Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm........
Posted on 03/09/2006 6:48:25 AM PST by Huck
Who's laughing now?
New Jersey, the state that spawned a thousand wise-guy bumper stickers and became the butt of a million late-night jokes, is actually a nice place to live.
The research group Morgan Quitno crunched the numbers this year and yesterday ranked New Jersey the fifth-most-livable state.
As for its neighbors?
Pennsylvania finished 30th, New York 32d.
"The people we talk to say they wouldn't live anywhere else, and I have to go along with that," said Mark Moran, a Bloomfield resident and one of the editors of Weird New Jersey magazine. "Whether it grows on you or people just don't know any better, I don't know."
New Jersey has long had a tragically poor reputation, earned by corrupt politicians, homicidal mobsters (real and fictional), surreal traffic patterns (who invented the jughandle, anyway?), toxic waste, and big hair.
The state's image has been so bad that even then-acting Gov. Richard Codey took the time last year to rollick in some of the more humorous entries in his public slogan contest.
Among the favorites: "New Jersey: You got a problem with that?" and "New Jersey: Most of our elected officials have not been indicted."
Morgan Quitno, a Kansas-based publisher of statistical data, based its rankings on 44 factors, and New Jersey shined in many.
The state moved up from eighth place a year ago. New Hampshire was judged the most livable state for the third year in a row.
The study determined that New Jersey has excellent schools; an educated, wealthy population; and relatively low rates of crime and poverty.
"We don't claim to be finding the most exciting place or the best place to take a vacation," said Scott Morgan, president of Morgan Quitno. "It's just looking at very basic things. Other people can choose to look at other factors."
In other words, the things that make Jersey so Jersey didn't count against it. (Except for the toxic waste: Morgan found New Jersey had the most "hazardous waste sites on the National Priority List per 10,000 square miles.")
Moran also noted that if auto insurance and property tax rates had been considered, New Jersey's ranking would have sunk like a stone.
But in Morgan Quitno's world, livability is measured by factors such as student-teacher ratios and per-capita spending on the arts, and New Jersey excelled in both.
For Moran, there is no conflict in a state's combining livability with a tradition for the weird and absurd.
"You've got to take the good with the bad," he said. "The fact that it's such an odd and unique place... certainly makes it more livable for me."
Morgan visited the state last year and made a swing through Camden, the city his publishing company has famously labeled the most dangerous the last two years.
"We didn't advertise who we were," he said.
It's a chicken/egg thing, I guess. We just have a different perspective. Do you really only do what the gubmint allows?
Actually nobody around here (Somerset County) speaks the dialect you infer from your post. Perhaps you have difficulty differentiating between television and reality.
And yes, if you think NJ is such an awful place to live, then please move yourself and the other ingrates like you, back from whence you came. We don't need you and we don't want you.
Nobody begged you to come to NJ and I have a feeling your kind wouldn't be missed.
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm........
I like the South. The people there seem friendlier and in less of a hurry.
Cool thanks. Larry Campbell rocks.
I love Southern people. Some of the most charming folks you'll ever meet. I just don't like southern states enough to live there. But I love the people. Actually, I could see myself moving to the Nashville TN area at some point.
LMAO, you can throw THIS survey out with the garbage.
This is a shellsuit, btw. Wore one in white and silver when I was a youth: 
I think Flip may be one of those people who is only happy when he's miserable. He sure seems to find a lot to complain about and not much to commend. A sad way to go thru life, methinks.
That makes sense, given migration patterns.
Depends on the penalties for breaking the statues I choose to ignore. Would you exceed the speed limit on the freeway? Would you CCW in NJ?
Quote: "The whole "Joisey" misspelling has become trite and overused. You have some interesting and valid commentary, so please don't lose your message due to overdone humor."
Blue Jays,
Thank you for the advice, but I spell it as best I can to approximate how I hear it pronounced in this state. Unfortunately for me, it is not overdone humor but spite. I think NJ (there, I did not use "Joisey") could be a wonderful state, but its government has flushed it right down the tubes and made life for those of us living in it (by choice or otherwise) harder than it should be.
Yet, the good citizens of this state continue to vote for that government. If Corzine had promised to show up at every voters door and shoot them in the head, no, if he had promised to show up and throw gasoline on them and light the match personally, a majority of the good people of NJ still would have crawled to the polls on their hands and knees to pull the lever for this guy.
FlipWilson
I never saw the Sopranoes, sorry.
I don't remember the men with vowels at the end of their names ever looking cheap when I was growing up. They always looked classy.
So you didn't mean scallop shells then?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1593088/posts?page=197#182
It doesn't surprise me to learn you are one of David Icke's followers.
I actually believed the seashell bathing suit post! LOL. But I don't get it. That looks like a windbreaker. Is this one of those Sopranos things? It's funny, but it does seem like a lot of folks get their impressions of NJ from that dumb show. Sort of sad that conservatives, who supposedly know better than to believe media portrayals of reality, and who supposedly have a positive outlook, would be so foolish.
My mom wore a "shellsuit" all the time, but she called it "Beach Leisure Wear". LOL
That is small.
I've never heard ANYONE in NJ say Joisey. In what part of the state do they supposedly say it that way?
NJ sucks,left in 1973.
Flip is probably a good guy in person. I just don't understand why someone thinks it's ok to live someplace and trash it and the people who live there.
I have lived, worked and travelled in every state east of the Mississippi and quite a few west of it. Every state has positives, negatives, good people, bad people, blessings and curses. I would never take it upon myself to insult someones home state. It's low class and ignorant.
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