New Jersey anti-sprawl program proving ineffective

From WHYY, audio link available

Sprawling commercial developments across New Jersey have raised concern from legislators that towns are losing their green space, and traffic is becoming congested. Nearly five years ago, New Jersey passed a law allowing townships to adopt a program to help them mitigate sprawl, but only one town has taken advantage of it.

Transcript:
Under the program Transfer of Development Rights, developers have to pay property owners for their development rights, which they receive in the form of credits.  Those developers can then apply those credits in specially designated high density areas.

Carlos Rodriguez is New Jersey Director of Regional Plan Association.  He worked at the New Jersey Office of Smart Growth, which administers the program, for ten years.  He says Transfer of Development Rights is a costly and complicated proposition for towns.

Rodriguez: "What would help is if the legislature were to reevaluate the requirements that are contained in the statute in order to make it less onerous."

While New Jersey's program can cost up to $400,000, towns in Pennsylvania can do it for just $35,000, bypassing the state and county.

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)

Pharma's Decline In New Jersey

In 1990, 20 percent of the nation’s pharmaceutical jobs were in New Jersey. It now has 13 percent of them. From 2007 to 2008, the state lost 10 percent of its jobs in the high-paying industry.

Now a wave of pharmaceutical consolidations involving New Jersey firms, including Pfizer Inc.’s purchase of Wyeth in Madison and Merck & Co. Inc.’s purchase of Schering-Plough Corp., headquartered in Kenilworth, is likely to cost the state even more of those jobs.

N.J. has been hit hard by the recession

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.

Where the Jobs Will Be in 2010

 From Business Week 

A full-fledged job recovery seems to be a long way away. But some metros are poised for significant job growth by the first quarter of next year. BusinessWeek.com teamed up with Moody's Economy.com to identify America's 25 next recovering job markets. These metros were ranked based on Economy.com's projected job growth in the first three months of 2010.

Topping the list is Mount Vernon, Wash., a small town about 60 miles north of Seattle with just 48,000 workers. The town, which lost jobs quickly during the recession, could see a rebound, in part because tourism, retail, and hospitality will make a comeback as the economy improves. Additionally, the weak dollar will provide a boost to communities with international trading ports and metros that border Mexico, such as Brownsville, Tex. (a port town that is No. 4 on our list), and border town McCallen, Tex. (No. 3). Our list was also packed with towns that are closely linked to the energy industry (Billings, Mont., Houston, Tex., and Farmington, N.M.), college towns (College Station, Tex., Tuscaloosa, Ala., Auburn, Ala., and Lawrence, Kan.), and military towns (Columbus, Ga., Augusta, Ga., and Texarkana, Tex.).

None of the metros on the list experienced a housing bubble that had a disastrous pop. Miami, Las Vegas, Phoenix, and Stockton, Calif., will likely be in a funk long after many Texas metros are in growth mode.

"These are areas that had little or no housing cycle and stand to benefit from the renewed firmness in commodity prices," said Chris Lefakis, an economist at Moody's Economy.com. "This could be an export-lead recovery with the replenishment of inventory leading to a resurgence in manufacturing."


America's 10 Next Recovering Job Markets
1. Mount Vernon, Wash.
Q1 2010 annualized job growth: 2.7%
Q3 2009 annualized job growth: -4%

First quarter of recovery: Q4 2009
Unemployment rate: 10.1%
Median household income: $53,656

Mount Vernon, a small town in the Skagit Valley, about 60 miles north of Seattle and 80 miles south of Vancouver, has a historic downtown, nearby whale-watching tours, eagle-watching and kayaking. The town's small job market has retracted significantly and could be poised for a rebound. Mount Vernon's relative affordability makes it an attractive alternative to Seattle.
2. Huntsville, Ala.
Q1 2010 annualized job growth: 2.6%
Q3 2009 annualized job growth: -2%

First quarter of recovery: Q4 2009
Unemployment rate: 8%
Median household income: $51,798

Huntsville's strong economy is likely to get stronger. Builders are busy putting up new apartments and houses to accommodate hundreds of families moving into the area as part of the Base Realignment & Closure consolidations at Redstone Arsenal. In addition to the arsenal, the city is known as the home of the U.S. Space & Rocket Center, where scientists designed space rockets in the 1950s and visitors now come for interactive exhibits, rides, and movies.
3. McAllen, Tex.
Q1 2010 annualized job growth: 2.6%
Q3 2009 annualized job growth: 5.6%

First quarter of recovery: Q4 2009
Unemployment rate: 11.8%
Median household income: $30,157

McAllen, an affordable town about 10 miles from the Mexican border, is growing quickly with the arrival of immigrants, including wealthy Mexican homeowners. The health-care, education, and business sectors are expanding to accommodate the new residents.
4. Brownsville, Tex.
Q1 2010 annualized job growth: 2.2%
Q3 2009 annualized job growth: 1.7%

First quarter of recovery: Q4 2009
Unemployment rate: 10.9%
Median household income: $29,519

Brownsville, with a population of nearly 200,000, is booming in large part because of the Port of Brownsville, the state's southernmost international seaport. The weakening dollar could continue to give a boost to exporters in the coming year.
5. Auburn, Ala.
Q1 2010 annualized job growth: 1.9%
Q3 2009 annualized job growth: -1.8%

First quarter of recovery: Q4 2009
Unemployment rate: 8.8%
Median household income: $39,299

Auburn, a small college town located just west of the Georgia border, is centered around Auburn University, which employs more than 7,000 people. Small college towns have been relatively protected during the recession.
6. Lawrence, Kan.
Q1 2010 annualized job growth: 1.8%
Q3 2009 annualized job growth: -11.5%

First quarter of recovery: Q1 2010
Unemployment rate: 5.5%
Median household income: $51,803

Despite its recently slowing job market, Lawrence has a robust unemployment rate of just 5.5%. Lawrence is home to the University of Kansas and—like many other small college towns—it is likely to pull out of the recession relatively quickly. The politically progressive town draws retirees and other newcomers with its affordable cost of living and cultural offerings.
7. Dallas
Q1 2010 annualized job growth: 1.7%
Q3 2009 annualized job growth: -0.5%

First quarter of recovery: Q1 2010
Unemployment rate: 8.5%
Median household income: $55,591

Texas' Dallas metro has a diverse economy that held up well during the recession. It is home to major corporations such as ExxonMobil, J.C. Penney, and TXU Energy; it also has a major international airport and professional sports teams.
8. Laredo, Tex.
Q1 2010 annualized job growth: 1.6%
Q3 2009 annualized job growth: -2.1%

First quarter of recovery: Q1 2010
Unemployment rate: 9.5%
Median household income: $34,048

Fast-growing Laredo is known as the "Gateway City" because it is one of the busiest entry points into the U.S. from Mexico. The metro benefits from vigorous cross-border trade.
9. Las Cruces, N.M.
Q1 2010 annualized job growth: 1.5%
Q3 2009 annualized job growth: -5.7%

First quarter of recovery: Q1 2010
Unemployment rate: 7.4%
Median household income: $38,424

Las Cruces, home of New Mexico State University, is both a border town and a college town, which should keep the job market relatively strong into next year.
10. Billings, Mont.
Q1 2010 annualized job growth: 1.5%
Q3 2009 annualized job growth: -3.5%

First quarter of recovery: Q1 2010
Unemployment rate: 5.1%
Median household income: $49,386

Billings, the state's largest city, has a strong and diverse economy fed by agriculture, mining, energy, education, and health care. Its energy sector, which includes oil refineries, natural gas, and coal, is likely to help keep the local economy strong into next year.

Methodology: The metropolitan statistical areas were ranked based on Moody's Economy.com job growth forecasts for the first quarter next year. The first quarter of recovery is the first quarter in which metro payrolls began to expand. The metro unemployment rate was for September 2009 and was provided by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The median household income came from U.S. Census.

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.”