New Jersey Municipal Consolidation

[Brittain33]

What were your criteria for merging towns?

[Brittain33]

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...

[Brittain33]

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.

[Brittain33]

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.