New Jersey

F

Electricity

Of the electricity generated in New Jersey in 2006, 54 percent came from nuclear power plants and almost all of the remainder came from steam-driven power plants burning fossil fuels, mainly coal and natural gas. There are 4 nuclear power plants in New Jersey, of which three are at Lower Alloways Creek Township and one is in Lacey Township. Three large investor-owned utility companies generate all the electricity sold in the state.

G

Transportation

No other state has as dense of a system of highways and railroads as New Jersey. The state’s principal traffic alley connects New York City with Philadelphia. Through this corridor pass the rail lines of the Consolidated Rail Corporation (Conrail) and Amtrak, U.S. highways 1 and 130, the New Jersey Turnpike, portions of Interstate Highway 95, several pipelines, and many interstate communications and power connections.

In 2004 there were 1,476 km (917 mi) of railroad track in the state. New Jersey’s railroads move some freight into the ports on New York Harbor.

New Jersey had 62,365 km (38,752 mi) of public highways in 2007. Of this total, 694 km (431 mi) were part of the federal interstate highway system. The state has three profitable toll roads, the New Jersey Turnpike, the Garden State Parkway, and the Atlantic City Expressway.

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Many tunnels and bridges connect New Jersey and New York. The Port Authority Trans Hudson tubes carry commuter trains under the river. Conrail and Amtrak have tunnels that go into New York City. Vehicular traffic moves over the George Washington Bridge, or via the Lincoln or Holland tunnels. These arteries are operated by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, a bistate commission created in 1921.

Three bridges connect New Jersey with Staten Island, New York: the Bayonne Bridge, North America’s second longest steel arch bridge; the Goethals Bridge; and Outerbridge Crossing. The Delaware Memorial twin bridges link the state with Delaware. Other bridges, notably the Benjamin Franklin, Walt Whitman, and Betsy Ross, connect New Jersey with points in Pennsylvania.

New Jersey has 4 airports; but only Newark and Teterboro, both operated by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and Pomona Airport, near Atlantic City, have more than local importance. Newark is the 11th busiest airport in the United States.

New Jersey’s port facilities include a part of the port of New York along the west bank of the Hudson River; the Upper and Lower New York bays; Kill Van Kull; and Arthur Kill, as well as the ports of Newark, Elizabeth, and Raritan. More than 100 piers, mostly handling general cargo, line the New Jersey shore of the Hudson River from Bayonne to West New York. The port of Newark, an important petroleum and general cargo port, is under the jurisdiction of the bistate Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Adjacent to Newark is the port of Elizabeth, wholly owned by the authority. Lining the Delaware River from Delaware Bay north to Trenton are such important ports as Paulsboro, which specializes in handling oil, and Gloucester, Deepwater, and Camden. These ports are operated in conjunction with the Delaware River Port Authority of Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

IV

The People of New Jersey

A

Population Patterns

New Jersey had a population of 8,414,350 in 2000, according to the census. That was an increase of 8.9 percent over the 1990 census figure of 7,730,188. The average population density of 454 persons per sq km (1,176 per sq mi) is the highest of the 50 states. Some 94 percent of all New Jerseyites lived in urban areas in 2000, and the population distribution throughout the state is extremely uneven.

The ethnic composition of the population reflects the heavy influx of immigrants from Europe, particularly in the period after the American Civil War (1861-1865). After the establishment of a Communist government in Cuba in the late 1950s many Cubans settled in New Jersey.

Whites compose the largest share of the population of New Jersey, representing 72.6 percent of the people in 2000. Some 13.6 percent were black, 5.7 percent were Asian, 0.2 percent were Native American, and those of mixed heritage or not reporting race made up 7.9 percent of the population. Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders numbered 3,329. Hispanics, who may be of any race, were 13.3 percent of the people and were primarily of Puerto Rican or Cuban origin.

B

Principal Cities

New Jersey’s cities radiate out from New York City in continuous chains. Living in northern New Jersey, within a 50-km (30-mi) radius of Manhattan Island, are three-quarters of the people in the state. Another urban concentration is along the Delaware River, in the Trenton-Camden area, where 15 percent of the people live.

Communities clustered in the northern part of Bergen County provide homes for the thousands of commuters to Manhattan. Most of the larger cities in New Jersey, however, have grown as a result of their manufacturing and commercial activities. These include Newark, Jersey City, Paterson, Elizabeth, Clifton, Passaic, Hoboken, Union City, and Kearny in the north and a smaller urban complex around Camden.

Newark, with a population of 281,402 in 2006, is the largest city in the state. It is an important center for the manufacture of chemicals, food products, and pharmaceuticals. It is also an important port and an office and insurance center. Jersey City (239,614) is the terminus of several railroads and ocean shipping lines and a manufacturing center for food, textiles, and apparel. Paterson (148,708) was founded in 1791 by the American statesman Alexander Hamilton and his Society for Establishing Useful Manufactures to encourage American economic independence. Waterpower potential from the Great Falls of the Passaic led to the growth of Paterson, as the falls were harnessed by cotton and silk textile mills. Today the leading industries are the manufacture of chemicals, machine tools, and electronic components. Other industrial cities include Elizabeth (126,179), with a fine deepwater harbor on Newark Bay, and Edison (100,499), named after the famous inventor Thomas A. Edison. Trenton (83,923), the state capital, is a manufacturer of steel and rubber products and the former home of Lenox, one of the world’s finest dinner chinas. Atlantic City (40,368), a famous resort and convention center, is also the home of the state’s only gambling casinos.

C

Religion

The largest church membership in New Jersey is Roman Catholic, representing nearly one-half of the state’s churchgoers. The other large religious groups include the Baptists, the Methodists, and the Jews.

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