North or South? Take Your Pick. But Central’s Not An Option.
I am talking about New Jersey, of course.
Many years ago, when I was a student at the Rutgers University Urban Planning Department (now Bloustein School), my professor – Dean Mark Lapping – used to joke about the North-South Jersey divide: “No matter whom you ask, South Jersey begins South of them.”
The issue is not any clearer today. My friend Michael Rottler-Gurley alerted me to this article about a guy, Steve Chernoski, who has made it his mission to resolve what’s North and what’s South Jersey once and for all. Steve uses a variety of admittedly non-scientific methods, such as the Dunkin Donuts method, the Wawa method, and the Lautenberg-Andrews primaries method. In the end, at least for me, only one thing is clear: there is no such thing as “Central Jersey.”Maybe I will have to see Steve’s movie to get closure. Yes, folks, there is a movie in the works, in addition to the blog, Facebook and MySpace sites.
What do you think?
Posted by Atanas Entchev at 6/16/2008 3:53 PM 
Categories: blog, New Jersey, GIS, NJ
Tags: blog New Jersey GIS NJ
Categories: blog, New Jersey, GIS, NJ
Tags: blog New Jersey GIS NJ
There definitely is a Central Jersey.
Also, South Jersey needs to be split up into 3 parts:
Philly Metro (most of Burlington, Camden, Gloucester & river-coastal Salem)
South Shore (extreme southern ocean to Cape May)
"Downe Jersey": Salem & Cumberland, with some of bayshore Cape May.
You haven't been to South Jersey if you haven't been to Bivalve, Dividing Creek or Greenwich.
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Central Jersey in the house. Reppin the 08879.
What's up with Rutgers? Who knew that 20 years after I left I'd find out they had some kind of Urban Planning Department that was home to The Bicycle Scholar?
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Whatever happened to the splitting Jersey up into an east and a west the way the King did when he was granting charters for colonies. I must say this is a very interesting topic that has lots of view points based on where you are from. I worked or lived in Salem, Atlantic, and Northern Ocean Counties and peoples perceptions of the other parts of the State is really amazing amazing. But this still pales in comparison to when you talk to somebody from outside the State and all they know about us is that this is where the Sopranos took place and we are supposed to have a lot of toxic waste.
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Several authorities believe there is a "Central New Jersey": Craig's List has a "Central NJ" region, Wikipedia has a Central Jersey entry, The United States Geological Survey broke the State into "North, CENTRAL, and South" on there latest Geologic maps. Atanas I believe!
Ron
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It is the year 2019, 30 years after [off-topic comments deleted]
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agree with John R that South Jersey needs to be split up into 3 parts no 2 but 3
totaly agree
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Ah, the age old question. But there is a Central Jersey, and I'm not arguing from a geographic POV. There's a distinct culture here that's not found in North or South Jersey.
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I agree with you, Justin, having resided in Middlesex County since 1991.
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