Susan Sallamack

Cranford

Small-town feel with small-town family-oriented activities.
Nice people.
Good School System.
Responsive Municipal Government and services.
On a RR line 20 minutes to Newark, NJ but will have direct access NYC in a couple of years.

Flooding from the Rahway River (how exciting)
Losing a bit of wooded area to development.
Can't think of the other three.

Eliza

Leonia, NJ

1-Great schools
2-Lovely people
3-Beautiful architecture
4-Mature trees
5-Close proximity to NYC

1-It's a dry town (strictly BYO)
2-Very limited downtown in terms of shopping and restaurants
3-No live music, movies or nightlife
4-Ridiculously high taxes
5-Mass transit not always reliable

Mike Pagan

Morris Plains

It is a real town wit a real downtown and not a development full of identical houses

I am a 7 minute walk from Manhattan (via NJ transit midtown direct), Hoboken, and Newark and a short bicycle ride to Morristown

Best Memorial Day Parade of any small town.

Arthur's steaks, Carmel Haifa's falafel, Aji's sushi, and Time For a Bagels... well... bagels.

So many of my friends live here or in neighboring towns.

Hard to be a progressive in a right-leaning town.

That giant hulk of a building never occupied by Waner Lambert/Pfizer/Johnson & Johnson.

The traffic bottleneck where Speedwell crosses under the train tracks

We've lived here for 18 years, and if we live here 18 more we'll still be among "the new people"

One square mile and 7 bank brnches... it' like the Switzerland of Morris County.

Tamara O'Shea

Bloomfield

Everything is within 5 minutes driving time - very convenient.
Close to New York.
CLose enough to the shore.
Local people are very friendly.
Beautiful parks near by.

Bloomfield needs a public pool.
The roads could use some repair - quite a few pot holes.
I live on a busy street - it's sometimes hard to get out of my driveway because of all the traffic.
Above-ground tension wires are all over the place - wish they could be put underground.
That's really it!

Susanna

Belleville

Neighbors
Branch Brook Park
Great pizza/take out
decent library
Walkable

unreliable public transporation, expensive to live here, noisy, litter and scragliness, obnoxious strip club

Rebecca Feldman

Morristown, NJ

I can walk to downtown for coffee, clothes (Century21) and great restaurants.
I can walk to the Midtown Direct and be in the City in an hour
I can road (or mountain bike) ride through woods and horse farms just minutes from downtown.
Diverse people and close-knit neighborhoods.
We are surrounded by history and appreciate it - George Washington spent two winters here.

Pioneer Plaza needs to be "greened".
The divide between cultures needs to be bridged.
Sometimes I have to drive to a mall to shop.
Duplication of services with surrounding towns adds to our tax burden.
Route 287 is convenient but the State doesn't care for its Right of Way in our Town.

Weehawken Nj

Small town feel
Convenient to Manhattan
Great public schools
Lots of activities for kids
Waterfront parks and walks

Limited vehicles for adults without children to feel welcomed.
Not enough interaction across age groups.
Traffic.
Out-of-town drivers who do not obey traffic signs/laws.

Marilyn

East Brunswick, NJ

1.Excellent schools
2.Great recreation programs
3.Easy to get to NYC
4.Really good library
5.Fairly responsove local government

1.High property taxes
2.Route 18 - sort of self explanatory to anyone who has driven up and down it
3.No real activities for teenagers
4.A glut of furniture stores - we could really use a couple of higher end establishments (like a Trader Joe's)
5.No real public transportation beyond the buses to NYC. Have to drive everywhere for everything.

Matt

Montclair, NJ

Diversity!
Culture!
Civilized people!
Great food!
Terrific parks!

Taxes!
Taxes!
Taxes!
Taxes!
Taxes!

Melissa

Hoboken, NJ

Location & access to NYC
History
Architecture
Neighborliness
Maxwell's!!!

Bitter political infighting
People who think shouting louder makes them righter
Aging storm sewers/flooding issue
Not enough park space (although that's getting better)
Rising cost of living

MaryAnn

Roosevelt, NJ

It is tiny.
Has an active arts segment.
No room for development.
Kind helpful neighbors.
5 miles from the NJTP.

No stores currently in town.
The nearest supermarket is 7 miles away.

Mary Sibley

Montclair

(1) beautiful housing stock
(2) walkability - if you take advantage of it
(3) Brookdale Park
(4) social engagement such as with Toni's Kitchen - local soup kitchen
(5) racial diversity

(1) incessant and ubiquitous landscaping crews and leaf blowers
(2) traffic from cars- only the kids walk on our many sidewalks
(3) schools are falling apart and high school is 80 years old
(4) Noise, noise noise (cars and landscaping)

Jamie Klenetsky

Morristown, NJ

The Morristown Green - a wonderful park in the middle of town with a fountain, memorials, and of course, greenery! It's a great place for all residents of the town to relax, bring their kids, etc.

Lots of free concerts - In the summer, the Mayo Performing Arts Center hosts free world music concerts on the Green. A church downtown has free concerts every Friday two months out of the year.

It's actually a town - Morristown is a real town, very walkable with shops, restaurants, etc. You can definitely get by without a car here. I work in town and walk to my office almost every day!

The food! - Morristown features a ridiculous number of restaurants of all sorts of cuisines. We have great Asian, Indian, and even Persian food, as well as some of the best bakeries you'll find!

County seat - Morristown is the county seat so you can always get an in on government, politics of the day, etc. Beautiful County buildings as well.

Expensive housing - apartments are really expensive in town and there is a lot of high-income luxury housing.

Gentrification - those new apartments have gentrified the town a bit.

Power outages etc - Morristown has a history of power problems, perhaps because the power lines run underground. There was a small fire at the Courthouse and a very large one at the Library which destroyed half of it (still being repaired).

...that's all I can think of!

Jim Baird

Jefferson Township, NJ

1. Location. On the edge of being rural, but still convenient to shopping, services, and NYC.
2. Recreation,two fine golf courses, a large county park for hiking, Lake Hopatcong, and ballfields for the kids.
3.Competent local government providing good services.(recycling, trash removal,snow removal,etc.
4. Very good library
5.Many volunteers

1. Property taxes are averaging almost 2.5% of house value.
2.Mediocre schools have low standards as demonstrated by inflated "honor rolls"
3.Pistol range next to municipal complex which is noisy to the extreme and probably wasteful.
4. Almost no street lighting.
5.No sidewalks

Cynthia Darling

Montclair, NJ

Wellmont music venue
Lots of bagel places
proximity to both NYC and the shore
great writing community
beautiful parks

We have gotten better train service on the weekends, but I would love if it were even more frequent!
apartment prices
it's not a city
lots of SUVs with pushy drivers!

Mary Jane Royce

Clifton

Easy access to NYC and major highways out of New Jersey.
Easy access to so many good restaurants (many in Montclair, Nutley and Caldwell),
but I don't have to pay Essex Co. taxes.
Very diverse community; I understand there are more than 60 different languages spoken by families in our town.
Although a town of 80,000 people, still, really, just a collection of small neighborhoods where people do look out for one another.
We still use clotheslines (not because we are so green; we've just always used them).

The crime rate could be lower.

Litter: I just can't stand it. Why, I always ask?

The high school standardized test scores could be higher.

Housing prices are dropping ( but I guess that is a state-wide complaint).

The folks in Montclair think we are low-class!

Jacob Markowitz

Bloomingdale, NJ

1. Non-vital,depressed Main street.
2. Main St is a busy thru street with inadequate parking
3. No significant tax rateables.
4. Poor schools.
5. No new housing development as cannot afford more schools.

maureen campbell

middletown new jersey

It's a safe place for children.
The teachers in our schools are talented and dedicated.
There are community activities for all ages.
We are just at the "top" of the jersey Shore...seven miles from Sandy Hook.
There is still a lot of open space.

Our community is becoming over-developed, too many stores and strip malls.
The local police target and stalk our teenage residents.
There is a lack of centrality...our town is divided into "areas" that are clearly defined by income.
Our property taxes are nearly unaffordable
We lack the cultural diversity of most suburban communities.

Max Azzarello

New Brunswick, NJ

1. The basement punk music scene: The people who frequent these shows are some of the kindest, most considerate, socially involved people I have met, promoting equality regarless of gender, race, sexual orientation and the like. Some rockin' tunes too.

2. I ride my bike through a path that is riddled with graffiti and homeless people. When talking with one of them, he said he didn't want food or money, but would greatly appreciate cat food for the cats that live with some of them along the path. It was absolutely touching.

3. The liveliness of the "seedy" areas of town, especially on summer weekends. Many people are afraid of such areas, but I see nothing but neighborhood children playing, families walking together, the elderly watching the street, and so on. It's infinitely better than boring, empty suburbs.

4. The Delaware & Raritan Canal State Park is an excellent path for running or biking, stretching all the way from New Brunswick to Trenton!

5. There are like 12 parks in the city! They're all beautiful.

1. Every construction project within the city seems to require police officers to be on site. In nearly every instance, the police officers don't seem to be doing anything except just standing there. It is a terribly poor use of public resources.

2. There are constantly new, large developments being created downtown, but they seem to exist only to benefit visitors and outsiders without helping the typical New Brunswick resident.

3. Johnson & Johnson's office park is quintessentially suburban, sectioning off a huge chunk of land away from the city for private use.

4. I've never seen the city's theaters advertise to a single person in Spanish, even though about half the city's population is Latino.

5. Some guy yelled at me for no reason today.

Lori Press

Ocean Grove

I love Ocean Grove because:
1. Location - a beautiful coastal community and 1 1/2 hr from Manhattan
2. Dry town - no loud bars, no hordes of drunken young people hanging out
3. Listed on National Register of Historic Places - Preservation Committee enforces rules to keep town looking like the Victorian village by the sea that it is.
4. The Great Auditorium-hosts top name performers every Saturday night during the summer and the town sponsors events weekly during summer.
5.Front porches and the simple life: People sit on their porches greeting neighbors (we stay connected) and going out for ice cream at Day's or Nagle's is an evening's simple joy and past-time.

I don't like Ocean Grove because;
1. The town has not come up with a viable solution to the parking problem. (We don't have driveways).
2. Taxes are extraordinarily high for a town with no full time police dept or school of its own. We do have volunteer Fire Dept.
3. The roads do not get plowed quickly enough- we don't have our equipment, we are part of Neptune Township.
4. You can't access the beach on Sunday until after 12:30pm
5. The drainage system for the roads and the upkeep of the roads leaves something to be desired.