The NYT is reporting that New Jersey is running out of developable land, but with the recent ARC decision, the legacy of the Mount Laurel doctrine, and decades of highway-based suburbanizing policies, is New Jersey actually ready for density?
New Jersey has always been an odd state – it's the most densely populated of the fifty, and yet it lies just outside of the core of both of its metro areas (Philadelphia and New York). North Jersey does have a formidable number of mid-sized cities, but the biggest – Newark - is a poster child for urban neglect, and New Jersey's urban areas play a tepid second fiddle to their much larger counterparts across the Delaware and the Hudson. New Jersey's appeal lies undeniably in its suburbs, which are connected by a network of government-built roads and enabled by anti-density development rules.
Despite New Jersey's predilection for sprawl, the New York Times reports that the state may literally be running out of horizontal space. A Rutgers study claims that around the middle of the 21st century New Jersey will become the first state to develop all its unprotected land development trends remain unchanged.
Thanks to Stephen Smith
Read the full story: When will New Jersey end its sprawling ways?
No ARC without TOD
New Jersey wants billions in federal money for its ARC project, but NJ Transit's commuter rail service is too often just a subsidy to the rich and an excuse not to develop North Jersey, says Stephen Smith.
NJ Governor's ARC Tunnel Plug-Pull Can Lead to Better Plan
Ostensibly, the actions today by NJ Governor Chris Christie to cancel the "Access to Region's Core" (ARC) tunnel project seem like a vicious blow to the future of rail in our country (fatal even, given the recent commentary from conservatives country-wide on opposition to the national high speed rail network projects). I myself am extremely disappointed that our state's fiscal circumstances have led the Governor to make this decision, and I am sincerely empathetic to the construction and operational jobs and potential to improve mobility conditions that this cancellation jeopardizes.
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Planetizen Federal Action Tracker
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LA residents may be allowed to paint their own crosswalks
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Dallas moves to overhaul its zoning code
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City of Rosemead
Rutgers University, Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy
One Hundred Miles
Hunter College, City University of New York (CUNY)
The Architects Foundation
University of Cincinnati Online
City of Cambridge
Montrose County
The Pocatello Development Authority