Sharene Lewis

Lodi, N.J.

1. everyone knows each other or knows someone who knows someone
2. great Italian food
3. great family values
4. you can not mess with anyone's mother or sister
5. St. Joe's Feast

1. everyone knows each other or knows someone who knows someone
2. politics
3. snobby at times
4. it's all in the family
5. history of floods,fires and pollution

Paul Bellan-Boyer

Jersey City

1. It's a real city: jobs, housing, transit, culture, services all accessible.
2. It's diverse in ethnicity and income, and has a good balance between lifelong, long-time, and newer residents.
3. Vibrant ethnic communities, especially: Arab, South Asian, Chinese, African, Filipino, Puerto Rican, Dominican, Haitian
4. Growing spirit of change and increased community involvement
5. It's a beautiful place, on New York Harbor and the Hackensack River, with all the advantages of NYC next door

1. Poverty and lack of opportunity for far too many
2. Corruption, ineffectiveness, and unresponsiveness of many parts of city and county government
3. Trash, litter, cleanliness
4. "Gated communities" - new development NOT integrated with the rest of the city

Allison

Rutherford, NJ

#1 - No parking ordinance!!!!!
#2 - Beautiful houses with character
#3 - Great Downtown with shops and restaurants
#4 - Close to Rt.17, 3, 21 and public transportation
#5 - Quiet Community

Too Close to a flooded Passaic River! Other than that.....no complaints.

Brian Kruse

Hoboken

Politics: I am a political junkie
Vibrancy: always something to do and people to see
Family friendly: never far from a meet up with kids at parks, etc.
Small town feel: I can go for a run and see old neighbors, dog walker, friends, etc. It's amazing how often you see familiar faces even though there are 50,000 people in town
Convenience: to NYC for work and fun

Politics: corruption. Political leaders are out
To enrich themselves and their voters (the city employees)
Lack of park space
Poor government service: do everything "half assed" as my Dad would say. For example: planted dozens of trees around town in June and never watered them. Most are now dead. Great job guys!
Rule that requires town employees to
Live in town. They become an unstoppable
Voting block who votes themselves ridiculous pay packages. Need better voter turnout to stop
This but many of this same block of people are trying to defeat effort to move elections to same day as national elections, where average voter
Turnout is better.

Kristin

Montclair, NJ

1. Diverse in ethnicity and economics.
2. Walkable and beautiful.
3. Many excellent restaurants and shops, beautiful parks.
4. Friendly and funny and clever people.
5. I can afford a house with a yard for my kids.

1. Segregated in much the same way Brooklyn is.
2. Also similar to Brooklyn: Bickering over who is a "real" resident and who is not.
3. I need to use the car more (and my waistline has responded accordingly).
4. More allergies to the wider variety of greenery and trees.
5. Owning a home is a heck of a lot more work than renting.

Weehawken

1)Location - proximity to NYC, Newark airport, main highways 2) THE most spectacular view of Hudson River and NYC skyline 3) don't need a car 4) good neighbors who rally in emergencies and time of need 5) cheap restaurants

1) Town Hall: a) deep, pervasive corruption b) incompetence and lack of accountability c) environment of hostility and retaliation d) regressive, unoriginal thinking
2) lack of local newspapers willing to investigate or report it 3) cheap restaurants but not enough vegetables 4) taxes 5) parking

Andrew Ahn

Short Hills, New Jersey

1. Our town has great civic pride as evidenced by the many annual events which bring us together as a community (e.g. Snowflake Parade).
2. Our town is quite philanthropic as demonstrated by our support for the many great causes including the numerous American Red Cross blood drives that are held each year.
3. We have easy and quick access to New York City, Newark airport, the Jersey Shore, the Poconos and Philadelphia.
4. We have a terrific restaurant scene with a cornucopia of culinary delights.
5. We have truly impressive schools which are committed to educational excellence.

1. Parking can be a challenge, especially at the train stations and during evenings and weekends in the downtown district, where the movie theater and the restaurants are located.
2. Traffic on Main Street in downtown can become unwieldy particularly during evenings and weekends. More should be done to alleviate the congestion in the downtown area.
3. I wish that more bike lanes could be created so that people could take in the beauty of our town while cycling through our many leafy and hilly neighborhoods.
4. Our beloved library is in desperate need of major expansion. It needs to be tripled in size to meet the needs of our community.
5. Our town needs to make more of a commitment to our community center so that it is used much more by people of all ages. More programs and resources at the center will translate into much higher use by the people of our town.

Lester Anderson

Verona

1 Great Pool
2 Great Schools
3 Effective Government Services
4 Recreation Dept has something for everyone
5 Great community Spirit

Nothing that I can list. Like they say "don't sweat the small stuff" and anything I would put here would be "small stuff"

Elaine Petrowski

Bloomingdale

the lakes
the wildlife(fox, bear, butterflies, snakes, toads, salamanders etc.)
the views
the politics are better than reality TV

the politics
the closed park downtown
the floods
empty stores
recent terrible crimes

Nick

Westfield, NJ

safe community
flourishing downtown
close the the parkway and route 22
its quaintness

overly zealous parking enforcement
not enough parking
too many McMansion
too much homogeneity

Michelle H

Union City

Diversity
Culture
Hard working
Town leadership
Location

Over crowded
Not enough jobs
Not enough focus on Science, Math, or writing in schools
Abandoned properties
Curbing pets

alfred iversen

up montclair nj

1. Near NYC via train or bus
2. Near Montclair State University and all it offers
3. Diversity--Makes everyone who lives here comfortable despite race or sexual orientation
4. Lots of green space for outdoor enjoyment
5. Beautiful architectural inventory of homes, apartments and public buildings.
6. Incredible cultural life--Montclair Art Museum, Public Library, Crane House, etc.

1. High real estate taxes
2. Overly bureaucratic government
3. Recent reduction of services and increase in costs of same.
4. Poor snow removal
5. Unfriendly and non-supportive attitude toward local businesses.

dorothy and bob greenwald

montclair,NJ

1,Superior grade schools

2.Neighbor virtually ALWAYW better
educated thab you

3 NYC PriVACY,..neighbors respect your
privacy

4. Close to NYC

5. Great restaurants in town & nearby

1, Taxes too high

2, Streets in dreadful repair

3. High School could be better

4. Town government is always BEHIND
the budget curve

5. Taxes too high

David L Wilson

Paterson

Spelled my name wrong.

David L Wislon

Paterson

1. The people. My high school yearbook looks like a United Nations directory. We learned how to be cosmopolitans because we had to tolerate and appreciate other's customs, food, music, and behavior. The people who live there now are from different places from those that lived there before.
2. The housing stock and the old silk mills are architecturally significant buildings. Except for some neighborhoods the housing has held up pretty well.
3. Paterson is a great food town. There are Italian bar/pizzarias that have been there since 1931; some of the best Arab restaurants in the entire NY metro area; Jamaican and Caribbean places; Peruvian and Peruvian/Chinese places; the hotdog stands where you can get a Hot Texas Weiner all-the-way.
4. The Paterson Museum and the Passaic Falls.
5. People know how to park their cars without killing parking spaces for others.

1. I don't physically live in Paterson, but spiritually, I never left the place. So I don't have to put up with any of the petty inconveniences of daily living.
2. Patronage politics
3. They demolished the Fallsview Grill and replaced it with a Burger King

olivier michaud

Glen Ridge

- The crickets

- The trees

- The houses

-The parks

-Everything at bike ride

- Too many cars

- Too segregated

- Too many poor

- Too much noise

- Not enough bike road

1. Proximity to NY city.
2. Good schools.
3. Very pretty town; lakes/trails.
4. Kid friendly.
5. Great neighbors.

1. No downtown shopping area.
2. High maintenance cost on older home repairs.

David Wilson

Cliffside Park, NJ

1. It is on top of the Palisades. I get to look over and see Oz on the horizon.
2. I live 4 blocks from the site of the old Palisades Park Amusement Park. Even though there are highrise condos there now, the aura remains.
3. It is an old Italian town. There are plenty of Italian bakeries and delis. The restaurants are just ok, but I grew up in Paterson where the Italians were cookers.
4. On the northside of town there is a concentration of Japanese and Koreans. What this means is that there are a lot a people who don't know how to drive a car properly and driving down the main drag is always an adventure. But the tradeoff is that there are a lot a great restaurants and the Asians are polite people.
5. On the southside of town there is a concentration of Central Americans and Mexicans. A lot of them are Indians or peasants. Living with Indians and peasants is definitely a good thing. Then there is a sizable Turkish population. The Turkish bakery on Palisades Ave. is the place to go.

1. The mayor has been in office since 1967. His son is on the borough council and his daughter-in-law was a county freeholder until she was defeated last election cycle. Inspired by the HBO series "Boardwalk Empire" I've started calling this place "Palisades Empire." City Hall is the employment center for the city clerk's extended family.
2. The borough has chosen to play a game using parking tickets as a form of revenue. In its defense I will say that since the borough is so close to the GWB, out-of-towners have abused the place by parking in town all day, catching a bus into NYC and burning the residents. To counter this you need a permit to park on the city streets.
But the first 2 weeks I lived in town with my out-of-state plates on my car I found it was a magnet for parking tickets. Then to challenge them I had to go to municipal court. Come on already. I'm not some Chaim Yankel who just got off the boat. I had to take my high school friend who is a lawyer along with me to restrain me. I cut a deal with the borough attorney, held my nose, and paid the fine. He "reduced" the fines with a straight face even though there was an air of extortion about the entire business. The room was filled with recent immigrants who aren't going to make much of a fuss over this scam. Feeling that the folks down at city hall are picking your pocket doesn't inspire much confidence.
3. There is a big hole in the middle of downtown that is supposedly undergoing redevelopment. They demolished a city block, let it sit vacant for a long time, made a big fanfare about construction starting, only to have it revert to an empty hole. I can't wait to hear the explanation.
4. The city padres' idea of redevelopment is to knock down single family houses, rezone and allow duplexes to be built in their place. The curb cuts then essentially reduce the amount of on-street parking, pitting the people who have to park on the street against each other and then sending the cops around ticket us. If this has to do with increasing the tax base, then I just fell off of a turnip truck on the edge of town.
5. You said I can have 5 reasons to say what I don't like about CP? I don't have a fifth reason, but if I think of one, I want to come back here with it.

Gene Wisniewski

eehawken, NJ

1) 20 minutes from Manhattan
2) Quiet
3) Beautiful old buildings
4) Large population of people in the arts
5) It's in NEW JERSEY!

1) It's not Manhattan
2) Sleepy
3) Beautiful old buildings covered in bad brickface and aluminum siding
4) Nowhere for people in the arts to congregate
5) It's in NEW JERSEY!

Steve

Lambertville, NJ

1) Walkable with a bike path
2) Bus with wi-fi to NYC
3) Focus on arts & sustainability
4) Great restuarants
5) Brewery in town

1) No rail
2) No public transportation to Philly
3) Few houses with yards
4) Few options for newer homes with character
5) Flood threats from the Delaware River