Industries devoted to the movement and storage of goods are a pillar of New Jersey’s economy, providing jobs to nearly one out of every eight employed New Jersey residents. Growth in e-commerce and in the volume of international trade arriving at the country’s second-busiest port, the major facilities of which are located in North Jersey, are creating unprecedented demand for warehouse space.
Author Archive
Warehouse Development: Regional Significance Calls for Regional Perspective
Monday, July 11th, 2022Young People are Leaving New Jersey: Exploring Potential Explanatory Variables
Wednesday, June 22nd, 2022With the youngest members of the demographically large Millennial generation (roughly, those born between 1981 and 1996) aging into young adulthood, the number of people between the ages of 25 and 44 increased nationwide by 3.5% between 2015 and 2019. In New Jersey, however, the population in this age range declined by 1.2% over the same time period, with high housing costs appearing as a major motivating factor.
We Need a Better Way of Measuring How Much People Drive—And Why
Monday, May 23rd, 2022People driving cars and trucks from one place to another is not only a big contributor to New Jersey’s carbon footprint, but also leads to many hours wasted behind the wheel and many dollars spent to build and maintain the state’s road network. In New Jersey, the average licensed driver drives about 33 miles a day. While transportation planners and the general public are aware that daily life involves a lot of driving, the reasons for all this vehicular travel are less widely understood. A better way of measuring vehicle-miles traveled (VMT) might provide some insight into the problem—and what to do about it.
If You Pave It, They Will Park
Monday, April 25th, 2022Driving and parking reinforce each other. The provision of parking at every destination encourages people to drive, and the more people drive, the more parking spaces property owners think they need to provide. Fortunately, New Jersey’s older, mixed-use centers show that the pattern can also work in reverse.
“Complete Streets” and Goods Delivery: What Is a Street For?
Thursday, March 24th, 2022The changing nature of shopping means people are more likely to have things delivered to them rather than going to a store to buy them. At the same time, people increasingly want to live in mixed-use neighborhoods where they can walk to local destinations. How should we be thinking about the safety of pedestrians and other non-motorized travelers in an era of increasing truck traffic?
Walking and Biking Are Transportation Too
Friday, February 18th, 2022Local officials, engineers, and transportation planners must start designing streets to convey the message that streets are places where people come first, and vehicles are secondary. “Transit-oriented development” is ultimately about pedestrian-oriented development, since everyone is a pedestrian once they step off the bus, train, or subway.
Environmental Justice and Warehouse Sprawl
Tuesday, December 7th, 2021Earlier this year, New Jersey Future released a report about the growth of warehousing in New Jersey, and that growth pressure has only grown more intense in the intervening months. The report focused mainly on the use—and in many cases, the re-use—of land for warehouse development and its impact on host communities in terms of […]
Electric Yard Goats and Environmental Justice
Wednesday, October 13th, 2021“Electric Yard Goats” may sound like the name of a band (or a baseball team), but they actually represent an important step in New Jersey’s effort to adopt electric vehicles as a means of reducing the transportation sector’s carbon footprint. Furthermore, they can help steer the air-quality and health benefits of vehicle electrification toward communities that have historically suffered the most from pollution generated by gasoline- and diesel-powered vehicles and by the state’s many polluting land uses.
School district regionalization is an educational quality issue—and a cost-saving issue, and a land-use issue, and a segregation issue
Wednesday, October 13th, 2021New Jersey’s system for delivering public education is particularly fragmented—it averages 28 school districts per county, the most of any state, and averages just under 15,000 residents per district, well below the national average of 23,344. It has more school districts than it has municipalities. This fractionalized landscape contributes to and exacerbates several of the state’s most intractable problems in ways that are not immediately apparent.
Census 2020: New Jersey’s Older and Increasingly Diverse Centers Are Now Leading The State’s Population Growth
Monday, September 13th, 2021The demographic story of the 2010s in New Jersey was the return of population growth to the state’s walkable, mixed-use centers—cities, towns, and older suburbs with traditional downtowns. Driven in particular by the Millennial generation’s desire for live-work-shop-play environments, many of the state’s older centers experienced their biggest population increases since before the 1950s.
