What's It Like?

Many of you may know that I will be in the market to buy a house in next year or two. I've always been drawn to the southern part of New Jersey for reasons I can't quite explain. It's probably due to a combination of things, the main points being: my dad's family is from there; it gets a lot of press in Weird New Jersey magazine; from the pictures I've seen, it's absolutely breathtaking; it's less expensive than here; and William Least Heat Moon wrote about it in Blue Highways.

Other than that, and a day trip to Greenwich in Cumberland County a couple of years ago, I really didn't know about the heart and soul of Cumberland, Salem and Gloucester counties. So, I went onto Craigslist South Jersey "Rants and Raves" and simply asked people who lived there what they thought. The response below (condensed somewhat) was described to me by its author as "not the Chamber of Commerce version, but the truth!":


What's it like?

It ain't good.

Don't come down here expecting to find a job. They're in short supply, and what there is doesn't pay too well. Refer to table three at the following link: http://www.dvrpc.org/data/databull/rdb/db75.htm . You'll see that the percentage of total population living below the poverty level is 15%; for children, it's 20%.

Do you have kids? You don't want them attending public school when 20% of their classmates will be poor. Poor people get mean in a hurry. They can also bring down the quality of a classroom, and no area with these kinds of statistics is attracting a talented pool of teachers. (Disclaimer: I grew up dirt-freakin'-poor, I mean free lunch poor, clothes-never-fit poor, so I know whereof I speak.) We've also got the State's highest infant mortality rate, and the youth don't fare too well either. Per capita income: just over $17,000. There's lots of economic redevelopment projects down here--take that as you like.

Bridgeton, specifically, is a hole and I urge you to stay out of it. Take a cruise down Rt. 77 and look at the plates on the cars: all North Carolina (where you don't need to prove identity to get a license) and Pennsylvania (where it's cheaper to insure and apparently they don't check addresses too closely) tags. Stop and walk the streets--during the daytime, I mean. You'll hear nothing but Spanish. Half the stores have that hateful red-white-green flag outside with signage en Espanol. I know I read a statistic somewhere stating that one in five dollars of income in the city comes from some type of public assistance--welfare, unemployment, social security. By the way, it's the County Seat of Cumberland County.

Millville's broke, but it's got a stellar annual Airshow and they just built a new shopping center. An elderly woman was robbed in her garage last week as she pulled in to park her car. She was knocked to the ground and struck her head. The suspect is still on the loose.

The big local newspaper is the Vineland Daily Journal. Read it, check the forums, see what the locals have to say.

Cumberland County houses virtually all of the State's jails. If you can cut it as a prison guard, you'll enjoy it down here. If not, you'll have to put up with society's detritus--the folks who get released from jail but can't afford a bus ticket back up North. They find a job pumping gas and an abandoned car they can sleep in and bide their time until they fall back into recidivism, and back into jail. There's a lot of Superfund sites down here, and we're not too far from the balky Salem Nuclear Power Plant.

The State Police patrols much of the County. In many places, they are the only police presence. In most cases, it'll be a wait if you need 'em.

An important fact for North Jerseyans: there is NO, I repeat, NO PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION HERE. If you don't have a license, stay where you are. If you don't have a car, stay where you are. If you come down here and have neither of these things and no job, you may find yourself trapped! You've gotta drive everywhere, and gas is expensive.

Housing was once affordable. No more. Everything's $250,000, and since the local economy doesn't support that kind of expense, the builders are advertising the area to denizens of Cherry Hill.

I don't know Salem, but I've heard it's worse. And of course, Camden is legendary.

You might be okay toward Williamstown, or Thorofare / Deptford. You'll probably feel at home in West Deptford. Look at Swedesboro, too, I think. There's a good bit of employment there in places (Pureland Industrial Park especially).

Anyway, that's all I've got to say. Good luck to ya, buddy.



Mmmm, don't think I'll be rushing to move down there any time soon. Boy, has it changed from the day of grandma and grandpa.