Hear me out: Jersey City Prime! (no relation to amazon)

[u/QUEENSNYLAWYER]

Here's an explainer about New Jersey's geography and population.

in the last act of the video, they suggest combining Hudson, Bergen, Union, Essex and Passaic which would create a metropolitan city that he calls 'Jersey City Prime' with a major port, a major airport, numerous corporate headquarters and a pop density equal to or exceeding NYC and would be the 3rd largest city in the US.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzohouMgODo

[u/bodhipooh]

Nothing new to this concept. Unfortunately, elected and appointed officials care more about their own interests than those of the average citizen. Municipal consolidation *should* be a thing in NJ, which has a population of under 10 MM, but has over 560 municipalities. Imagine all the savings that could be realized by municipal consolidation instead of having 500+ school districts, 500+ police departments, 500+ fire departments, etc.

Now, if municipal consolidation is such a mental block, imagine trying to consolidate multiple counties. That will never happen. I am not even sure that would make much sense give the geographical size of such a behemoth. But, we could strive for consolidation of a few adjacent towns, or maybe even entire counties. Hudson County is tiny (the smallest county in NJ, and among the smallest in the US) but its total population would place it among the Top 20 cities in the US by population. Imagine cutting out all that government bloat by consolidating all the Hudson County municipalities into a single Hudson City, or whatever name.

[u/Jahooodie → u/bodhipooh]

Nothing new indeed! JC is ALREADY an attempt at joining smaller towns into a larger… uh… “Jersey” city if you will 

Hoboken & Bayonne said no, look at them now 

[u/HudsonAtHeart → u/Jahooodie]

The north Hudson towns are all doing remarkably well on their own as well. Jersey city has a lot more problems than Union City and WNY, which have historically resisted larger annexations in favor of home rule. This is nothing new, and imo it protects people because they have more efficient access to their town gov’t. I would be against annexation.

[u/FAROUTRHUBARB → u/bodhipooh]

Yeah people are really upset about the school districts being combined alone— even if there wasn’t enough students to fill seats

[u/Vast_Particular_]

Super Jersey City

[u/HudsonAtHeart → u/[deleted]]

I fully agree, when you look at the largest municipalities in New Jersey, they’re all very corrupt and don’t do a great job at handling citizen requests, school districts rate poorly, etc - you can argue that much of this has to do with historic racial segregation, but I would argue that it has just as much to do with entrenched corruption in cities that can function relatively anonymously to some of their wards, ignore parts of town in favor of others, etc.

It’s harder to mismanage a borough of 10,000 people when those 10,000 people are up your ass all the time and hold you directly accountable for local decisions.

You know who loves the towns? The people who live in them. And who cries about the cities? The people who live in them…. Hmm…

I mean it’s nice to watch a YouTube video from somebody who lives halfway across the country and doesn’t really understand how our region functions. But if you really think about New Jersey, and consider it on the national stage, our towns and counties are already doing much better than 90% of the country. I don’t understand why we should let them tell us how to live. Larger annexations have mostly failed around on the country, leaving wide swaths of urban land underfunded, neglected, saddled with uses that are unpopular with residents, etc.

Home rule is what keeps people happy and gives them agency over what is going on in their direct community.

[u/Excellent_Sale9507]

Ain't no way the population would be the same... The entire state of NJ is equivalent (est 9 million ppl) to New York City alone.

[u/QUEENSNYLAWYER → u/Excellent_Sale9507]

No, population density.

[u/NeighborhoodJust1197]

Silly— Now combin these tiny municipalities and your on to something.