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Population composition
New Jersey’s population reflects the immigration patterns of the 19th and 20th centuries, including Germans and Slavs, Russian and European Jews, Irish, and Italians. Those categorized as white (i.e., generally of European origin) constitute more than two-thirds of the population. New Jersey was a prime destination for the waves of African Americans who left the South during and after World War II; more than one-tenth of the state’s total population is made up of African Americans. There is also a sizable Hispanic population, the largest subgroups of which are Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, and Cubans. In the late 20th century, immigrant groups began to grow even more diverse and included South Asians, Portuguese, different Latin American groups, and others.
Italian Americans are the state’s largest ethnic group. They are the predominant white bloc in the cities, although the cities also contain sizable Polish, Hungarian, and other eastern European groups. Italian Americans and African Americans dominate the political and cultural life of the cities—a situation that at times has brought the two groups into competition and conflict.
Settlement patterns
The most distinctive of New Jersey’s regions is its long shoreline, which stretches for 125 miles (200 km). Much of it is composed of long and narrow barrier islands separated from the mainland by shallow lagoons and from one another by tidal inlets. Cape May, at the southern tip of the state, was among the first summer resorts in the country, and both that community and Long Branch in Monmouth county were known as the playgrounds of presidents during the 19th century. The quality of the Shore, as it is called, ranges from the urban garishness of Asbury Park to the opulence of Deal and Mantoloking. In such resorts as Wildwood and Atlantic City, the nightlife goes until dawn, whereas other seaside towns such as Avalon, Ocean City, and Beach Haven are family resorts. The Jersey Shore at its best can be found in two parks, Sandy Hook (part of Gateway National Recreation Area) in the north and Island Beach, a state park, in the south. The dunes there are still topped with coarse but fragile grass, and osprey still build their nests there. The marshes teem with wildlife, and the trees are bent and twisted by wind and salt spray. More than two-fifths of the land is forested.
Five northeastern counties in the New York City metropolitan area—Essex, Hudson, Passaic, Bergen, and Union—contain nearly two-fifths of New Jersey’s population. Four of the six largest cities in the state—Newark, Jersey City, Paterson, and Elizabeth—are located there. The Newark–Hudson county–Elizabeth complex appears to many travelers as one endless industrial city: dingy and smelly but throbbing with commercial life.
Beyond the cities lie the suburbs. Most are pleasant and prosperous, but some of the older ones show signs of urban blight. Industrial construction in suburban communities has increased, but many suburban towns, especially in Bergen county, remain bedroom communities of New York City and of the New Jersey cities. Newark’s population doubles every day as the workforce pours in. New Jersey remains dominated, however, by the two giant cities just beyond its borders. Hundreds of thousands of New Jerseyans cross the Hudson to New York City on the average workday. North Jerseyans watch New York television, root (for the most part) for New York athletic teams, and patronize New York theatres and restaurants. A similar situation exists in Camden, Burlington, Gloucester, and Mercer counties, where residents cross the Delaware to jobs in Philadelphia.
South Jersey begins south of Trenton and comprises most of eight counties. It includes roughly half of the state’s area but only about one-fourth of the population. The loamy soil of the Inner Coastal Plain is well suited to vegetable farming, and most of the land not covered by forest or marsh is farmed. Pinelands National Reserve, covering about 1,700 square miles (4,400 square km) in the Outer Coastal Plain, was established in 1978; it was the country’s first national reserve, in which the federal government provided funds for the purchase of a core of undeveloped land while state and local authorities were responsible for resource evaluation and economic planning in surrounding developed areas.
Central Jersey, all of five counties and part of three, is largely a plain, but hilly areas occur in Hunterdon and Somerset counties. Middlesex and Mercer counties, especially the former, are industrialized. Princeton University is located in Mercer county and the borough of Princeton, which combines the charm of the campus with a rich colonial past to create one of the country’s loveliest towns. Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, has its main campus in nearby New Brunswick. Hunterdon and Somerset counties are a mixture of suburban development, farmland, and woodland.
The four counties of northwestern New Jersey comprise a mixture of small town, affluent suburb, and rugged countryside, although two major cities, Passaic and Paterson, are located in Passaic county. The area contains some remaining dairy farms and parks and recreation areas.
Although relatively small, the Meadowlands are immensely valuable because of their location in the centre of one of the world’s busiest metropolitan areas. By the late 1960s, New Jersey had put together the machinery to develop this area through the Hackensack Meadowlands Development Commission (now the New Jersey Meadowlands Commission). In 1976 the Meadowlands Sports Complex began operations with the opening of a racetrack. In 1976 Giants (football) was completed, and the Continental Airlines Arena (formerly the Brendan Byrne Arena) opened in 1981. Warehouses and corporate buildings have also been constructed in the area.
Demographic trends
The most striking demographic trend in New Jersey is the movement of the white population away from the cities and the concurrent proportional growth of the urban black and Hispanic population, accompanied by an emigration of industry and commerce. Old, outmoded factories are left behind for sleek new buildings outside cities, and huge suburban shopping centres have replaced the downtown department stores. This shift means more jobs in the suburbs, and the jobs create a commensurate demand for housing. The populations of the cities bordering those areas have become increasingly African American and Hispanic, and the cities suffer from continuing decay and poor-quality housing and services.