sense when the only thing in common is the name.
this is false and anyway i'm advocating consolidation of the Oranges into Newark
In all honesty, Newark really shouldn't have to expand just yet. In it's current geographical size it reached its peak population of over 440k.
Hmm but with modern health codes, zoning, etc would such a density be possible today? The age of tenements is over after all.
Quote:
Originally Posted by stuckinsj
All the donut hole towns should be merged and anything with a city that also has the same name but a township should be merged.
See this is the low hanging fruit, but is it really worth it? The new Princeton I believe is saving $3mil a year, which is great, but is it really worth all the hassle they went through? We should instead be encouraging 3+ (optimally 5-10) towns to merge, for example various combinations of all the little boroughs in Camden County or Bergen County. That's where the real savings would be.
Okay I don't know anything about North Jersey so don't jump on me too harshly, but looking at the sheer urbanity of that part of the state, these are the three "boroughs" I can make out in the urban build:
Hmm but with modern health codes, zoning, etc would such a density be possible today? The age of tenements is over after all.
See this is the low hanging fruit, but is it really worth it? The new Princeton I believe is saving $3mil a year, which is great, but is it really worth all the hassle they went through? We should instead be encouraging 3+ (optimally 5-10) towns to merge, for example various combinations of all the little boroughs in Camden County or Bergen County. That's where the real savings would be.
Quote:
Originally Posted by soug
Okay I don't know anything about North Jersey so don't jump on me too harshly, but looking at the sheer urbanity of that part of the state, these are the three "boroughs" I can make out in the urban build:
I don't really agree. Mergers between smaller towns create savings because there are a lot of duplication functions and positions you can eliminate while adding nothing. Start merging additional towns and creating larger conglomerations, and you start needing more layers of government and provide more opportunity for corruption and patronage, and the savings get offset with the sort of spending that doesn't happen as much in smaller places.
On a more practical viewpoint, you can do smaller mergers in a way that is voluntary and makes everyone better off. Once you start talking 5-10 towns, you're going to create losers and enemies -- you'll do tremendous social damage where you destroy good school districts, and have long and expensive political and legal battles every step of the way. Not trying to be too harsh, but using the areas you drew as examples, the blue and the orange areas are both mostly working to upper-middle-class but include a very poor city as well (Paterson and Newark/Irvington respectively). Everyone in those areas outside those cities would lose out from a merger in a huge way regardless of any savings that may or may not occur, and a politician suggesting it would basically be declaring war on most of the potential residents of the new cities. The red area would only generate the same level of hostility in the northern parts (southeast Bergen County), but even large chunks of Hudson County (the main/southern part) would be opposed: Hoboken has a tax base to protect, Union City a school district, Weehawken and Secaucus both, and Bayonne both has an insular culture and happens to be next to the worst parts of Jersey City, so all of those would be against. All this would all do more harm than good if it ever happened, which it wouldn't because most residents would be against.
Finally, you can't really pursue both smaller and larger mergers at the same time. Larger mergers require coercion, and once you have coercion it will scare people away from smaller, voluntary mergers and service-sharing agreements out of the fear that it might make them more politically and legally vulnerable. Since larger mergers aren't politically feasible anyway, what this really means is you have a choice of creating a healthy environment for small, voluntary mergers which may or may not play out, or a situation where you attempt to push larger mergers and just get a complete freeze into the status quo.
edit: on a more positive/agreeable note though, for someone not knowing northern NJ much you did do a really good job of splitting the area into three coherent zones purely based on examining the map, the only place I'd disagree is in moving the border between the blue and orange areas slightly further south.
edit 2: As for the suggestions above to merge Hudson County or the Oranges into Newark -- that's absolutely insane unless the only thing you care about is enabling Newark to do as large of a tax grab as possible, and **** the severely negative consequences for everyone else and on the whole (and thankfully as unlikely to ever happen as it is a bad idea).
Last edited by ALackOfCreativity; 10-31-2013 at 05:42 PM..
South Orange has half the population, more than twice the per-capita income, twice the housing values, a much lower crime index, etc.
Consolidating them into Newark would be just a tax grab, as it was in 1895. Except that it might have worked then; now it would just result in a land value crash in South and West Orange.
I don't really agree. Mergers between smaller towns create savings because there are a lot of duplication functions and positions you can eliminate while adding nothing. Start merging additional towns and creating larger conglomerations, and you start needing more layers of government and provide more opportunity for corruption and patronage, and the savings get offset with the sort of spending that doesn't happen as much in smaller places.....
Thanks for all the input. First, as for the map I put up, I realize that is a completely unrealistic goal. However, I really don't think 5-10 towns should be as difficult as it sounds either. Take boroughs 18 19 20 21 22 in Camden County, for example. These towns all go to the same high school and are very similar socioeconomically. If they were combined, you'd have a new town that is 4.8 sq mi and has ~19000 people. This would honestly still be a small town, but there would surely be a lot of savings from going from five of everything to one. This is the type of thing I am truly advocating for, not trying to have Newark subsume everything as in that map (that was just for fun).
Hmm but with modern health codes, zoning, etc would such a density be possible today? The age of tenements is over after all.
Absolutely. Not with tenements but with modern apartment towers like 1180, Shaq's imminent tower, the Colonnades etc and some of those ones you see in JC (although I wouldn't expect them to be 'luxury' based). A lot of land is still flat and Newark only grew taller since then.
Back then, downtown was mostly zoned for industrial and offices, but the zoning was very recently updated to accommodate the new residential units under construction.
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