The rapidly expanding population of the suburban northeastern counties of New Jersey no longer is heavily dependent on either Manhattan or Newark as its “downtown,” but no substitutes are being constructed. Instead, burgeoning office jobs are spilling over the countryside, on large campuses in Morris County and central Passaic County, at highway interchanges in Bergen and in smaller buildings lining almost every main highway. Department stores are growing in shopping centers along major expressways.
As a result, north and west of Newark, there is no focus for the people of North Jersey through which they can get together to support high-quality hospital service, social services and the arts, or to prosper from the economies of scale which come from clusters of economic activities within walking or local bus distance of each other. Public transportation (except to Manhattan and Newark) is spotty and lacks riders because destinations are too scattered. Higher education, social services, health services, and many lesser-skilled jobs are, therefore, not accessible to people without a car, who especially need such services and jobs.
Regional Plan Association has raised the question of whether North Jersey should have modern centers of offices, shopping, higher education, health services, and the arts, mixed with the apartments that households without children still want. Such centers, the Association suggested, would improve the quality and efficiency of these activities, make possible good public transportation, and save disappearing countryside from needlessly being overrun by campus-type facilities surrounded by large parking areas and acres of groomed, yet unusable open space.
