New Jersey Municipal Consolidation

[Gravis Marketing]

You could easily consolidate more. My county of about a million people has a total of seven towns.  New Jersey is out of control.

Funny, my reaction was how weird it was to see counties grouped into so few towns...

[Verily]

You could easily consolidate more. My county of about a million people has a total of seven towns.  New Jersey is out of control.

To be fair, most of the towns were created a century ago, so it isn't the fault of the current residents.

More counties coming this afternoon as well as a redesign of the Plainfield area.

Also, some advice. Piscataway is a weird and multi-polar town, with the southern half looking to New Brunswick and the northern half looking to Plainfield while the middle is pretty much empty. Would it be reasonable to split Piscataway in half?

[Verily]

Okay, here is a combination piece of Union, Middlesex and Somerset Counties. I did them together because to get good municipalities you really need a lot of crossing of county lines in the area.




24: Plainfield v2.0
Contains: Plainfield, North Plainfield, Scotch Plains, Fanwood, Dunellen, South Plainfield, Piscataway (part)
Population: 156,366

(Note: The rest of Union County is unchanged and not included here.)

26: Perth Amboy
Contains: Perth Amboy, Carteret, Woodbridge (part)
Population: 137,628

27: New Brunswick
Contains: New Brunswick, Highland Park, Piscataway (part), Franklin [aka Somerset], North Brunswick
Population: 194,603

28: South Amboy
Contains: South Amboy, Old Bridge, Sayreville
Population: 108,193

29: Edison
Contains: Edison, Metuchen, Woodbridge (part)
Population: 163,558

30: East Brunswick
Contains: East Brunswick, South River, Spotswood, Milltown, Helmetta
Population: 77,389

31: South Brunswick
Contains: South Brunswick, Plainsboro, Cranbury, Monroe, Jamesburg
Population: 95,001

43: Bernardsville
Contains: Bernardsville, Bedminster, Far Hills, Peapack and Gladstone, Bernards, Warren, Watchung, Green Brook
Population: 72,694

44: Somerville
Contains: Somerville, Raritan, Manville, Bridgewater (part)
Population: 70,051

45: Hillsborough/Montgomery (not sure what would be better)
Contains: Montgomery, Hillsborough, Branchburg, Rocky Hill, Millstone
Population: 71,759

55: Bound Brook
Contains: Bound Brook, South Bound Brook, Bridgewater (part), Middlesex, Piscataway (part)
Population: 46,037

[Gravis Marketing]

Yay, my home county.

I have no advice about north Piscataway, only to concur with your decision to keep the southern part with New Brunswick, which you did.

Tiny bits but Helmetta is aligned with Monroe and Jamesburg by current population patterns, even if it was carved out of East Brunswick Twp. originally. East Brunswick's population is far from its historic center.

South Brunswick may be sparsely populated now, but it's a big growth area. I would dismantle South Brunswick by putting South Brunswick (growing fast) in with East Brunswick (mature) because they have similar demographics and transit links, keeping Cranbury with Monroe (mix of mature suburbs with some growth and lots of senior communities), and adding Plainsboro to whatever town Princeton is in. Princeton should be the center of a community crossing county lines if you are comfortable doing that; Plainsboro shares a high school with West Windsor in Mercer County and has Princeton Junction train station. However, it could reasonably stay with South Brunswick, as well.

Old Bridge could be split north/south with the southern part going with Monroe. It used to have two high schools because it had two centers of population. This would equalize population some.

But since it's your map and not mine, feel free to disregard most of it.

[Vazdul (Formerly Chairman of the Communist Party of Ontario)]

I am unfamiliar with the specifics of Piscataway's population, so I can't give decent advice on whether or not it should be split. I would say, however, that if it were to remain whole, it should definitely be placed with New Brunswick. In this scenario, I would include Middlesex borough with Piscataway and put Bound Brook in with the Somerville-Bridgewater municipality.

I also agree that as long as you're crossing county boundaries, Plainsboro and West Windsor need to be in the same municipality. They share a school district and have similar demographics, including large Asian populations. I would consider putting them in the same municipality as Princeton, though this may cause issues when the Princeton municipality becomes too large geographically.

Arguably, everything that borders Princeton should be included in with Princeton. Princeton Airport is in Montgomery Township in Somerset County, much of West Windsor and northern Lawrence have a Princeton mailing address, and many businesses in West Windsor and Plainsboro associate themselves with Princeton rather than the municipality in which they really reside.

[Verily]

Yay, my home county.

I have no advice about north Piscataway, only to concur with your decision to keep the southern part with New Brunswick, which you did.

Tiny bits but Helmetta is aligned with Monroe and Jamesburg by current population patterns, even if it was carved out of East Brunswick Twp. originally. East Brunswick's population is far from its historic center.

South Brunswick may be sparsely populated now, but it's a big growth area. I would dismantle South Brunswick by putting South Brunswick (growing fast) in with East Brunswick (mature) because they have similar demographics and transit links, keeping Cranbury with Monroe (mix of mature suburbs with some growth and lots of senior communities), and adding Plainsboro to whatever town Princeton is in. Princeton should be the center of a community crossing county lines if you are comfortable doing that; Plainsboro shares a high school with West Windsor in Mercer County and has Princeton Junction train station. However, it could reasonably stay with South Brunswick, as well.

Old Bridge could be split north/south with the southern part going with Monroe. It used to have two high schools because it had two centers of population. This would equalize population some.

But since it's your map and not mine, feel free to disregard most of it.

You know Central Jersey a lot better than I do; I'll rely on your recommendations.

I also dismantled the Bound Brook municipality and combined most of it with Somerville. (The Piscataway bits went to New Brunswick.) That leaves me with an extra municipality to create somewhere on the map, but I'll leave it at that to get some flexibility.

[fezzyfestoon]

The problem with most of Somerset County is that the bigger towns are totally different from one end to the other in many cases, Bridgewater and Franklin in particular.  Your map is pretty good, though the Bridgewater and Branchburg splits you made don't really make sense.

[Verily]

Did I split Branchburg? I didn't mean to.

New update this evening coming.

[Verily]

Morris County! And nothing controversial here. Morris is easy.

36: Lincoln Park
Contains: Lincoln Park, Pequannock, Riverdale, Butler, Kinnelon, Montville
Population: 64,940

(Lincoln Park got the name because it has the airport and the train station.)

37: Madison
Contains: Madison, Florham Park, Hamilton, East Hamilton, Chatham, Long Hill, Harding
Population: 75,786

38: Parsippany
Contains: Parsippany-Troy Hills, Boonton (Town), Mountain Lakes
Population: 63,401

(Parsippany-Troy Hills would be an acceptable alternative, but I've never heard anyone call it Troy Hills.)

39: Morristown
Contains: Morristown, Morris, Morris Plains
Population: 49,971

40: Rockaway
Contains: Rockaway (Town), Rockaway (Twp) (part), Denville, Boonton (Twp), Jefferson
Population: 61,560

41: Dover
Contains: Dover, Wharton, Victory Gardens, Rockaway Twp (part), Mine Hill, Randolph
Population: 62,229

42: Mount Olive
Contains: Mount Olive, Netcong, Roxbury, Washington, Mendham, Chester
Population: 92,325

[Vazdul (Formerly Chairman of the Communist Party of Ontario)]

Looks good, except I'm not sure you should put the Town of Boonton and Boonton Township in different municipalities. And what's with the Rockaway Township split?

And looking back at the Somerset County map, it does look like you've put two precincts from northern Branchburg in the Bernardsville municipality.

[Verily]

Looks good, except I'm not sure you should put the Town of Boonton and Boonton Township in different municipalities. And what's with the Rockaway Township split?

And looking back at the Somerset County map, it does look like you've put two precincts from northern Branchburg in the Bernardsville municipality.

Boonton and Boonton Twp are totally different, they just happen to share a name. Boonton is developed and fairly old and has strong ties with Mountain Lakes and Parsippany. Boonton Twp is undeveloped wilderness with some light exurban development, and it looks more towards Denville and Rockaway (or Kinnelon at the northern end) than the Parsippany/Mountain Lakes/Boonton conurbation. There's a ridge between Boonton and Boonton Twp.

Rockaway Township I split because there is some development on the southern edge of Rockaway Twp that is continuous with Dover (no undeveloped land in between) that I thought should be with Dover rather than with the mostly exurban and undeveloped Rockaway.

[fezzyfestoon]

Nice job with Morris, that looks perfect.  The only possible change I'd make is putting Harding with Morristown.  The development over there is almost completely disconnected with your Madison and it flows along 287 towards Morristown nicely.

Yeah, I figured the Branchburg split was accidental, it's pretty insignificant.

[Gravis Marketing]

The development over there is almost completely disconnected with your Madison and it flows along 287 towards Morristown nicely.

LOL, my stepmother lives in Harding Twp. and in 15 years I think I've been to Morristown once with her, while Madison is their standard go-to place for dinner.

[fezzyfestoon]

The development over there is almost completely disconnected with your Madison and it flows along 287 towards Morristown nicely.

LOL, my stepmother lives in Harding Twp. and in 15 years I think I've been to Morristown once with her, while Madison is their standard go-to place for dinner.

Are you serious?  That's the opposite of my experience there.  Weird.

[Cubby]

While I agree that New Jersey has too many towns, I don't think the number should be reduced below 300. Most people want local control of their towns, and places of over 50,000 are too large. Getting rid of county government hasn't caused any problems that I know of in CT/MA/RI, but that decision led to an increase of local gov't units, not a decrease.

Neighboring states all have average town sizes larger than New Jersey's 14,866. But they aren't much larger.

Connecticut has 169 Towns and Cities: Average population in 2000: 20,151
Rhode Island has 39 Towns and Cities: Average population in 2000: 26,879
Massachusetts has 351 Towns and Cities: Average population in 2000: 18,088
New York has 994 Towns and Cities. Average population in 2000: 19,091 (without NYC: 11,045)

Pennsylvania at first glance seems to be 2,561 (cities/townships/boroughs) which equaled only 4,795 on average in 2000. I'm not very familiar with the PA method of organizing local units (1st class, 2nd class?) so that could be a misleading number. Of course PA and NY are much bigger in land area so they might not be the best comparisons to NJ.

[Verily]

Personally, I think the New England states are desperately in need of municipal consolidation as well. Who can tell the difference between Medford and Malden, or between Goshen and Cornwall? Ridiculous redundant government, although New England did do a good job of eliminating county government. What people "want" doesn't, or shouldn't, matter in this regard. If people had their way, they would each form their own independent town.

Also, NY and PA contain a lot of empty space, so they're a little different. PA needs municipal consolidation in suburban Philly and Pittsburgh, though. NY has the weird Town system that I don't quite understand, but I imagine at that level NY has a much higher population per Town. (Hempstead would be one of the biggest cities in the country.)

[skyeboat]

Good thread. The bit about a ridge between the two Boontons is interesting.  It should be said that state law does not allow a town to be in two counties- which is delaying the merger of Corbin City -  so you may want to go back and fix some items.
     Apparently the author is North Jersey - how will he/she study the South before redrawing our part of the map? 

[Globus Cruciger]

19: Wayne
Contains: Wayne, Totowa, Little Falls, Woodland Park
Population: 85,803

Haha, you're going to merge me with West Paterson Woodland Park? That's positively unnatural...

[Verily]

19: Wayne
Contains: Wayne, Totowa, Little Falls, Woodland Park
Population: 85,803

Haha, you're going to merge me with West Paterson Woodland Park? That's positively unnatural...

Good to see that snobbery is alive and well. Pray tell, what is your problem with a wealthy, mostly Italian town other than its former nominal association with Paterson?

Anyway, I'd almost forgotten about this thread. I may try to do some new updates soonish.

[Vazdul (Formerly Chairman of the Communist Party of Ontario)]

I definitely would like to see what you've done to South Jersey.

[Globus Cruciger]

Good to see that snobbery is alive and well. Pray tell, what is your problem with a wealthy, mostly Italian town other than its former nominal association with Paterson?

Dearie me, no snobbery intended; I've no quarrel at all with WP. Though I do think the old name was better.

[whatever]

Hey, I realize this thread is over a year old, but it's awesome!

I was wondering if you could keep going and eventually make your way down to South Jersey?

[Vasall des Midas]

Three new replies from total newbies including two from people who appear to have registered exclusively for the purpose? Was this linked to by a local paper or something?

[whatever]

Three new replies from total newbies including two from people who appear to have registered exclusively for the purpose? Was this linked to by a local paper or something?

Don't know about that, but I first noticed this thread when it was active a year ago and had it bookmarked. I was going through the other day and rediscovered it, only to see that nothing new has been added, so I thought I'd register and put the plea out there to keep making more maps.

[Vazdul (Formerly Chairman of the Communist Party of Ontario)]

As a New Jerseyan, I wouldn't mind seeing this project resurrected...