New Jersey
Ranked 47th in size with an area of 8,729 square miles, New
Jersey is a small, yet muscular, state. The NJ economy is robust,
resting on a base of agriculture, widely-varied businesses and
industries, and tourism. New Jersey boasts a median household income of
$55,146, the highest in the nation. Nine of New Jersey's counties are
among the wealthiest 100 of the country. And, according to an article in
the Newark Star-Ledger, women in New Jersey earn the highest per capita
income in the US.
New Jersey's position at the center of the BosWash
megalopolis, between Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and
Washington, DC, facilitated its rapid growth through the boom of the
1950s and beyond. This favored location also affords NJ a large and
well-educated labor pool with which to staff its myriad enterprises.
Known as the Garden State, New Jersey's agricultural outputs
are nursery stock, horses, vegetables, fruits and nuts, seafood and
dairy products. Hammonton in the southern part of the state is
recognized as the blueberry capital of the world.
New Jersey is home to numerous chemical plants and major
pharmaceutical firms, including Merck, Wyeth, Johnson and Johnson,
Novartis, and Pfizer. Significantly, the largest petroleum containment
system outside of the Middle East is located in New Jersey, which is
well known for its abundance of oil refineries. In the business arena,
nearly 100 companies on the Fortune 500 list have headquarters in or
conduct business from New Jersey.
The New Jersey economy has also benefited greatly from its
tourism industry. Chief among New Jersey's attractions is the Jersey
Shore with its seaside resorts and beaches. Among them, Ocean City,
rated by The Travel Channel as the best family beach of 2005; the reborn
Atlantic City, with its casinos, amusement pier, beaches, and a 5.75
mile boardwalk, the longest in the world; and Cape May, well known for
the charm of its Victorian gingerbread houses and for bird watching,
which is capped off by the annual World Series of Birding.
The Pine Barrens of southern and central New Jersey are
another major point of interest. Uncommon soil conditions have developed
a unique and diverse spectrum of plant life, such as orchids,
carnivorous plants, and the rare pygmy Pitch Pines that depend on fire
to reproduce. The Pine Barrens gave rise to the legend of the Jersey
Devil, said to have been born to a local woman named Mrs. Leeds in the
1700s. In western NJ, where it borders Pennsylvania, a more rural
landscape features the Delaware Water Gap, a mountain pass where the
Delaware River traverses a large ridge of the Appalachian Mountains. The
Delaware Water Gap is the site of a National Recreation Area, where
visitors may enjoy rafting, canoeing, swimming, fishing, hiking and rock
climbing.
New Jersey Real Estate
Like its economy, the New Jersey Real Estate market is an
active one. Proximity to New York and Philadelphia make NJ real estate
especially desirable. In 2005, 67% of New Jersey's population lived in
owner-occupied homes. The statewide median value was $333,900 and the
median monthly housing cost for those with mortgages was $1,938.
New Jersey Demographics
New Jersey's estimated 2005 population of 8,717,925 ranks it
11th in the US. However, NJ is the most densely populated state, at
1,174 residents per square mile, although density varies widely.
Immigration from outside the US has resulted in a net increase of
357,111 people, and migration within the country produced a net loss of
277,900 people. There are 1.6 million foreign-born living in the state,
accounting for 19.2% of the population. Eighty-six percent of residents
over 25 have high school diplomas and 34% have a bachelor's degree or
higher.
New Jersey Luminaries
Over time, New Jersey has produced a lengthy list of
noteworthy people, including 5 signers of the Declaration of
Independence, Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson,
John Hart, and Abraham Clark. With his 1,093 patents, inventor Thomas
Edison made a major contribution to the New Jersey economy, as well as
that of the US. In the music and entertainment world, famous New
Jersyites include Frank Sinatra, Count Basie, Bruce Springsteen, Whitney
Houston, Dionne Warwick, Patti Smith, and Queen Latifa, among many
others. And who can forget Monopoly, the board game whose properties are
named after the streets of Atlantic City?
Top Ten Most Expensive NJ Cities
|
