It seems that New Jersey doesn’t have a very good reputation. Why? is it too close to New York to be nothing more than a bedroom community? is it really as mobbed-up as some of the stereotypes suggest? is it pretty much urbanised, or does it have any rural areas?
New Jersey is the most densely populated of the U.S. states although it does have some semi-rural areas and farms in parts of it (its motto is The Garden State which many people find odd). Much of the humor poking is because all many people see of it is from driving down the New Jersey Turnpike out of NYC. The area around the turnpike is uber-industrial which belching stacks and concrete and steel everything. The joke when somebody says they are from New Jersey is to say “What Exit?” (like the user here) insinuating that all of New Jersey is found right off the turnpike.
Other factors include the fact that some of the cities outside of NYC like Camden and Newark have reputations as crime-ridden armpits. People from NYC itself often lump everyone in the New Jersey suburbs as living in a hellhole. The people of New Jersey are thought nationwide to rude and warped by their rather unique environ compared to the rest of the nation. People in the U.S. tend to be fascinated with the Mafia but place associations with it aren’t really positive. Then, there is the rather brash Jersey Shore and Atlantic City (gambling). It all adds up in the popular mind to be something that isn’t quite elegant or attractive.
Parts of New Jersey are indeed beautiful like Princeton where the university by the same name resides. Most people don’t think of those parts first however when New Jersey is mentioned.
New Jersey doesn’t really deserve all the abuse it receives, but it will continue to receive such teasing and there’s little they can do about it.
Such a huge number of people from New Jersey cross into another state to go to work everyday. Many of them go into New York City, many of them go into Philadelphia.
In addition, or perhaps as a consequence, New Jersey doesn’t have any “major city” to call its own.
There is constant interaction between New Jerseyans and non-New Jerseyans and during this interaction the New Jerseyans do not have the home team advantage. They’re the “other”, they are the ones from a different state.
Being from a different state is a very clear marker, an easy point of ridicule.
Since those inflicting the ridicule are New Yorkers and Philadelphians, there’s always a “City Mouse/Country Mouse” aspect to the teasing (inaccurate though this may be- most New Jerseyans commuting daily to New York or Philadelphia live in very densly populated areas in Jersey and certainly don’t properly fit the “Country Mouse” type).
For the most part the teasing isn’t done with any real ill-will. Jerseyans are just an easy target.
Can’t add much to what Shag said, but most of the state is quite beautiful. 'Specially the Atlantic coast south of NYC and the Delaware river valley.
It’s too bad there’s so much urban buildup and roads, roads, roads!
I like it. I even bought a little piece of it 
I am in Princeton on at least a weekly basis, and it’s definitely not the Jersey that folks joke about.
If you draw a slanted line from New York to Philly, you will find most of the typical Jersey stuff on that line. Anywhere northwest or southeast of that line really doesn’t fit the Jersey stereotype.
But some jokes do have a grain of truth to them. For me the answer is 7A.
I once lived in NJ, and now live in Connecticut. It shows me how arbitrary these things are. Connecticut’s cities are just as bad as New Jersey’s. Route 1 in CT has just as many strip malls as Route 24 or 46 in NJ, and just as much stupid traffic. I-95 has just as much commuter traffic as I-80. On the other side, NJ has lots of rich areas out in Morris and Sussex, and just as much empty farmland. Yet Connecticut has a great reputation, and NJ is horrible.
Because it’s not New York City.
And Connecticut can’t be seen from Manhattan, but the Jersey side is like a poor relative with its face scrunched up against the glass at a holiday dinner.
I think it’s mostly New Yorkers who make fun of it, and they do it like they make fun of Queens. New Jersey and Queens may be in Manhattan’s shadow in some ways, but they’re also cheaper and (arguably) nicer to live in. So, insecure Manhattanites make fun of them. If only to reaffirm that their place is the place to live (yeah right). Unfortunately, they get a lot of air time on tv.
haha, exapno said it well
Hsst! Ix-nay on the efense-day!
New Jersey sucks. Sucks sucks sucks sucks. Sucks big donkey balls. Everything you’ve heard about it is true, only it’s worse. Mafioso everywhere, except where there’re industrial slums and chicks with big hair and acrylic nails that crack gum and talk funny.
Horrible, horrible place. Don’t ever go there. In fact, don’t read anything about it either. Including this thread. You’ve been saved, just close it and move on.
Are they gone yet?
OK, cool!
My dad’s got a place in Hopewell Township, and it’s the most beautiful countryside I’ve ever seen, without the extremes that make other places uncomfortable. I love it so much I want to cry everytime I leave. I grew up part time in Long Branch, and while it was a shithole for much of my childhood, the run down boardwalk, the beach, the smell of salt in the air…I wouldn’t give it up for the world. I love that state.
Although my husband’s extended family are Joisey “Family”, so it’s not like that stereotype came from nowheres, you know what I’m sayin’? Of course you do.
The Rolling Mills of New Jersey
(to the tune of “The Rolling Hills of the Border”)
- John Roberts and Tony Barrand
I lived in Pennington for 13 years. It’s the town that time forgot - everyone knows everybody, you can keep your doors unlocked, lots of nice privately owned stores downtown, and, when I lived there, the best sanitation men in the world.
Let’s keep it quiet because we’re thinking of moving back.
The beautiful side of New Jersey.
That horrific, industrial corridor that you drive through to get to NYC is so overwhelmingly horrifying, ugly, and disgusting that it will continue to perpetuate the “New Jersey is the world’s toilet” idea as long as people drive past it.
Without a doubt, north Jersey is a crapfest. Industry, Newark airport, enough traffic to make the average person insane, and plenty o’crime to go with.
But that isn’t all of Jersey. Quaint little towns like those mentioned above, and the broad agricultural expanse of southern Jersey. It’s somewhat peaceful to click along an arrow straight two lane road through the pineys at 65. There a multitude of little hole-in-the-wall towns that I discovered while servicing their banking equipment needs.
Gorgeous homes in Cape May, bird and other wildlife areas of the coast, along with an occasional elephant named Lucy.
There is a pastoral side of NJ never shown on TV, but I’ve seen and enjoyed it.
In my part of Monmouth county, we get all the Staten/Long/Manhattan Island rejects who complain how nothing is like it is in the city, but still don’t just move back there.
Oh, and driving through Deal after a snowstorm is a sight few can forget: 1-5 million dollar homes, no shoveling done because they’re actually 1-5 million dollar SUMMER homes!
I love Jersey, I do. I like that we have a bit of everything.
It’s pretty much already been said. Both Pepper Mill and I grew up in New Jersey, and know it for what it is, but the vast majority of folks pick up their impressions fronm driving down the Industrial Corridor between Philly and New York – The Jersey Turnpike (I-95) and U.S. 1 both plow a straight line between these points, and the Newark Airport (which serves NYC) is on it, so for many people this is their first and possibly only exposure to New Jersey. Not only do you have the industrial wasteland and Port Facilities on the route, you also have the northern terminus of the Oil Pipelines from Texas, weith the refineries and chemical plants in Linden and Elizabeth. The smells from these are truly foul. The sight’s pretty bad, too, with acres upon acres of oil tank farms in barren landscapes, with the refineries made of enless miles of pipes and spherical pressure vessels, and the tall towers with the burnoff flames at the top. At night, it all looks like the opening scenes of Bladerunner, only not as pretty.
Of course, once wou get away from that Industrial Corridor things look completely different. I recall bringing friends from Utah through the state, and they were astonished. “We thought it was all cities!” And that’s nt even close to the truth. New Jersey really is the Garden State, with lots of farms. That’s changing rapidly now, and the rich farmland that runs just off that Industrial Corridor is now being ploughed up and chopped up into Bedroom Communities andIndustrial Parks – although the new Industrial Patrks mainly aren’t factories – they’re warehouses for goods being manufactyured elsewhere. The sad fact is that the big factories that used to be in the state that actually made things – the various Johnson and Johnson factories (J&J has its world headquarters in New Brunswick, NJ), Hercules Powder Company, Ford Assembly lants – have closed and the manufacturing is being done in other states or overseas.
Until very recently, that subdivided land actual grew things – there were a lot of apple orchards, strawberry farms, etc. My home town got its start selling produce to NYC, delivered via inland waters. Now it’s a bedroom community ton the city and surrounding areas. There’s still plenty of agriculture in the state – Jersey Corn and Tomatoes are plentiful, but it’s farther and farther from the major routes.
So why is NJ the butt of jokes? The hip crowd in Manhattan, which sees the Bridge and Tunnel people as declasse to begin with, don’t spend a lot of time in NJ. But an awful lot of audiences for the snarky comedians – and some of the comedians themselves – actually own homes in Northern NJ.
The scenic drive across the Pulski Skyway is pretty much the image most people have of New Jersey. Basically all you see is an endless landscape of cargo containers, refineries, Newark Airport and Newark itself rising crappily out of the meadowlands in the distance (basically what you see during the opening of The Sopranos).
The Belmar / Wildwood type towns of the Jersey Shore are pretty much the image most people have of New Jersians. Musclebound guidos and chicks with ironed-flat hair dressed like strippers (the IROC-Z and big hair guido is largely a thing of the 80s) drinking Red Bull and vodkas.
To learn more about New Jersey and guidos, visit http://www.njguido.com/
And New Jersey does have more than it’s fair share of Italians. A lot of them do play up the “ay Tony! Commereaminute!” thing, also no doubt to the success of The Sopranos. Hoboken and other towns have a number of Italian festivales throughout the year.
Jersey is pretty nice once you get out past Newark and all the industrial stuff. Hoboken is also quite nice in that it has excellent access to Manhattan, decent nightlife (except for the fact that there is ONLY bars and restaurants), you don’t need a car and it’s really being developed. Princeton, NJ I’m told is also very pleasent.
I still prefer Connecticut though.
Hunderton County is a horrible horrible place. Ugly and full of nasty people. There is disease and pestilence and frogs raining from the skys. There is no need to go there. Don’t even think of building a new house there, it’s all full. In fact lets just take it off the map, nothing to see here move along.
I didn’t even mention the C.H.U.D.s
That ain’t Northern New Jersey. Look at a map. Northern New Jersey is all Stokes State Forest and High Point and expensive bedroom communities, far from the Industrial Corridor that includes the refineries and is a stone’s throw from Newark.
By the way, nobody I’ve ever known from New Jersey ever pronounced the state as “Joisey”. Only non-Jerseyfolk make that mistake. If anything, that’s a Brooklyn accent, and I’ve only heard one Brooklynite that spoke that way.