New Jersey: Crossroads of Many Things

New Jersey is located in the northeastern and Middle Atlantic United States, bordering New York to the northeast, the Atlantic Ocean to the southeast, Pennsylvania to the west, and Delaware to the southwest. New Jersey was inhabited by Native American Indian tribes at the time the Dutch and Swedes established settlements there in the early 1600’s. The British later gained control of the area, naming it the Province of New Jersey. New Jersey was the site of numerous key battles in the American Revolution, including those at Trenton, Princeton, and Monmouth. On some level the war was a civil one in New Jersey, as there were many inhabitants partial to Britain and its monarch. In the 1800’s, New Jersey was at the center of the Industrial Revolution on account of its substantial manufacturing base in cities such as Camden, Elizabeth, Paterson, and Trenton. Transportation has played a significant role in New Jersey’s growth, given its location in the middle of the northeast corridor of the U.S, which runs from Washington, D.C. to Boston. New Jersey’s most recent industrial and population booms occurred after World War II, such that today, it has the highest population density and second highest median income among U.S. states.

New Jersey, Economically Speaking

New Jersey’s economy is highly diverse. It is a center for education, financial management, manufacturing, telecommunications, food production and processing, government services, information technology, publishing, transportation, and tourism. The state has a tremendous base in pharmaceutical and chemical manufacturing, as well as in production of other technological goods, such as electronics.

Education: New Jersey Goes to School

New Jersey has an educated populace with educational attainment levels above national averages. As of 2000, roughly 82% of its residents aged 25 and older had completed high school, and nearly 30% had completed college. There are 2,467 institutions of higher education in New Jersey. Prominent among these is Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey system, which enrolls over 52,000 students across three campuses in Piscataway and New Brunswick, Newark, and Camden. Other selected institutions of higher learning in New Jersey include: Fairleigh Dickinson University, Princeton University, Seton Hall University, and the Stevens Institute of Technology.

The Crime Scene in New Jersey: Long-Term Downward Trend

New Jersey has seen declining crime activity over the past decade. Violent crime and all other forms of crime have been steadily declining for the past two decades, and are substantially down from all-time highs achieved in the early 1990’s. In 2006, New Jersey ranked 26th among U.S. states for violent crimes with 352 per 100,000 population.

The New Jersey Population – Flat Growth; Balanced Historically, Leaning Democratic

New Jersey has a population of 8.7 million. Its population has been growing at a moderate, steady rate of 0.4% per year in the past decade. New Jersey generally has a history of balancing its elected officials among Democrats and Republicans, but has leaned Democratic in national elections over the past few decades. Among more than 3.8 million votes cast in the 2008 U.S. presidential election, New Jersey voters chose Democratic candidate Barack Obama over Republican candidate John McCain by a ratio of 57% to 42%.