The 10 Best Cities in New Jersey

[Editor]

Ok, so we don't rank in the top 10.  We rank 15 out of 50. On the bright side, we beat several of the top 10 in certain categories including "Amenities per Capita" and "Cost of Living". We beat 3 of the top 10 in "Home Value" and "Crime". 
Not too shabby.

http://www.movoto.com/blog/top-ten/best-cities-in-new-jersey/



Movoto is an online real estate brokerage based in San Mateo, CA. Our blog has been recognized for its unique approach to city-based research by major news organizations around the world such as Forbes and CBS News.

[just watching]

This list is hysterical, for many reasons. 

If anyone thinks that Garfield is better than Hackensack, they have rocks in their heads.  Nothing in Garfield compares to the entire northern and western parts of Hackensack. They have no HUMC, no County district, no Shops at Riverside, no estate district, and no upscale high-rise district. And Garfield is an Abbott District.  Perhaps Garfield compares to some of the older parts of Hackensack, that's about it.

And the other 'cities' that are ahead of Hackensack, almost all of them are suburbs.  Except Hoboken, which is truly urban.

[itsmetoo]

Is this a completely independent study or is it similar to the high school's top 2500 in the country which was a form filled out by 2500 hundred high schools in the nation and Hackensack ranked 1500?  That was determined through a survey that only 2500 schools chose to fill out.  The other 200,000 plus high schools in the nation did not fill out and send the form back.  Focus school.  I want to give credit to Hackensack High.  They offer much more advanced placement courses than most high schools in Bergen as well as the State of NJ.  However, more needs to be done to meet closing those achievement gaps that is mentioned as a goal on the schools website.  That gap has grown increasingly wider.

[just watching]

So you are saying that not every city participated in the survey.  That makes sense, and also glad you pointed out the truth behind the "1500" score for the high school

Still Garfield did participate and they are shown as better than Hackensack. Absurd.

I'll take Wayne, Westfield, or Livingston over FAIR LAWN any day. In fact, 1/2 of Fair Lawn is mediocre even compared to Hackensack.  All those tiny tacky Cape Cods in Fair Lawn that have 3 tiny bedrooms and no master bedroom. I've been in them, and they are no better than all the ones in Maywood just south of the new Bergen Mall. And they cost more than big Cape Cods in Hackensack.

And Irvington is shown as better than the City of Orange. Equally absurd, Orange has an upscale neighborhood and all sorts of brand new construction, while Irvington is just going down, down, down...

[itsmetoo]

I was asking if this survey of cities was an independent study. I am also asking if every city was surveyed.  I don't know that answer. 

I agree that Garfield should not be ranked above Hackensack. It makes me suspicious of how the study came to the conclusions it made.

As far as the high school.  I think the claim is absurd and misleading.

[Homer Jones]

I think that we can put an end to the value of this survey by searching  move to.com, the "authors" of this survey. When you get to their website, scroll over to "about us". They say that they try to add humor to real estate related stories. It would be difficult to find any professional statistical or polling firm that would try to inject humor into their work product.The biographies of their principals read more like the principals of The Onion or Mad Magazine .

[itsmetoo]

Agreed.  What a joke, literally!

[just watching]

And here it is:  "Meet the masterminds".  These guys are about as smart as the folks who created the Obamacare website

http://www.movoto.com/blog/meet-the-masterminds/

[Editor]

Below is their methodology.  Aside from the "Amenities" categories which seems arbitrary, criteria ranking is based on state averages.

What Makes a Jersey City Better than the Rest?

New Jersey’s motto may be “liberty and prosperity,” but for our study, we needed a few more criteria to determine just which cities were the best. So we settled on the following seven criteria:

•Amenities per person (pizza places, bagel shops, and diners / person)
•Amenities total (total pizza places, bagel shops, and diners)
•Cost of living (percent above or below state average)
•Crime (percent above or below state average)
•Education (high school degree attainment rate compared to state average)
•Median Income (city’s average compared to state average)
•Home value (percent above or below state average)

We started with a list of the 50 most populous municipalities (cities, towns, villages, Census Designated Places) in New Jersey, then gave each city a rank from one to 50 in the individual criteria above based on the data, with one being the best possible score.

As far as amenities go, we chose pizza places, bagel shops, and diners as three amenities that clearly represent New Jersey. From there, we decided to break this category up into both amenities per person and the total number of amenities per city, because while we recognize that it’s great to have a range of choices for each person, we didn’t want to dock cities points just because they have larger populations.

After we rated each city, we averaged the criteria together and gave each city an overall score. The lower this number was, the higher the city ranked.

For a complete ranking of all 50 cities in our study, jump to the bottom of the post. [shown above].

[Editor]

We're lucky number 7.  I'll take it.   

http://www.movoto.com/blog/top-ten/most-exciting-places-in-new-jersey/

[just watching]

And let's not forget Homer's post of 11/30/2013 on this string. Surely one of his best ever.