We've now lived in New Jersey for six months, can you believe it? It's not enough time to really know a place, but that doesn't stop me from jumping to random conclusions.
We live in what is considered the
New York Metropolitan Area, spanning parts of three states—lower New York, Northeast New Jersey, and Southwestern Connecticut. It is the USA's largest metro area, with a population of 18.7 million (what the?!).
It finally makes sense why so many movies and television shows are set in this area.That's a big media market.
We live approximately 10 miles from midtown Manhattan. This is a commuter town - we have bus and rail taking residents into the heart of the beast everyday for work.
My feeling on Northern New Jersey is that it seems to have all the worst parts of city life without much of the good stuff. There is still a lot of traffic and congestion and high rent with only a fraction of the culture. If you aren't going to live in the city and take advantage of cuisine and art and music and diversity on a daily basis, my general thought is, why bother?
It is a lot of fun to go into the city, but it's not that convenient. It's a "so close, yet so far away" paradigm.
We usually drive which can take 30 minutes to an hour or more depending on our destination and traffic, and it is always costly with tolls and parking. The public transit is good during high-commute hours, but slow and infrequent the rest of the time, which is why we opt for driving.
A visit to New York City is best spent outdoors (and the best/cheapest thing to do with a kid in NYC is go to a park). Going in the winter months is not really pleasant. So lately we're staying in suburbia paying the high rent, for what?
Obviously people live/stay here for family connections and jobs. But I also think they just don't know any better. My impression is that locals never think about life anywhere outside of this area (except Florida for retirement. Seriously, that's not just a stereotype.)
If you're looking for a nice place to raise your family and cheaper rent (presumably why people leave NYC for New Jersey), there are better places to do it. But the city holds everyone in some kind of death grip. It's like a big industrial refrigerator and we're all magnets, stuck on the outside.
It makes me aware of the incredible influence NYC has on the American psyche. I frequently read women's magazines that feature articles and pictures of a winter one might experience in the Northeast - sledding and hot apple cider and wool - things that are irrelevant to my life in Texas. Go figure, the center of the publishing universe is in New York City, where you actually do need wool sweaters and can pick apples in the fall.
Who hasn't seen an episode of Sesame Street, and where does Big Bird live? In a brownstone on a fictitious street that looks remarkably similar to a neighborhood in New York City.
Countless, and I mean countless movies. The TV shows - Friends, Seinfeld, Law and Order, King of Queens, 30 Rock to name a few - how many episodes have I seen that portray life in New York City? Music from Frank Sinatra to Jay-Z. This place is an icon.
This media influences lives in the rest of the country, and it also affirms the masses who choose to stay here - why go anywhere else when this is so obviously the center of the universe?
On closer inspection NYC is as dazzling as it seems. Really amazing and addicting in so many ways. When I am in The City (which is a term here that refers only to one place, Manhattan), I love it. But it is also a tough way to live. It's crowded. It's expensive. It's dirty. It's a hassle.
Since we have the unique experience of driving in the city (I am referring now to all five boroughs, and we have visited each by car), we have a better perspective on the geographic layout. One of my revelations lately is that the reason New York City is so crowded is because it's physically difficult to get out.
Five boroughs spread over four different land masses divided by deep and wide waterways and connected by a maze of bridges and tunnels. It's one big bottle neck after another. It is a ridiculous location for a huge urban area, what were the planners thinking?
And I am here to testify, driving here is insane. There is good reason that few New Yorkers have cars. The closer you get to New York City the more crumbling, twisting, turning, bumpy, narrow and congested the roads get. Not even Grenada could prepare me for the disrepair and inadequacy of the road system here.
Take for example, the Lincoln Tunnel, which is a main artery connecting New Jersey to midtown Manhattan and actually runs under the Hudson River that divides Jersey from New York.
Almost 100 years old. Total lanes leading out of midtown: four. Average annual vehicle passage: 35 million. That pretty much sums up the local infrastructure: old, small and overused.
It takes three to four minutes to drive through the Lincoln Tunnel at an average speed of 55 mph. That is enough time to ponder the unbelievable engineering marvel of driving in a tunnel under a river. It's enough time to feel shock over this narrow passage being a main entry point into the main city in the country.
It's enough time to freak yourself out with thoughts like, what if I break down in here? What if there is a wreck? And this really would be a good target for..." (thoughts not to be repeated, even in print).
Driving through the Lincoln Tunnel also sums up my thoughts on life here: scary, weird, thrilling, risky, expensive ($8 toll), unlike anywhere else I've been.
After you drive the Lincoln Tunnel a few times you start to think nothing of it, it becomes routine, and at some point you go on living here forever thinking it's perfectly normal. At least that's what I assume has happened to the locals.
People living in this area have a skewed sense of what is reasonable. I have heard so many people say "Oh that's not bad," after a completely outrageous statement is made.
Local A: " My commute is an hour and fifteen minutes." Local B: "Oh, that's not bad."
New Yorker A: "I pay $180 a month to park my car in Jersey City." New Yorker B: " Oh, that's not bad."
It's like everyone here is in some abusive, co-dependent relationship they refuse to acknowledge. It's not healthy.
Back to the roads, I am disgusted and horrified by the way people drive here. I get a rude honk almost every day on my commute to work from some impatient, self-important driver who thinks if they lay on their horn they can somehow make a line of six cars turn left at a green light faster.
I've been honked at driving the speed limit in the right lane. Honked at while waiting to pull out into oncoming traffic. Someone flipped me off last week in my office parking lot. It is astounding the way people act in their cars - disrespectful, reckless, aggressive - it absolutely shocks my Southern sensibilities and makes me furious.
The bad attitudes behind the wheel are contagious, I often get impatient now when I have to slow down even slightly for another driver, but I make a point to practice civility and never honk at anyone else.
From people's behavior in their cars I can only conclude that, while they may say they like it here and the area "has everything," people are deep down very angry about the daily fight for resources in the metropolitan area.
I want to tell everyone I meet, "You don't have to live like this!" But I keep it to myself. What do I know, I just moved here.
