New Jersey: 49th Happiest State

"We have been asked a lot whether we expected that states like New York and California would do so badly in the happiness ranking. Having visited and lived in various parts of the US, I am only a little surprised. Many people think these states would be marvellous places to live in. The problem is that if too many individuals think that way, they move into those states, and the resulting congestion and house prices make it a non-fulfilling prophecy. In a way, it is like the stock market. If everyone thinks it would be great to buy stock X, that stock is generally already overvalued. Bargains in life are usually found outside the spotlight. It may be that exactly the same is true of the best places to live."


Top 5 Happiest:

1. Louisiana
2. Hawaii
3. Florida
4. Tennessee
5. Arizona

Bottom 5

1. Indiana
2. Michigan
3. New Jersey
4. Connecticut
5. New York

Full Article

Ailing States Retirees May Want to Avoid

From U.S. News and World Report

If you're nearing retirement or are considering relocating to a different state any time in the next several years, you need to do some careful thinking about how the recession and housing downturn have affected the finances of different states. The National Governors Association says it will take a decade for states to recover. Many states have had little choice but to raise taxes and fees in the teeth of the recession, and further increases are likely. Even so, public services will decrease, especially after one-time funds from the federal stimulus program stop flowing to the states.

These financial dilemmas will affect the quality of residents' lives, and could change your thinking about the place you'd like to spend your retirement years.

The Pew Center for the States recently released a study listing what it judged to be the country's 10 most imperiled states:

    * California
    * Arizona
    * Rhode Island
    * Michigan
    * Oregon
    * Nevada
    * Florida
    * New Jersey
    * Illinois
    * Wisconsin

California is the unfortunate poster child for states that have been effectively bankrupted during the past few years. Pew ranked all 50 states using six factors that it said had played major roles in California's spiraling financial decline: 1) high mortgage foreclosure rates; 2) worsening unemployment; 3) loss of state revenues; 4) the percentage size of the state's budget shortfall; 5) a legislative supermajority requirement that makes it hard to enact tax and budget cuts, and 6) a Pew ranking of how poorly each state managed its money. California had the high score of 30—a bad thing in this ranking—and scores in the other nine states ranged from 28 in Arizona down to 22 in Wisconsin. Pew noted, however, that many other states also were hurting and, in fact, the national average state score was 17.

While Pew focused on the more troubled states, it's worth noting the 10 states that had the lowest, or best, scores on its ranking system:

    * Wyoming (score: 6)
    * Iowa (score: 7)
    * Nebraska (score: 7)
    * Montana (score: 9)
    * North Dakota (score: 9)
    * Texas (score: 9)
    * Pennsylvania (score: 11)
    * Utah (score: 11)
    * South Dakota (score: 12)
    * West Virginia (score: 12)

Of these states, Wyoming, Texas, and South Dakota have no state income tax. RetirementLiving.com has a detailed look at the various taxes levied by each state. To help provide a rough guide of how far your dollars will go in other places, SalaryExpert.com has a free set of city cost-of-living reports that include comparisons with other cities.

There are, of course, many other reasons why a location might or might not be attractive. But it can't hurt to see which places might be most friendly to your finances.

“New Jerseyans are simply unsure about how good a place to live the state will be in 10 years"

From The Star Ledger


Only a little more than a third of New Jerseyans think living in the state will get better over the next decade, according to a Rutgers-Eagleton poll out today.

While 35 percent believed things would improve in the next 10 years, the poll found 41 percent believe conditions will stay the same and 19 percent think they will get worse.

Following Gov.-elect Chris Christie’s Nov. 3 victory, 43 percent of Republicans are more optimistic about the state’s future while 32 percent of Democrats and 34 percent of independents have positive outlooks. In 1999, New Jerseyans had similar feelings about the next 10 years when 38 percent thought things would be better and 27 percent thought they would worsen.

Pollsters asked 903 adults to evaluate the state’s economic future and their their own economic, social and quality-of-life concerns for the next 10 years. A 1999 Rutgers-Eagleton poll posed similar questions. They found state residents worry more about economic issues than they 10 years ago, but that they are not more pessimistic overall.

The poll was conducted Nov. 6-10 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.3 percentage points for the full sample and plus or minus 4.6 percentage points for subsamples of about 450 respondents.

“New Jerseyans are simply unsure about how good a place to live the state will be in 10 years,” said David Redlawsk, director of the Rutgers-Eagleton Poll and professor of political science at Rutgers University. “Ten years ago, about 60 percent thought the state would either stay the same or get worse as a place to live. There is clearly a long-term lack of positive expectations about the future of New Jersey.”

Talk To The Hand

Witty article written by Amy Alkon about how she confronted rudeness in our society.

The stereotype that New Jerseyans are a rude bunch does contain at least a grain, or two or three, of truth. There are some good pointers here on how to deal with and help neutralize rudeness.

I See Rude People

The fortysomething woman came within inches of crashing her Volvo station wagon into my car while simultaneously trying to park with one hand and yammer into the cell phone she was holding in the other.

When I beeped to keep her from swerving into me, she vigorously and repeatedly flipped me the bird (I guess to punish me for existing, and directly behind her to boot). For her grand finale, she exited her car in workout gear, toting a yoga mat, and snarled back at me, "Just off to find a little inner peace, you redheaded bitch!"

Uh, have a nice day!

An aggressive lack of consideration for others is spreading across this country like a case of crabs through a sleepaway camp, and there isn't a lot standing in the way. Although people are quick to blame rampant rudeness on advances in technology, the unfortunate truth is, rudeness is the human condition. We modern humans are a bunch of grabby, self-involved jerks, the same as generations of humans before us. It's just that there are fewer constraints on our grabby, self-involved jerkhood than ever before. We're guided by quaint Stone Age brains, suited to manage social interactions within a small tribe—yet we're living in endlessly sprawling areas that would more accurately be called "stranger-hoods" than neighborhoods.

People understand how they're supposed to act because of social norms. But every time brutes engage in some form of social thuggery, they make it that much more acceptable for somebody else to do it. Others begin to imitate their behavior unthinkingly, or feel stupid or silly for feeling some compunction about following their lead.

For most of my life, I didn't pay much attention to rudeness. And then, one day, I just couldn't take it anymore. Overnight, I was like that "I see dead people" kid, except it was "I see rude people." They were everywhere: pushing, shoving, shouting into cell phones; leaving snotted-up Kleenex in the airplane seat pocket for the next passenger. Like Peter Parker, bitten by a radioactive spider and turned into Spiderman, I was transformed.

Intervention I: The Mobile Savage

A woman in the Hollywood Hills Starbucks decided to treat all the other customers there to a command performance of her impromptu spoken-word masterwork, "The Birthday Party Invitation." She made five very loud calls—each the same as the last—giving her name (Carol), detailed directions to a kid's birthday party at her house, plus the time, plus her home phone number. I left this message on her voice mail when I got home:

Carol, Carol, Carol...the microphone on a cell phone is actually quite sensitive. There's no need to yell. You look like a nice woman. You probably didn't realize that your repeated shouting into your cell phone drove a number of people out of the coffee bar today. Beyond that, you might consider that I'm just one of about 20 people who know that you live at "555 Ferngrove Street," and that you're having a bunch of six-year-olds over at 3 p.m. on Saturday. Now, I'm just a newspaper columnist, not a pedophile, but it's kind of an unnecessary security risk you're taking, huh? Bye!

Intervention II: It's Only Free for Telemarketers to Call You Because You Have Yet to Invoice Them

Even casual acquaintances know better than to dial my number on Monday or Tuesday, when I'm on deadline for my advice column, so the shrill ring of my phone late one Monday afternoon came as a surprise.

"Hello...? Hello...? HELLO?"

Was anybody even there? Not exactly. It took a couple of seconds for the recording to start: "Hello, this is Tim Snee, vice president of Smart & Final..."

Oh, is it? Great. Because if you're phoning me at home in the middle of my deadline, there's an appropriate next line to your call, and it goes something like "...and someone's died and left you a townhouse in the center of Paris."

But that wasn't Mr. Snee's message at all. Snee, I learned, was having some difficulty keeping shelves stocked at the warehouse store Smart & Final. He wanted to let his customers know they were working to solve the problem—lest anybody defect to Costco for their 100-packs of Charmin.

Yoohoo...Mr. Snee? You autodialed the wrong girl.

Now, I know most people just sigh and hang up when they get a call like Snee's—which is why we all get calls like Snee's. My time and energy are valuable, and he'd just helped himself to both. I drafted a letter spelling out my disgust for Snee's business practices and invoicing him for $63.20, and I e-mailed it to him:

Tim, 

How dare you call me at home with a recorded message? I am on the Do Not Call list, and I value my privacy. You woke me up in the middle of my nap during my deadline. Consider this an invoice for disturbing me: $63.20, which is my hourly rate for writing, since I'll probably lose at least an hour thanks to your interruption. I'll now try to go back to sleep so I can get my writing done.
I'm considering reporting you to the California Attorney General. Have a bad day.
—Amy Alkon

A few days later, I got this e-mail from Randall Oliver, Smart & Final's "director of corporate communications":

Ms. Alkon:
I am very sorry that we disturbed you close to your writing deadline. Our message was meant to provide a helpful update to our customers, not to irritate them. Nearly all of the responses we have received have been very positive.

Really? Did other customers call you up and say, "I'm so lonely, nothing makes my day like getting a recorded message smack in the middle of my afternoon nap!"?

And finally, Oliver wrote:

We value you as a customer and hope to continue to do business with you. We'd be happy to send you a check for $63.20 as requested or alternatively would be even happier to provide you a $100 Smart Card for use at Smart & Final. Please let me know which option you would prefer. 

I took the $100.

As wacky as my pranks may sound to some, behind every one is the message that it isn't crazy to expect people to have manners and consideration; it's crazy when we're seen as crazy for expecting it. If we're increasingly finding ourselves residents of Meanland, it's only because we aren't doing anything to change that. We get the society we create; or rather, the society we let happen to us. I'm hoping my book, I See Rude People, will galvanize at least a few people into performing their own interventions on the rude. But if we all just make an effort to treat strangers like they matter, maybe they'll be inspired to treat us like we matter, and maybe, just maybe, life won't feel quite so much like one long wrestling smackdown.

Excerpted from I See Rude People: One Woman's Battle to Beat Some Manners into Impolite Society by Amy Alkon (Nov. 27, 2009, McGraw-Hill)

NJ Cost/Benefit Analysis: We're Getting Shafted

Paul Mulshine sums it up perfectly

This article in the City Journal titled "The Big-Spending, High-Taxing, Lousy-Services Paradigm" is about California. But the author's conclusions apply equally to New Jersey.

William Voegeli makes the same point that I have been making for years: Don't believe politicians when they get up on their hind legs and tell you your state has high taxes because it provides a high level of services.

Those services don't exist. Every time I hear a Trenton pol tell me that I'm getting a high level of services in return for the extortionate level of taxes I pay, I ask that pol to name a single service provided today that wasn't provided before this state got an income tax in 1976.

I've yet to get an answer. The roads, libraries, schools, police services, fire services, etc. are all about the same as they were back then. And when I went to Rutgers in the early '70s, I paid about a tenth the tuition that it now costs to send my daughter there.

So where's the big improvement?

I don't see it. I'm sure you don't either. The improvement is enjoyed entirely by public employees, not the public. They have good salaries and great retirement benefits, and some can retire in their '40s. Meanwhile the rest of us will be working into our 80s to pay their pensions.

And it's the same in California, as Voegeli writes in comparing that state to Texas, which has much lower taxes but an equal level of service:

"What is surprising is the growing evidence that the low-benefit, low-tax alternative succeeds not only on its own terms but also according to the criteria used by defenders of high benefits and high taxes. Whatever theoretical claims are made for imposing high taxes to provide generous government benefits, the practical reality is that these public goods are, increasingly, neither public nor good: their beneficiaries are mostly the service providers themselves, and their quality is poor."

This is the problem here in Jersey, and as Voegeli notes, it is almost impossible to fix. Creating commissions to study efficiency and consolidation, as Chris Christie proposes, was tried in California and failed miserably. It won't work here either.

Anyway, read Voegeli's entire article if you wish to comment.

NJ now providing more detailed patient safety data

 Link to article

TRENTON, N.J. - For the first time, New Jersey consumers can access detailed information on patient safety at hospitals throughout the Garden State.

State health officials recently released a report that shows each hospital's patient safety performance and incidence of serious medical errors , such as operating on the wrong body part or leaving a sponge or instrument inside a patient's body.

While health care facilities had already reported preventable medical mistakes, the state had previously just published the number of errors, not the data for individual hospitals.

The new information is included the New Jersey Hospital Performance Report, published annually by the state Department of Health and Senior Services. It can be found at the department's Web site, http://www.nj.gov/health/hpr

You Can't Handle The Truth!!!

Considering that New Jersey has been losing something like 5,000 - 10,000 jobs per month over the past year, this is a sobering forecast:

The numbers from the Rutgers Study apparently indicate that job growth for the period encompassing the years 2008 to 2028 will only amount to 6,550 annually, compared with the administration’s previous projection of 54,000 over the same period.

Governor Corzine asked to Reconsider Withholding Rutgers Housing Study

Senator Christopher “Kip” Bateman (R-Somerset), continued to call on Governor Jon Corzine today to release the results of a Rutgers study provided to the State Planning Commission that projects future population, employment and housing numbers in New Jersey. The numbers from the Rutgers Study apparently indicate that job growth for the period encompassing the years 2008 to 2028 will only amount to 6,550 annually, compared with the administration’s previous projection of 54,000 over the same period.

“These numbers are extremely important and will have a significant impact on the future development of New Jersey,” Bateman stated. “I can not understand why the Corzine Administration wants to withhold this study. We are talking about jobs, open space preservation, affordable housing and a whole host of other important issues that will impact the everyday lives of New Jersey’s residents.” 

            On September 21, 2009, the State Planning Commission denied an Open Public Records Act (OPRA) request to release the Rutgers report.  The assessment contains demographic and infrastructure data that will be used to compose a new state plan. The denial is currently under appeal to the Government Records Council.

            “The State Planning Commission and the State Plan are absolutely critical to the future of New Jersey,” Bateman continued.  ”If the Rutgers study is correct, than it is possible we do not need, nor can we afford to build as many as the 116,000 COAH units the administration has planned to build over the next ten years.  This is just one example the impact these numbers will have and why the Corzine administration should be open and honest with the people of this state.”

Happiness Index: NJ #30

The Happiest:

1. Nebraska
2. Iowa
3. Kansas
4. Oklahoma
5. Montana


The Most Miserable:


46. Idaho
47. Oregon
48. Arizona
49. California
50. Florida

Mainstreet.com Happiness Index: October 2009

How Happy Is Your State?

The newest installment of the Happiness Index has arrived and residents of the Midwest will be happy to learn that their strangle-hold on the top spots remains intact. There have been some big moves however. Vermont made a big leap, and New Jersey and Lousiana took serious tumbles. There’s also been some movement at the bottom and residents of the Sunshine State may be unhappy to learn that, well, they’re the least happy state in the nation, when it comes to money matters.

Here’s how the index works:

The Happiness Index, which analyzes household income, non-mortgage debt, employment and foreclosures, is a fresh take on the old and tired Misery Index, made popular in the 1970s. The Misery Index takes into account unemployment and inflation rates and seeks to identify the most financially miserable places to live.

...The Heavyweight Corruption Champion of the World! (well, of the U.S.A. at least)

The corrupt should not have their pay and benefits cut off

Oh, really? Is there anything else we can can do to ease the punishment for these poor, poor souls and continue to make corruption a crime worth pursuing?

Poll: Half of residents surveyed say Jersey political corruption has no equal

It is just shocking, shocking, but apparently New Jersey's residents believe the state's politics is so corrupt that at least half of those interviewed for a Rutgers-Eagleton Poll are certain that the Garden State's brand of corruption is greater than other states.

So naturally, New Jersey voters elected a former U.S. Attorney whose best known for indicting and jailing crooked politicians.

Rutgers-Eagleton pollsters interviewed residents October 15-20 and found that Garden Staters may be cynical but they are divided about whether the guilty pols deserve tough penalties. The corrupt should not have their pay and benefits cut off, but officials should step down once they are accused.

Oddly, these poll findings are just a little bit different from one Rutgers-Eagleton did in 2003 with the Star-Ledger where those surveyed about the quality of government thought New Jersey's political ethics were on the decline and only 1 percent thought government quality was excellent.

NJ Requires Divine Intervention

Fixing New Jersey's tax burden will take a higher power's help

Republicans and Democrats are spinning their own interpretations of what Tuesday's elections meant on the national level. Let them spin.

The real answer will depend on what the victors will actually be able to do with their victories.

We are especially interested in how our neighbor, New Jersey, makes out.

It is easy to make fun of New Jersey. Many New York comedians do it all the time. But with more than 8.5 million residents, most of the ribbing about the state rolls right off.

But one thing that New Jerseyans haven't ignored is their status as the most highly taxed state in the nation, especially the property tax. And they let Gov. Jon Corzine know they weren't about to put up with it any more. He was soundly defeated him in a three-way race Tuesday.

Gov.-elect Christopher J. Christie campaigned on the theme of change, re-enforcing New Jerseyans irritation with their high property taxes, their bloated government and Gov. Corzine's inability to do anything about them.

But Mr. Christie was weak when it came to explaining what he was going to do about the high taxes or how he was going to lower them as he promised. The campaign really was a classic example of seeing which candidate could raise rankles of the most voters.

Republicans everywhere took the Christie victory as a sign that their party is on the way back. Not so fast.

New Jersey is a huge, complicated state, ranging from the tomato farms of Cumberland County to the New York City suburb of Hudson County.

Changing the way it operates -- with its multi-layered governments from boroughs to townships to cities and counties, powerful public employee unions, and the heavy school district tax levies -- will take a miracle -- and then some.

Abandoning the state? Here's your roadmap

Link To Article

"Financial resources are yet another of the critical ingredients that turn policy into results that matter in the lives of a state's population, from environmental protection to education, health and transportation," writes the Pew Center on the States in Grading the States 2008.

"To gauge how well a state is functioning in the Money category, the Government
Performance Project team evaluated the degree to which a state takes a long-term perspective on fiscal matters, the timeliness and transparency of the budget process, the balance between revenues and expenditures, and the effectiveness of a state's contracting, purchasing, financial controls and reporting mechanisms."

Can you guess the states with the best financial performance in the survey? (Hint: Do not guess New Jersey, which received a letter grade of C-minus.) Utah is tops in the nation with an A, followed by Delaware, Nebraska, Virginia and Washington, all with A-minus.

The top states were marked by "transparency in transactions and public access to state fiscal information (which have) become two of the leading indicators of a state that is functioning well in this area. Several promising new practices in real-time tracking of statewide expenditures and budgeting decisions, as well as joint executive and legislative revenue forecasting approaches..."

Oh, well. Perhaps we'll score better for "Infrastructure," how a state maintains,
improves and plans for future physical needs, including roads, bridges and buildings. Nope. Utah is tops again, followed by Florida, Kentucky and Michigan. Us? C-Plus.

Well, we've got to do better in "Information Technology," right? After all, we're wired and oh, so savvy. (Insert sound of buzzer here.) Wrong again! We're a consistent C student -- C-minus in this case.

"Advances in information technology offer the promise of propelling every organization into the future. (The study) examined how well state officials deploy technology and the information it produces to measure the resource effectiveness and results produced by state programs, make budget and other management decisions, and communicate with one another as well as with the public.

"Growing demands for public sector transparency and for public access to services 24/7 are spurring a new level of creativity in meeting citizens' legitimate needs, as well as improving internal business processes."

Michigan, Missouri, Utah, Virginia and Washington all earned As.

The silver lining in the Pew report? If the next governor fails to make headway on these issues and others, at least we'll know where to move.

New Jersey and Global Warming

Bye Bye, Hudson County!

Click on the link below for an interactive map which displays the effects of sea level rise on the NY Metro area.

New Jersey Sea Level Rise Map

In the worst case scenario, the melting of the entire Greenland Ice Sheet, towns as far inland as the Passaic River would be inundated. I guess other smaller business hubs, such as Parsippany, Morristown, and Mount Olive might benefit from businesses relocating further inland.

I'm surprised that we here in New Jersey don't hear more about the potential effects from global sea rise. Considering how close we are to the Atlantic, you'd think that it would be more of an issue. Atlantic City, if it's still around that far in the future, would be devastated.

You're Elected Governor of NJ: What's Your Plan?

Tell us what your plan to remedy New Jersey's many ills would be. Among the issues that need attention:

-Property Taxes
-Environmental Problems
-Traffic
-Crumbling Infrastructure
-Inner City Decay
-Crime
-Whatever else you feel needs to be adddressed

Does it really matter who wins the election?

Corzine. Christie. Daggett. In the big picture, in the grand scheme of NJ politics and life, I think they are at best a difference of a few degrees. Does anyone believe that any of these three will be able to make any significant difference in the next four or eight years? I think the best we can hope for is that one of them is able to plant some seeds of change, to steer the ship just a degree or two towards the right direction, so that perhaps some day far in the future we might just get pointed back to port.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/01/opinion/01grodstein.html

Every election in my students’ memory, and my own, has been billed as the most pivotal in a generation, and every one has focused on the same issues. Candidates swear they’ll tackle corruption, lower property taxes, and do something good about transportation and something even better about education. Although our candidates tend to come from moneyed towns like Hoboken or Oldwick, they stop for photo ops in ailing cities like Newark and Camden, stand on some benighted corner and make noise about finally fixing the culture of failure entrenched in these places.

New Jersey is now a stretch of turnpike leading to Florida and North Carolina

Spotted this in a reply to a Wall Street Journal article detailing out migration from New York.

Outmigration is also a problem for New Jersey. Rutgers economists James Hughes and Joseph Seneca calculate the Garden State lost nearly a quarter of a million people between 2002 and 2006.

People are also leaving the region. New Jersey, once a destination for New Yorkers wanting to move to the suburbs, is now a stretch of turnpike leading to Florida and North Carolina.

The reason they are leaving the region is that the cost of government has increased, but the quality of services has not.

I think that sums it up quite well. 


http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703574604574501582671046714.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

New Jersey Job Woes to Persist to 2019, Rutgers Says

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=an.3m20Wu9A8

 Oct. 30 (Bloomberg) -- New Jersey, whose jobless rate is at a 32-year high, will take a decade to get back to pre-recession employment levels, according to economists at Rutgers University.

The most densely populated U.S. state will take until 2019 before the number of people in work surpasses the 2007 peak, said Nancy Mantell, director of the Rutgers Economic Advisory Service.

“The country, in contrast, will begin job expansion three years earlier,” Mantell said in a statement yesterday. “By 2019 it will have 7.7 percent more jobs than at the previous peak.”

New Jersey entered recession in January 2008, one month after the U.S., and has lost 161,300 jobs, or 4 percent of its employment base, Mantell said.

The state shed jobs at a rate comparable with the national figure during the first year of the worst economic crisis since the 1930s. In 2009, the pace slowed to 1.8 percent, compared with 2.9 percent nationally.

The New Jersey jobless rate was 9.8 percent in September, up from 4.5 in December 2007, according to data compiled by the State Department of Labor and Workforce Development. The national rate is also 9.8 percent. New Jersey currently has 3.9 million non-farm jobs, according to state figures. In December 2007 it had a record-high 4.1 million such posts.

Slower Income Growth

Income growth in New Jersey will slow to less than 1.5 percent this year as the recession persists, after which it will increase by 4.2 percent annually through 2019, Mantell said.

Moody’s Investors Service lowered its credit outlook on $31 billion of New Jersey debt to negative from stable in August, citing the economic problems and budgetary constraints.

The nonpartisan Office of Legislative Services projects the state will confront a deficit of as much as $8 billion next year as rising unemployment and damped consumer spending depress tax receipts. The revenue gap is more than 25 percent of the $29 billion budget enacted by Governor Jon Corzine, the former co- chairman of Goldman Sachs & Co., in June.

Tax and fee collections for the quarter ended Sept. 30 fell $190 million, or 3.1 percent, below estimates, Treasurer David Rousseau said. Corzine ordered $200 million in cuts and directed his cabinet members to identify another $200 million in reductions.

In that spending plan, Corzine’s administration predicted revenue would drop more than 1 percent during the fiscal year ending June 30 from the previous 12-month period.

The only industries that experienced growth during the recession were education, health and “other services,” according to Mantell at Rutgers. Losses have been focused in manufacturing, construction and business services.

“The professional and business services sector will turn around during the recovery and will be, as it was during the past decade, a strong contributor to growth,” Mantell said.

As New Jerseyan as Pizza Pie: Why do you choose to stay?

This is a chance for all of the die-hard, dyed-in-the-wool New Jersey lifers to explain why they would never consider leaving The Garden State. Aside from the obvious (family, friends, career), what are the ties that bind you to NJ?

It's the pizza, isn't it?

Infrastructureless #2: Constructile Dysfunction

1996 - 2008. That is the span of time that it took for approximately three miles of highway on Rt. 3 from Little Falls to Wayne to be expanded and paved. This included the reconstruction of three small overpasses along the way. Twelve years! This works out to one mile of highway being completed per four years.

That's an extreme example, but it seems to be a familiar story throughout New Jersey. Please share your tales of torpid constructile dysfunction.

Jersey City the 13th Best City to Raise a Family??

So says Children's Health Magazine. Does anyone want to attempt to defend this? I'm not suggesting that it's one of the worst places to raise a family, but it certainly doesn't strike me as being among the best.

http://www.nj.com/hudson/index.ssf/2009/10/magazine_names_jersey_city_top.html

Children's Health magazine, published by Rodale, named Jersey City the 13th best place to raise a family. The magazine released a top 100 list of municipalities across the nation. The only other city in New Jersey to make the list was Newark, who ranked 46th.

Burlington, Vt. topped this year's list.

"We compared 29 quality of life variables in the areas of employment, health, housing, safety, education and family life to calculate Children's Health's 100 Best Places to Raise Children," the magazine's Web site says.

"This administration and the City Council work tirelessly to improve the quality of life in our city and we are glad to see our efforts be recognized," Mayor Jerramiah T. Healy said. "I am proud of our diversity and progress. From art and culture to recreational activities and leisure past times, we have hundreds of things for families to do. Jersey City has great parks, restaurants, shops and wonderful neighborhoods that continue to attract families here all the time."

Infrastructureless #1: Traffic Lights

In a state with traffic as heavy as ours, and which prides itself on being modern and progressive, why is it that we are stuck with traffic lights from the 1950's?

First, why do we have so few traffic lights with left hand turn signals? How many of you have been in this situation? You're at a light either waiting to make a left hand turn or behind someone who is trying to do so. The light turns green, but you never get to make that turn because of the relentless traffic coming from the opposite direction. I've seen this happen where folks are stuck at the same light through several cycles because either they or the person in front of them are unable to make that left hand turn.

This frustration in turn leads to many who are attempting a left hand turn to try to "punch it" when the light goes green, in order to beat out the person in the opposing lane. And this of course leads to more shouting matches, accidents, road rage, and general confusion. The law clearly states that the person in the opposing lane driving straight has right of way. If you are turning left across an intersection you do not have right of way, you're supposed to wait until traffic is clear. But we in NJ seem to have become brainwashed into thinking that the polite thing to do is to let the left hand turning person to go first. I can't tell you how many games of herky-jerky-are-you-letting-me-turn aerobics I've witnessed because of this.

But there is an amazingly simple solution to all of this, a traffic light with a left hand turn signal. Such a simple investment would open up the blow off valve and release quite a bit of steam for stressed out (and delayed) NJ drivers. Sometimes, it is the little things that count, especially when they can positively affect our day-to-day lives.

Oh, and on a related note, traffic lights with sensors are helpful too. If you're at a light at 1am and there is no traffic to be seen, wouldn't it be nice if you didn't have to sit at that antiquated, timed light for 2-3 minutes?

There was a time when I thought that this is just the way it is, that this is the best mankind had to offer, and since we live in a densely populated area, that we're just screwed. But then, about a decade ago, while out in the Midwest, I was introduced to the glory of the modern traffic light system, complete with traffic sensors and turn lights. But wait I thought, I'm from NJ, one of the wealthiest, best educated, most progressive states in the country! How is it that we don't have this newfangled technology? (and by new, I mean 10+ years old at the time).

(SIGH)