History UsefulNotes / NewJersey

But don't tell that to Hollywood (or New Yorkers).

* Looking Glass (New Brunswick)

* '''The Jersey Shore:''' New Jersey's coastline, and a major summer destination for New Yorkers, Pennsylvanians, and New Jerseyans alike. Generally considered to consist the portions of Monmouth, Ocean, Atlantic, and Cape May Counties that face the Atlantic Ocean.[[note]]The portions of Monmouth County that face Raritan Bay and the portions of Cape May County that face Delaware Bay are generally not included in the "Shore." Also, Burlington County technically has a tiny portion facing the Atlantic in Bass River Township near the tripoint with Atlantic and Ocean Counties, but that area is a swamp with nothing in it.[[/note]] It used to have [[NeverLiveItDown a reputation for being dirty]] due to the infamous [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syringe_Tide "syringe tide"]] in the late '80s, when used syringes and other medical waste started washing up on the shore from the Fresh Kills landfill in Staten Island (in short, [[MisBlamed it wasn't even New Jersey's fault!]]). Now, thanks to Creator/{{MTV}}, it's has a reputation for being covered in [[TakeThat another kind of trash, once again imported from out of state]]. The Shore (outside of the Cape May peninsula, which was largely untouched) was among the hardest-hit areas on the East Coast in the wake of Hurricane Sandy in 2012, with many towns seeing homes washed away and their boardwalks destroyed in whole or in part. Locals affectionately call tourists either "Bennies", an acronym for Bayonne, Elizabeth, Newark, and New York, or "Shoobies" (originally meaning a person, usually from Pennsylvania, who came to the beach with lunch packed in a shoe box), depending on where you visit. \\

#Combining the above, historically, was a lack of prohibition on "double dipping" among politicians, that is, holding more than one elected office (what the [[UsefulNotes/FrenchPoliticalSystem French]]--who are most famous for it--call ''cumul des mandats''). Many members of the state legislature were also municipal officials; many were mayors. This 'ed to them having the power and motive to influence state funding to go to their towns, which they then can use to reward patronage jobs and favorable deals for political donors. However, in 2007, Governor Jon Corzine signed legislation banning the practice in no uncertain terms, albeit with a GrandfatherClause for the 19 officials who held two offices at that time; as of 2015, only four remain.

New Jersey is the fourth smallest state by land area in the U.S., but it is also the eleventh most populated and single most densely populated (usually).[[note]]Smallest state Rhode Island sometimes slips into first, but NJ usually finds a way back soon after, and it never falls below second.[[/note]] It has a high level of ethnic and religious diversity, being home to Italians, Irish, Jews, [[UsefulNotes/{{Russia}} Russians]], Asians, Blacks, Hispanics, Muslims, [[UsefulNotes/{{Jamaica}} Jamaicans]], Haitians, [[UsefulNotes/{{Guyana}} Guyanese]], Trinidadians, etc. in large numbers. Its landscape is also highly diverse, especially for a state of its size, being home to forests, mountains, swamps, cliffs, white sand beaches, and miles of rolling farmland. It is the location of several military facilities, including one of the largest in the country, Joint Base [=McGuire=]-Dix-Lakehurst. It has the highest population density in the U.S., and combined with its [[UsefulNotes/NewJerseyTransit system of public transit]], it is easy to get (almost) anywhere.[[note]]The state's surprisingly-numerous rural areas are unsurprisingly not accessible by transit. Although it has to be said: is Sussex County ''really'' New Jersey?[[/note]] New Jersey is the second most affluent state in the U.S., possesses one of the most highly-regarded [[UsefulNotes/AmericanEducationalSystem education systems]] in the country, and has the lowest poverty rate in the nation. There are affluent suburbs, bustling cities, and lush dairy farms all within a few miles of each other. In short, it's one of the most diverse states, filled to the brim with a plethora of different cultures and lifestyles.

So there you have it. The Wiki/TVTropes tour of the Garden State. Hopefully your gas tank isn't too far in the red from [[Main/ThePreciousPreciousCar not trusting Jersey pump jockeys]], you should be able to make it to the Sloatsburg rest stop on the New York Thruway on that... [[spoiler:Now to send those Bennies back where they came from...]]

* Creator/ShaquilleONeal (Newark)

* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Lewis Carl Lewis]] (multiple Olympic gold medalist in the sprints and long jump; born in Birmingham, Alabama, but raised in Willingboro)
* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carli_Lloyd Carli Lloyd]] (all-time women's soccer great; born and raised in Delran, next door to Willingboro)

Very large tracts of New Jersey consist of [[{{Suburbia}} suburban development]]. For a state of nearly nine million people that stands as the most densely populated state in the nation, the fact that no one city holds more than 300,000 people, and only one city, Newark, has more than 250,000[[note]]Though Jersey City, with 247,000 people and rising, is closing in fast on becoming the second city on that list, and some estimates suggest that it already reached that threshold in 2011.[[/note]], is indicative of the state's patterns of development. It's not unrealistic to say that most of modern New Jersey is an entire state built out of {{suburbia}}.\\

* [[Wrestling/ThePublicEnemyWrestler "Flyboy" Rocco Rock]] (Woodbridge Township)

* [[Wrestling/ThePublicEnemyWrestling "Flyboy" Rocco Rock]] (Woodbridge Township)

* Creator/MichaelCudlitz (born on [[UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity Long Island]], but grew up in Lakewood Township)

* Akon (born in UsefulNotes/StLouis, Missouri, but raised in Union City, Newark and Jersey City)

* Charlie Puth (Rumson)

* [[Wrestling/MikeBucci Nova]] (Toms River)

* Samuel Alito: Also a conservative[=/=]"originalist" Italian Catholic from Trenton (well, Hamilton Township, but who's counting?). He and Scalia were sometimes nicknamed "[[FanNickname Scalito]]", though Alito's shown a bit more of a libertarian streak on the bench (unsurprising for those who know about his support for constitutionally-based gay rights while at Princeton). Appointed by UsefulNotes/GeorgeWBush.

* Creator/ZachBraff and Creator/JohnCMcGinley, who grew up in adjacent towns (Braff in South Orange, [=McGinley=] in Millburn)

* [[Wrestling/KaraDrew Cherry]] (Morristown)

* '''Stop & Shop:''': A New England-based chain that was in the area back in the '70s, left in 1980 (though their discount chain sister, Bradlees, managed to survive until 2000 -- after having gone bankrupt ''[[EpicFail twice]]''), and returned in 2000 in two fell swoops -- first, their parent company, Netherlands-based Royal Ahold, converted their area Edwards Super Food Stores to the S&S name[[note]]many of the Edwards stores started as Finast {also Ahold-owned} or even Safeways before that; after Finast they tended to be Mayfair Foodtowns {Foodtown being another co-op chain}, then became Edwards {this and an accounting scandal resulting in Foodtown now being far smaller}[[/note]], and then they bought out almost all area locations of Grand Union when they went into bankruptcy (having struggled for years). You can easily spot an S&S by their generic store designs and purple "fruit bowl" logo. They aren't in South Jersey, however.
* '''[[AcmeProducts Acme Markets]]:''' Started in Philadelphia in 1891, they have mainly grown to encompass Philly, South Jersey, and Delaware, but have been struggling in recent years thanks to repeated corporate mergers and sell-offs (resulting in bad management, poor treatment of stores, and sky-high prices). They've been trying to stabilize a bit since then, but it's been a bit shaky (including their reentry into North Jersey in 2015, after having slowly withdrawn from the area over the last few years). Despite the name, they are not related to [[WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes the company Wile E. Coyote orders stuff from.]] Here's a blog dedicated to the chain and its history called ''[[http://acmestyleblog.blogspot.com/ Acme Style]]'' (named for one of their mid-'90s slogans).
* '''A&P:''' One of the oldest grocery chains in the country, along with nameplates [=SuperFresh=], The Food Emporium, and Pathmark. It was around until 2015, when years of declining sales, poor upkeep, high prices, and shoddy management led to their demise; many of their stores went to Acme (marking their re-expansion into North Jersey), and other operators have since bought the [=SuperFresh=], Food Emporium, and Pathmark names.[[note]]Pathmark itself was a separate chain that A&P bought in 2007; it began as a group of [=ShopRites=] that broke away from the co-op in 1968, and subsequently became one of the NY metro area's leading grocers, but eventually began falling on hard times. They were famous for their ads featuring spokesman James Karen, often just called the "Pathmark Guy".[[/note]]

Also in play are various chains that target the affluent or organic crowds, including Kings, Whole Foods, and Wegmans (which originated in UsefulNotes/{{Rochester}}, NY, and have a massive following of loyal customers).\\

New Jersey is the fourth smallest state by land area in the US, but it is also the eleventh most populated and single most densely populated (usually).[[note]]Smallest state Rhode Island sometimes slips into first, but NJ usually finds a way back soon after, and it never falls below second.[[/note]] It has a high level of ethnic and religious diversity, being home to Italians, Irish, Jews, [[UsefulNotes/{{Russia}} Russians]], Asians, Blacks, Hispanics, Muslims, [[UsefulNotes/{{Jamaica}} Jamaicans]], Haitians, [[UsefulNotes/{{Guyana}} Guyanese]], Trinidadians, etc. in large numbers. Its landscape is also highly diverse, especially for a state of its size, being home to forests, mountains, swamps, cliffs, white sand beaches, and miles of rolling farmland. It is the location of several military facilities, including one of the largest in the country, Joint Base [=McGuire=]-Dix-Lakehurst. It has the highest population density in the US, and combined with its [[UsefulNotes/NewJerseyTransit system of public transit]], it is easy to get (almost) anywhere.[[note]]The state's surprisingly-numerous rural areas are unsurprisingly not accessible by transit. Although it has to be said: is Sussex County ''really'' New Jersey?[[/note]] New Jersey is the second most affluent state in the US, possesses one of the most highly-regarded [[UsefulNotes/AmericanEducationalSystem education systems]] in the country, and has the lowest poverty rate in the nation. There are affluent suburbs, bustling cities, and lush dairy farms all within a few miles of each other. In short, it's one of the most diverse states, filled to the brim with a plethora of different cultures and lifestyles.

"{{Joisey}}" is commonly believed to be the local pronunciation of New Jersey. In reality, this is only how it is pronounced by people who think they're being clever -- saying "Joisey" to a New Jerseyan will earn you [[BerserkButton a boot up the ass]]. New Jerseyans, however, [[NWordPrivileges can use it any time they like]] -- as evidenced by billboards for the 2010 New Jersey State Fair, which proudly proclaimed that the fair "puts the 'Joy' back in 'Joisey'". One of the easiest ways to tell if someone is from New Jersey or not: those who are (poorly) faking a New York accent say "Joisey," those from anywhere besides New Jersey (including ''actual'' New Yorkers) say "New Jersey," those from New Jersey simply say "Jersey."

A run-into-the-ground joke aimed at New Jerseyans is the "You're from Jersey? What exit?" line. Neither the Turnpike nor the Parkway [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:NJ_GSPTP.png services every possible town in the state]], but using this line to a real New Jerseyan just might earn you [[NeverHeardThatOneBefore a boot up the ass]]. And a word of note: while the Parkway has [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_State_Parkway#Exit_list more than ninety exits]] going up and down its length, the Turnpike has [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Jersey_Turnpike#Exit_list only thirty-two]], and they become ''very'' spaced out once you're south of Elizabeth. And for some, "what exit" could also mean any of the multiple Interstates (78, 80, 95, 195, 280, 287, 295).\\

* '''Hudson County:''' Located across the Hudson River from UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity and dubbed the "sixth borough", this is probably the most New York-like place in the state. Major cities include Jersey City, Hoboken, and Bayonne. The county with the highest population density in New Jersey; if combined with Essex County (which contains Newark and is the second-densest county in the state) into a single city, it would be the third-largest and third-densest on the East Coast (after New York and Philadelphia). One of the most culturally diverse counties in the USA.

** [[BreadEggsMilkSquick A large number of]] [[SleepingWithTheFishes dead mob hits]]. One of the (many) locations proposed to be Jimmy Hoffa's final resting place was under the stands of the old Giants Stadium.

** '''Trenton''': As noted, the state capital, and also the seat of Mercer County. Situated directly on the Delaware immediately across from Morrisville, Pennsylvania (making Trenton one of only two state capitals directly on a state border--the other is Carson City, Nevada, which borders California--and also one of the few cases where the city in New Jersey is bigger than the one outside it). Almost exactly halfway between New York and Philadelphia, it is a prime example of the confusion of Central Jersey, being one of the few places with essentially equal numbers of New York and Philadelphia sports fans (beware the day the Giants play the Eagles!). It's also a fine example of the New Jersey melting pot, with a large Black community, as well as many Hispanics (especially Dominicans, Puerto Ricans, and Guatemalans) and a sizeable community of Haitians (the courts even have a number of Haitian Creole interpreters on retainer), and although White flight hit the city hard, the White community remains sizeable (although a substantial number of those technically live in Hamilton Township even though they have Trenton addresses--Mercer County political geography is confusing even by New Jersey standards). It is also a prime example of the rise and fall of New Jersey industry; its position between NYC and Philly originally made it a prime location for manufacturing (the city's motto is still "Trenton Makes, the World Takes"), industry has declined substantially. State government is now the main industry and keeps the city limping on life support. Unfortunately, towards the middle of the 2010s, the city suffered major urban decay and turned into one of the heroin capitals of the east coast (along with the Newark/Elizabeth city), giving the city's motto a whole new meaning with open air drug markets being disturbingly common. Drug addicts living in south or central Jersey venture here for their fix, resulting in an unfortunate bit of profiling on behalf of the police and locals where they assume any white teenager/young adult driving in the city (specifically Trenton, Ewing, the parts of Hamilton directly bordering them, and the highways coming into the city) is there to buy drugs, and as such are pulled over as a matter of course. A fun fact Trentonians like to talk about: Trenton was also briefly the capital of the US from November to December 1784.

** '''Little India''': A quick note: north-central Middlesex County, particularly Edison and Iselin,[[note]]Iselin being the northwestern portion of Woodbridge Township[[/note]], but also Carteret and Avenel, is heavily populated by Indian-Americans and others from the Subcontinent. The community formed as a result of the research and medical industries in the area (immediately northeast of New Brunswick, with its university and pharmaceutical and chemical companies--did we mention that Johnson & Johnson is headquartered in New Brunswick?), with Indian students and immigrant researchers who came in the 1970s-90s settling down and forming a community; today, Edison in particular is nearly 30% Indian. Since Indians tend to speak English, there isn't as much an issue of ballots being provided in...well...there's another problem (lots of languages in India), although Middlesex County does have ballots with Gujarati. That said, the main street in Iselin is noted to always smell of curry, Indian languages are commonly spoken, and the Metropark station (the New Jersey Transit rail and Amtrak station around there) is usually festooned with ads (some written entirely in Hindi) for Indian television shows or other India-related products/services and will always have at least one Indian person on the platform during working hours. Always.

Residents are known to react even worse to the standard New Jersey jokes. The Turnpike has very few exits to the southern half of the state (and the Parkway has none outside of the Shore), and the near-absence of chemical and industrial plants outside of the immediate vicinity of Philadelphia results in little pollution. Plus, there are still many, many thriving farms in the area (it's home to the regionally-famous Jersey tomato, the also-regionally-famous Jersey asparagus, much if not most of New Jersey's large cranberry industry, and a substantial blueberry crop, as well as a number of decent wineries), as it is relatively undeveloped outside of the Shore and the Delaware Valley, lending some credence to the state nickname that so many seem to think is ironic -- "The Garden State."\\

On the other hand, a major reason New Jersey's "urban" population seems small is that the state has a strong tradition, enshrined in state law, of local government: your average New Jersey municipality is only a few square miles in area. For an idea, Newark itself is only about 12 square miles, and Jersey City is a little over 14 square miles,[[note]]14 square miles of land, anyway. The 6 square miles of water shouldn't count.[[/note]] compared to the dozens or hundreds of square miles typically covered by major cities (for instance, UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity is 300 square miles and Chicago is about 230 square miles; even relatively small UsefulNotes/SanFrancisco, UsefulNotes/WashingtonDC, and Miami cover about 50 square miles of land each). If you mashed together the solid urban corridor running from Paterson and Fort Lee in the north to Bayonne and Elizabeth in the south, you would have a single municipality with a population of nearly 1.9 million and an area of about 180 square miles, roughly equivalent to that of Queens--or more to the point, only a little bit larger than UsefulNotes/{{Philadelphia}} in both land area and population.[[note]]It is also similar to Philly in layout--a relatively narrow band west of a body of water (the Delaware for Philly, the Hudson and Newark Bay for the North Jersey Corridor) about twenty miles from tip to tip.[[/note]]

In other words, New Jersey is home to the second-largest and third-densest city on the East Coast, it's just that it's divided into five counties and 141 separate municipalities... because Jersey likes "towns" and "local rule". This tradition goes back to the TheGayNineties, when the arrival of commuter rail led to the development of northern New Jersey's first suburbs, and conflict between new suburbanites and the "old guard" of farmers in the region (short version: the suburbanites wanted schools and infrastructure in their bedroom communities and local control over them, and the farmers didn't want to spend the tax dollars for it) led to the passage of new laws in 1894 that made it much easier for small communities to break away from townships and form "boroughs". Bergen County alone (where this trend was most concentrated) has seventy separate municipalities as a result of the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boroughitis "boroughitis"]] that swept the state in 1894 and '95, and throughout the state, there exist many towns formed under the borough system that are completely surrounded by the townships they seceded from. This in turn made it hard for New Jersey's major urban centers to do what most other cities in the U.S. did: annex territory into the cities. This created problems for N.J.'s cities down the road (as it left them particularly vulnerable to white flight and other problems that caused narrowing of the tax base). Add this to the fact that New Jersey municipalities are forbidden from raising revenue through any means other than property taxes[[note]]With one very narrow exception that allows Newark and ''maybe'' Jersey City to levy a payroll tax, but that's it[[/note]] and you have a recipe for urban decline.\\

Despite all that fancy chat, ''this'' is the stereotype that's most common among people who are actually from the state. New Jersey suburbs are often viewed as being particularly wealthy (four of the top 20 highest-median-income US counties are in New Jersey), possessing good schools (or at least, good-looking schools with impressive athletics departments), covered in [[TheMall shopping malls]], and being inhabited by mobsters (there's a reason ''Series/TheSopranos'' took place here). Also, there is an under-reported problem with gangs and drug dealing in schools, particularly in Bergen County. Make no mistake -- no matter what [[Film/TheViewAskewniverse Jay and Silent Bob]] may suggest, GangBangers and drug dealers are not to be scoffed at even if they're {{white|GangBangers}}.\\

This suburban trend has long colored New Jersey's politics. In TheSeventies and TheEighties, New Jersey was a solidly Republican state, with the large and growing numbers of suburbanites voting against the largely Democratic cities that they had moved out of. UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan won New Jersey by a greater margin than he had won nationally during both of his [[LandslideElection electoral landslides]], taking 60% of the vote in 1984. In TheNineties, though, the state began to swing to the left, the pivotal year being 1992 when New Jersey served as a key swing state that ultimately went to the Democrats. Much of this has been attributed to the rise of the fiscally moderate, socially liberal "New Democrats" ''a la'' UsefulNotes/BillClinton within the Democratic Party, and to the growing dominance of the Christian Right within the Republican Party; New Jersey's conservatives had long been of the more center-right, business-oriented, "Rockefeller Republican" variety rather than the "movement conservatism" of the post-Reagan Republican Party.[[note]]An early sign of this was in 1980, when independent candidate John B. Anderson, running as [[TakeAThirdOption a moderate alternative]] to both the unpopular UsefulNotes/JimmyCarter and to the arch-conservative Reagan, won 7.9% of the vote in New Jersey, a fair bit more than the 6.6% he had won nationally. Today, this can be seen in the governorship of Chris Christie, who was in his time a leading moderate figure within the Republican Party, whose career was defined by compromise with the state's Democratic legislature (most observers regard instances of conflict between Christie and the Legislature to be essentially ego clashes with Democratic leadership, particularly Senate President Steve Sweeney; the only place observers saw the conflict as policy-based was over police pensions, and even Republican lawmakers opposed him on that). A good analogy to UsefulNotes/{{British politic|alSystem}}s would be that New Jersey would probably vote for the Lib Dems or New Labour if it were British.[[/note]] Today, New Jersey is a Democratic stronghold, especially in Presidential elections and in the "belt" running between UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity and UsefulNotes/{{Philadelphia}}, though the northwest and the Shore (outside Atlantic City and Asbury Park) vote reliably Republican, and the state overall is willing to elect center-right moderates as their governor (two recent examples being Christine Todd Whitman and Chris Christie--although Christie's name has become mud even in Republican circles on account of his hard fiscal line on police pensions, the abuse-of-office scandals associated with his 2013 reelection campaign, and his willingness to carry water for UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump). Speaking of the Donald, New Jersey Republicans tend to look warily on him, tending to be moderate suburbanites who mostly care about tax rates and don’t really support his reactionary social cultural views (though the western areas of the state plus certain parts of the Shore are filled with rednecks who definitely fit the Trump supporter stereotype). South Jersey Republicans generally like him better than their northern counterparts, but they also tend to be cautious towards him because of his numerous misadventures in the Atlantic City casino industry. Trump’s presidency proved to be a disaster for the New Jersey GOP, as all but one of their twelve congressional seats voted for Democrats in the 2018 midterms, and their Democratic senator Bob Menendez cruised towards re-election despite his own corruption scandals. They've since rebounded from their nadir, successfully convincing a very conservative House Democrat in the state's most Republican-trending swing district to join their ranks, easily re-elected him in 2020 and saw their most popular statewide politican come within striking distance of regaining the state's most Democratic-trending swing district. And in 2021, they very nearly ousted Governor Murphy in a race nobody was expecting to be close and even defeated Senate President Steve Sweeney with a little-known candidate who raised and spent almost no money.\\

Yes, diners. The Great American GreasySpoon is [[SeriousBusiness practically a religion]] in New Jersey. No, seriously, you go to eat at a diner "after church" on Sundays, even if you aren't religious (or even Christian) and for you "church" consists of "sleeping off a hangover." Each town--remember that business about New Jersey liking towns?--has at least one diner; in "large cities," it's every neighborhood, but that's the same idea. If you value your life (or at least your hearing or the absence of boots from your rectum) don't tell a native New Jerseyan that Denny's, IHOP, or (God forbid) Waffle House is a diner -- a diner must be a small, independent business, owned and operated by an immigrant, his son, his grandson, or his great-grandson.[[note]]Presumably in a little while we'll be adding in "great-great grandson" and so on, and of course daughters, granddaughters, great-grand-daughters, etc., also count, but you get the gist.[[/note]] Said immigrant is preferably Greek, although a Russian or an Ashkenazi Jew will do in a pinch. If the owner is Greek, there should be some element of Greek kitsch in the decor; all-out faux-marble columns and pediments aren't necessary, but at least put a meandering border or some olive branches somewhere. Furthermore, it must generally be open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, ready to serve customers whether they're heading to work or school in the morning, coming home from such in the late afternoon, or heading to and from the club late at night.[[note]]Short closing hours--closing from around midnight or 2:00 until 6AM--on weekdays are acceptable in some areas with lower population densities, like much of South Jersey.[[/note]]\\

The menu must be diverse. Classic Americana like burgers and fries are standard ([[http://bestfoodchallenges.com/clinton-station-diner-5-different-burger-challenges/ sometimes in epic proportions]]), as well as some dishes regarded as classic "diner food" (for instance, French onion soup is all but ubiquitous). Also critical are breakfast dishes like pancakes, waffles, French toast, bacon, and eggs, served at all hours of the day. Foods unique to Jersey diners include creamed chipped beef on toast and something including [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pork_roll pork roll]]. We should note here that pork roll may also be known as Taylor Ham after [[BrandNameTakeover one particular brand]] (specifically of the originators Taylor Provisions, of Trenton); generally speaking, "pork roll" is the term used in South Jersey, while North Jersey calls it Taylor Ham and Central Jersey is, as usual, a mixed bag.[[note]]In finer detail, Mercer County opts for "pork roll", possibly because virtually all the companies that make the stuff are based around Trenton, and there's a desire not to favor one side over the other. Most of Middlesex and Monmouth Counties also go for "pork roll," while Hunterdon and Somerset are split and Union is basically Taylor Ham territory.[[/note]] Finally, the place must serve some obscure ethnic food of whatever ethnicity the owner is; gyros and souvlaki are common at Greek-run diners, while matzo ball soup and bagels with cream cheese and lox are common at historically Jewish-run ones.\\

* '''A&P:''' One of the oldest grocery chains in the country, along with nameplates [=SuperFresh=], The Food Emporium, and Pathmark. It was around until 2015, when years of declining sales, poor upkeep, high prices, and shoddy management led to their demise; many of their stores went to Acme (marking their re-expansion into North Jersey), and other operators have since bought the [=SuperFresh=], Food Emporium, and Pathmark names[[note]]Pathmark itself was a separate chain that A&P bought in 2007; it began as a group of [=ShopRites=] that broke away from the co-op in 1968, and subsequently became one of the NY metro area's leading grocers, but eventually began falling on hard times. They were famous for their ads featuring spokesman James Karen, often just called the "Pathmark Guy"[[/note]].

-> ''Senators!? Rabbis!? Black Market Kidney Sales!? (mwah! mwah!) CORRUPTIOOO~OOO~OOON, Corruption!!!... CORRUPTION!!!''
--> Creator/JonStewart (who grew up in Mercer County and is thus quite familiar with Jersey corruption)

#New Jersey has always been a major trading state -- it's square in the middle of the original 13 colonies, it is wedged between UsefulNotes/{{Philadelphia}} and UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity, and even today is home to one of the largest ports[[note]]Port Newark-Elizabeth Marine Terminal, which has all but eaten up New York's former role as the prime port of the Northeast[[/note]] and airports[[note]]Newark Liberty International[[/note]] in the US, plus quite a few smaller ones. Because of all that money changing hands, you can expect crime and corruption.
#Because of the love of "local rule" and "towns," there are a ''plethora'' of local governments across the state (585 municipalities in 21 counties, to be exact, and that's not counting the scads of school districts, fire districts, sewer districts, and other such institutions), each one handing out contracts. For comparison, this puts New Jersey at #19 among all US states, ahead of Arkansas and behind North Carolina, despite being #46 in land area. This creates a lot of opportunity for corruption, since small local governments can't afford oversight and don't have the press going after them in the same way that a big-city pol might.

Just as [[OnlyInFlorida Florida is famous for "news of the weird" stories]], New Jersey has been host to some of the most outlandish, absurd, and downright magnificent acts of corruption and anti-corruption stings to ever grace US shores.

* In 1985, David Friedland, a member of the NJ Senate, faked his own drowning by using scuba gear, a literal BriefcaseFullOfMoney buried on a beach, and a quiet escape to the Maldives in an act that can only be described as "Film/JamesBond-esque."

* In 2013, staff members of Governor Chris Christie, in conjunction with members of the NJ Port Authority, closed part of ''the'' most-heavily-traveled bridge in the US, ''just because the (Democratic!) mayor of Fort Lee, the town where said bridge crosses into New Jersey, refused to endorse Christie in the 2013 gubernatorial election''--an election Christie was bound to win anyway. The resultant traffic jammed up the bridge completely, and may have indirectly led to the death of a senior citizen (for lack of EMS vehicles being able to respond in time).
** The funniest part of this is that Christie had made his name as United States Attorney (i.e. chief federal prosecutor) for the District of New Jersey prosecuting high-profile corruption cases, supposedly trying to clean out NJ government. To some degree, he even succeeded; all but the most partisan Democrats accept that NJ today is cleaner today than it was before Christie's crusade. Of course, then his staff turns around and does this... which to be fair, ''isn't'' exactly the kind of "corruption" he was fighting (kickbacks and sweetheart deals) but rather simple abuse of power for purely political gain. The reason Christie wanted endorsements from Democrats was to get a ''massive'' LandslideElection win in a solidly "blue" state in order to bolster his prospects to become the GOP nominee for President in 2016. It backfired, of course -- [[{{Scandalgate}} "Bridgegate"]] pretty much torpedoed Christie's chances of winning the election for President (though he still tried but dropped out of the race after the New Hampshire primaries), and also set up the whole N.J. GOP for massive defeat in the 2017 state elections even before the Donald Trump presidency made the Republican brand difficult to defend in the heavily Democratic state.

* [[Series/CardSharks Jim]] [[Series/SaleOfTheCentury Perry]] (born in Camden, immigrated to Canada, then back to the US; held dual citizenship)

* Cory Booker (born in D.C., raised in Harrington Park; Mayor of Newark 2006-2013; U.S. Senator from N.J. 2013-present; ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020)

* Kim Guadagno (born in Iowa, moved to Monmouth Beach after marrying her husband; first Lieutenant Governor of N.J. after the whole [=McGreevey=] debacle convinced everyone that having the Senate President take over as governor was just confusing; other than that, mostly notable for being the Republican sacrificial lamb in the 2017 gubernatorial election and for the [[http://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2017/02/read_the_note_michael_guadagno_sent_to_lieutenant.html cute letter]] her husband (a respected jurist on the Appellate Division) sent her when he reached his mandatory retirement at age 70.)

* [[PlayfulHacker George "geohot" Hotz]] (aka "the man who unlocked the iPhone and [=PS3=]") (Glen Rock)

** '''Hackettstown:''' The gateway to Warren County from Morris, and home of Centenary College. Best known to candy-loving little kids everywhere as the location of the Mars, Inc. factory that makes M&Ms, Snickers, Milky Way, 3 Musketeers, and other chocolatey snacks. Unfortunately, due to the founding family's secrecy, they don't allow tours there, making it something of a real-life version of the [[Literature/CharlieAndTheChocoalteFactory Willy Wonka chocolate factory]] (only without the Oompa Loompas or the [[Film/WillyWonkaAndTheChocolateFactory scary boat ride]], we're guessing).

** '''Hackettstown:''' The gateway to Warren County from Morris, and home of Centenary College. Best known to candy-loving little kids everywhere as the location of the Mars, Inc. factory that makes M&Ms, Snickers, Milky Way, 3 Musketeers, and other chocolatey snacks. Unfortunately, due to the founding family's secrecy, they don't allow tours there, making it something of a real-life version of the {{Film/Willy Wonka|AndTheChocolateFactory}} factory (only without the Oompa Loompas, we're guessing).
* '''Central Jersey:''' To hear it from someone from the area, Central Jersey is a distinct region of the state consisting of the area drained by the Raritan River plus the area immediately around Trenton, covering area in Hunterdon, Mercer, Somerset, Middlesex, and Monmouth counties, and occasionally Union and Ocean counties. To hear it from someone from North or South Jersey, Central Jersey is a nonexistent entity that is really an extension of whichever side of Jersey the speaker isn't from (e.g. North Jersey residents consider it part of South Jersey, while South Jersey residents consider it part of North Jersey and NEITHER side wants to take credit for Trenton), and its residents all have an inferiority complex. (A good rule of thumb is when someone from Jersey City tells you you're in South Jersey, and someone from Cherry Hill tells you you're in North Jersey, despite both times being in the same place, then you're in Central) The site of the state capital, Trenton, as well as suburban sprawl ballooning out from both New York and Philly. If a story requires that the characters consult a brainy professor, this scene will often either take place at [[UsefulNotes/IvyLeague Princeton]] or, in a pinch, the main campus of Rutgers University in New Brunswick. (Never Rutgers Newark,[[note]]Unless it's a law professor; then your only options are Rutgers Law School--which has a campus in Newark and a campus in Camden but nothing in New Brunswick--and Seton Hall, which despite being private doesn't have as strong a reputation as Rutgers Law. Princeton famously has no law school.[[/note]] or Montclair State University, and for good reason.) Also, much of the old Bell System, and then AT&T (the ''old'' AT&T, that is; the current AT&T is really SBC/Southwestern Bell using the AT&T name, and is even based in Dallas) was based in Central Jersey; Bell Labs (the inventor of the transistor and the laser) was headquartered in Murray Hill (still occupied by Nokia, which bought Alcatel-Lucent; Lucent was the original Bell Labs, spun off by AT&T in 1996) with a major complex in Holmdel. Their long-distance operations were based in Basking Ridge for many years before moving to Bedminster (still in use by the modern AT&T), and various other facilities were scattered throughout this area. The reason was they needed to move away from the congested, chaotic environment of New York, and the state next door had plenty of land to use (one area in Chester was utilized as testing for outdoor telephone equipment, for instance).\\

This suburban trend has long colored New Jersey's politics. In TheSeventies and TheEighties, New Jersey was a solidly Republican state, with the large and growing numbers of suburbanites voting against the largely Democratic cities that they had moved out of. UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan won New Jersey by a greater margin than he had won nationally during both of his [[LandslideElection electoral landslides]], taking 60% of the vote in 1984. In TheNineties, though, the state began to swing to the left, the pivotal year being 1992 when New Jersey served as a key swing state that ultimately went to the Democrats. Much of this has been attributed to the rise of the fiscally moderate, socially liberal "New Democrats" ''a la'' UsefulNotes/BillClinton within the Democratic Party, and to the growing dominance of the Christian Right within the Republican Party; New Jersey's conservatives had long been of the more center-right, business-oriented, "Rockefeller Republican" variety rather than the "movement conservatism" of the post-Reagan Republican Party.[[note]]An early sign of this was in 1980, when independent candidate John B. Anderson, running as [[TakeAThirdOption a moderate alternative]] to both the unpopular UsefulNotes/JimmyCarter and to the arch-conservative Reagan, won 7.9% of the vote in New Jersey, a fair bit more than the 6.6% he had won nationally. Today, this can be seen in the governorship of Chris Christie, who was in his time a leading moderate figure within the Republican Party, whose career was defined by compromise with the state's Democratic legislature (most observers regard instances of conflict between Christie and the Legislature to be essentially ego clashes with Democratic leadership, particularly Senate President Steve Sweeney; the only place observers saw the conflict as policy-based was over police pensions, and even Republican lawmakers opposed him on that). A good analogy to UsefulNotes/{{British politic|alSystem}}s would be that New Jersey would probably vote for the Lib Dems or New Labour if it were British.[[/note]] Today, New Jersey is a Democratic stronghold, especially in Presidential elections and in the "belt" running between UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity and UsefulNotes/{{Philadelphia}}, though the northwest and the Shore (outside Atlantic City and Asbury Park) vote reliably Republican, and the state overall is willing to elect center-right moderates as their governor (two recent examples being Christine Todd Whitman and Chris Christie--although Christie's name has become mud even in Republican circles on account of his hard fiscal line on police pensions, the abuse-of-office scandals associated with his 2013 reelection campaign, and his willingness to carry water for UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump). Speaking of the Donald, New Jersey Republicans tend to look warily on him, tending to be moderate suburbanites who mostly care about tax rates and don’t really support his reactionary social cultural views (though the western areas of the state plus certain parts of the Shore are filled with rednecks who definitely fit the Trump supporter stereotype). South Jersey Republicans generally like him better than their northern counterparts, but they also tend to be cautious towards him because of his numerous misadventures in the Atlantic City casino industry. Trump’s presidency proved to be a disaster for the New Jersey GOP, as all but one of their twelve congressional seats voted for Democrats in the 2018 midterms, and their Democratic senator Bob Menendez cruised towards re-election despite his own corruption scandals.\\

* Tom Kean Jr. (born in Livingston, resides in Westfield). Son of the aforementioned Thomas Kean, he serves as the Senate Minority Leader.

* Creator/JackNicholson (born in New York, but raised in Neptune City and Spring Lake)

* Music/LornaShore (Warren County, though Andrew O'Connor lives in Connecticut)

* Emma Bell (Union Township)

* Hope Davis (Englewood)

* Creator/LisaEdelstein (Wayne, later moved to Boston)

* Jason Mewes (Highlands)

* Chelsea Handler (Livingston)

* Cherry (Morristown)

** The funniest part of this is that Christie had made his name as United States Attorney (i.e. chief federal prosecutor) for the District of New Jersey prosecuting high-profile corruption cases, supposedly trying to clean out NJ government. To some degree, he even succeeded. Of course, then his staff turns around and does this... which to be fair, ''isn't'' exactly the kind of "corruption" he was fighting (kickbacks and sweetheart deals) but rather simple abuse of power for purely political gain. The reason Christie wanted endorsements from Democrats was to get a ''massive'' LandslideElection win in a solidly "blue" state in order to bolster his prospects to become the GOP nominee for President in 2016. It backfired, of course -- [[{{Scandalgate}} "Bridgegate"]] pretty much torpedoed Christie's chances of winning the election for President (though he still tried but dropped out of the race after the New Hampshire primaries), and also set up the whole N.J. GOP for massive defeat in the 2017 state elections even before the Donald Trump presidency made the Republican brand difficult to defend in the heavily Democratic state.