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Old 02-28-2022, 02:20 AM
 
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I look at a place like New Jersey. I think a lot of people just think of as a state that is the suburbs of New York City and Philadelphia, it doesn't really have a trademark city. But if you stepped back and looked at a place like North Jersey, it one of the most urban areas in America. Specifically the area just west of Manhattan.

For example what if a place like Hudson County just consolidated in one big city? Would it give a state like New Jersey much more influence/attraction? Would you think of it differently? Almost a rival city to NYC. I don't want to just limit this to NJ either there other areas in America like this but what effects do you think maybe consolidation could have be it positive or negative around America?
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Old 02-28-2022, 02:48 AM
 
Location: West Seattle
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Well in Hudson's case, I think Jersey City is already well-known-ish and consolidating the whole county into one city wouldn't change its profile much. It's still right across the river from Manhattan, which on the one hand maybe gets it a bit more visibility but also prevents it from really having its own regional influence (kind of like an SF-Oakland situation).

In general I don't think people pay that much attention to city populations. I'd guess that if polled, a majority of Americans would think Miami is in the nation's top 10 biggest cities (and Las Vegas and Boston as well).

Maybe people would notice if an already large city, through annexation, suddenly passed another large city, and there were news stories about it that played into broader narratives about Sunbelt migration, Rust Belt decline, supposed societal decay in Democrat-controlled cities, fleeing of dense urban cities due to COVID, etc. Like if Houston consolidated with Harris County and passed Chicago, or Boise consolidated with Ada County and passed Oakland, there would be news stories and it would affect people's perceptions of those cities.
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Old 02-28-2022, 07:35 AM
 
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I imagine there can be some major benefits from more efficient use of resources.

Let's say you have 10 towns with 10,000 people and they each have their own police departments, fire departments, school districts, libraries etc. On top of that you have a county level with some services. If you were to merge the county and all of its 10 towns you can cut a lot of administrative fat and natural cost overlap while at the same time providing constituents with better services at a lower cost.

Its kind of ironic that in a country with such a strong anti-tax and anti-government sentiment we have so many microscopic governmental entities with wasteful allocation of resources.
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Old 02-28-2022, 07:40 AM
 
Location: Full Time: N.NJ Part Time: S.CA, ID
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North Jersey has plenty of attraction - which is why its nearly impossible to buy a house here right now (a house 1 street over from me had an open house and the line of people waiting to get in was around the block - and this is not an inexpensive house). Same goes for schools.

Consolidation of services - maybe - i.e. sheriffs/fire services in LA / Orange county.
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Old 02-28-2022, 07:45 AM
 
Location: South Beach and DT Raleigh
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TheTimidBlueBars View Post
In general I don't think people pay that much attention to city populations. I'd guess that if polled, a majority of Americans would think Miami is in the nation's top 10 biggest cities (and Las Vegas and Boston as well).
Miami is an interesting case. While it definitely has stature and name recognition due to its cultural influence and being a global tourism mecca, it actually has quite a small city proper. In fact, among the major cities in the USA, it has the smallest footprint at only 36 square miles. Interestingly enough, FL also has the largest land area city in the lower 48 (Jacksonville). In Miami, some services are provided at the Miami-Dade County level, and the county even has its own mayor that represents all 2.7M+ residents. Miami, at less than 500,000 people, also has its own mayor. In a way, Miami is quasi-consolidated.
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Old 02-28-2022, 08:21 AM
 
Location: Bergen County, New Jersey
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I think if NJ combined Hoboken+Jersey City as a singular attraction, cleaned up the car centrism on the waterfront (Even more), it would be even more attractive.

But Hoboken+JC have so much to offer, it is often overlooked.
-Best view of Manhattan
-Hoboken Nightlife, Bars, Restaurants, Pizza Places
-Newark St Nightlife in JC
-JC Waterfront
-Liberty Science Center
-Liberty State Park with breathtaking views of the WTC and Statue of Liberty
-Cliffs
-Frank Sinatra Park

Personally, I barely go into NYC anymore. I have everything I need or would want in NJ.
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Old 02-28-2022, 10:27 AM
 
Location: In the heights
36,925 posts, read 38,882,189 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by masssachoicetts View Post
I think if NJ combined Hoboken+Jersey City as a singular attraction, cleaned up the car centrism on the waterfront (Even more), it would be even more attractive.

But Hoboken+JC have so much to offer, it is often overlooked.
-Best view of Manhattan
-Hoboken Nightlife, Bars, Restaurants, Pizza Places
-Newark St Nightlife in JC
-JC Waterfront
-Liberty Science Center
-Liberty State Park with breathtaking views of the WTC and Statue of Liberty
-Cliffs
-Frank Sinatra Park

Personally, I barely go into NYC anymore. I have everything I need or would want in NJ.

I think it might be good, depending on how it's implemented to just consolidate into Hudson County. The entire thing has about the land area of San Francisco and it's nearly as dense. I think it needs a funicular or aerial gondola though going from the hills down to the coastal plain especially one that makes a further connection to a light rail station. If there were megabucks for transportation, what I'd like to see is Hoboken NJT station turned into a through-running station that goes under the Hudson and then under Houston Street in Manhattan and possibly under East River and North Brooklyn to connect to existing tracks around there and with the rail yard sitting at the south of Hoboken near Jersey City then turned over to development to better connect Jersey City and Hoboken and the Hoboken PATH stub extended north and then west. Also an expansion of the freeway cap to cover all of NJ-495 where it's below grade. Also, given the density and how much of it is kind of linear, a subway going roughly straight up from Bayonne through the Heights and into Fort Lee with transfers to PATH and Hudson-Bergen Light Rail would seem appropriate.

Last edited by OyCrumbler; 02-28-2022 at 10:54 AM..
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Old 02-28-2022, 10:58 AM
 
663 posts, read 300,098 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TheTimidBlueBars View Post
In general I don't think people pay that much attention to city populations. I'd guess that if polled, a majority of Americans would think Miami is in the nation's top 10 biggest cities (and Las Vegas and Boston as well).

Maybe people would notice if an already large city, through annexation, suddenly passed another large city, and there were news stories about it that played into broader narratives about Sunbelt migration, Rust Belt decline, supposed societal decay in Democrat-controlled cities, fleeing of dense urban cities due to COVID, etc. Like if Houston consolidated with Harris County and passed Chicago, or Boise consolidated with Ada County and passed Oakland, there would be news stories and it would affect people's perceptions of those cities.
Texas tightened laws to stop Houston's forced annexations. Still they still can add more municipalities just agreed fully to.

In this debate on size denotes stature for fast growing cities. Houston huge city proper will pas Chicago city proper this decade it seems. Metro is decades away.

It could be noted. Chicago is part of Cook County. Cook County is the most populous county in Illinois and the second-most-populous county in the United States, after Los Angeles County, California. More than 40% of all residents of Illinois live in Cook County. As of 2020, the population was 5,275,541. a few more million live in the other metro counties.

So with these - WHAT IF's for stardom dreams for sunbelt and other fast growing cities/regions and some politically posting. A Houston with Harris County as one, still could not pass a Chicago and its county as Cook county as one in a WHAT IF BOTH had main city/county mergers.


For this thread in a hope for NJ cities to merge. LOOK TOWARD TORONTO, CANADA. For insight or even waaay back to NYC fearing Chicago would surpass it as being just Manhattan then. Merged with the other Borough's to prevent if for good.

One could check out the history of Toronto, Canada as having 2 merging's of smaller cities to larger cities and of Toronto into a major one.

First Amalgamation: 1967
Second Amalgamation: 1998

The first Amalgamation proclaimed in 1967 of:
- Forest Hill and Swansea being annexed by the City of Toronto,
- Leaside was merged with the township of East York to become the Borough of East York.
- Weston was combined with the Township of York to form the Borough of York.


In 1998 was the biggie.

The Province of Ontario consolidated Metropolitan Toronto by the Progressive Conservative government deciding to amalgamate the former cities of:
- Old Toronto,
- North York, Etobicoke,
- City of York, Scarborough,
- borough of East York
- plus regional municipality of Toronto, the Metro level of government into a single unit,

Now known as the City of Toronto. Amalgamation was pushed through, and on January 1, 1998, the “megacity” was born.

MegaCity -- is merely the unofficial name for the latest Amalgamation of City of Toronto. Not officially a world megacity like LA and NYC.

Was seen as forced by some municipalites who were bitter over it perhaps still.
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Old 03-06-2022, 08:54 AM
46H
 
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NJ is a joke when it comes to independent towns/cities. There are 565 municipalities in NJ. Shared services would help to reduce property taxes. There are a number of regional high school systems, but not much beyond that for sharing services. The largest portion of the property tax bill is the school system (roughly 60%-75%).

A few years ago, 2 similar towns, Rivervale and Montvale, in Bergen County, tried to share their departments of public works. It failed after a few years. These 2 towns are already in a regional high school system, yet they still could not figure out how to share the DPW. It saved money for both towns.

https://thepressgroup.net/river-vale...with-montvale/

If these 2 towns could not figure out how to share DPW services, do we really expect towns to be able to share anything else? It will never happen. We will continue to have expensive school administrations/buildings, expensive police management and police stations, and DPWs every few miles.

Last edited by 46H; 03-06-2022 at 09:23 AM..
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Old 03-08-2022, 04:36 PM
 
5,102 posts, read 6,021,121 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 46H View Post
NJ is a joke when it comes to independent towns/cities. There are 565 municipalities in NJ. Shared services would help to reduce property taxes. There are a number of regional high school systems, but not much beyond that for sharing services. The largest portion of the property tax bill is the school system (roughly 60%-75%).

A few years ago, 2 similar towns, Rivervale and Montvale, in Bergen County, tried to share their departments of public works. It failed after a few years. These 2 towns are already in a regional high school system, yet they still could not figure out how to share the DPW. It saved money for both towns.

https://thepressgroup.net/river-vale...with-montvale/

If these 2 towns could not figure out how to share DPW services, do we really expect towns to be able to share anything else? It will never happen. We will continue to have expensive school administrations/buildings, expensive police management and police stations, and DPWs every few miles.

I don't know about New Jersey but in Maryland we have some counties that have independent towns and cities in them and a few counties that have a centralized county executive and all services are done at a county level. The main advantage people see with independent towns is local control. In our county we have the second largest city in the state (Frederick) and towns as small as under 500 people. We also have some population centers that are unincorporated and get any services they have through the county. Schools are all run at the county level (that is true in all of MD).


The main advantage I, and many others see in separate towns is local control and accountability. we run our own water and sewer services, trash pickup, parks, streets. The Town contracts with the County Sheriff to provide several full time deputies to the town. Other municipalities in the county have their own Police department and I think one contracts with the State Police to provide their police. The Sheriffs department still has authority in the towns but since most of the county is rural they are pretty spread out.


Town residents like the local accountability. There is little bureaucracy and they are responsive to citizen issues. Could we get services cheaper if we consolidated? Hard to say. Our property tax rate is in the middle of the pack for other municipalities, with Frederick having higher tax rates than (I think) any of the smaller municipalities. Our water & sewer rates are middle of the pack. I think it comes from the smaller size making everyone in the town more aware of any waste or abuse.


A few years ago there was a proposal to combine Frederick City & County into a single government citing the potential savings. What it didn't address was the fear of the smaller municipalities that were afraid that they wouldn't have much input into priorities, projects, etc and that the outlying towns would end up subsidizing the higher costs and bureaucracy that the larger city required. The proposal died quickly.
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