New Jersey

New Jersey is the fifth smallest but most densely populated state of the United States of America; the U.S. postal abbreviation is NJ. The state is named after the island of Jersey in the English Channel.

Cities, towns, boroughs, villages, and townships

New Jersey has 566 municipalities; until recently, 567. Unlike other states, all of its municipalities are incorporated entities, with fixed boundaries, and no local government can simply absorb land from another.

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Types of government

When the types of government were devised in the nineteenth century, the intention was that cities would be large built-up areas, with progressively smaller boroughs, towns, and villages; the rural areas in between would be relatively large townships. This is still often true, although Shrewsbury Township, New Jersey has been divided until it is less than a square mile, and consists of a single housing development. Some townships -- notably Middletown, Brick, Hamilton, and Dover (which includes Toms River) -- have, without changing their boundaries, become large stretches of suburbia, as populous as (if often more spread out than) cities, often focused around shopping centers and highways rather than traditional downtowns and main streets.

Related Topics:
Cities - Boroughs - Towns - Villages - Townships - Shrewsbury Township, New Jersey - Middletown - Brick - Hamilton - Dover - Toms River - Suburbia

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As with Toms River, many locations in New Jersey are simply neighborhoods, with no exact boundaries; often the cluster of houses, the traditional neighborhood, the postal district, and the Census designated place will differ.

Related Topics:
Toms River - Census designated place

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The Federal Government has often failed to understand that a New Jersey township is just another municipality; and some municipalities have changed forms to become the Township of the Borough of Verona or the Township of South Orange Village to receive more Federal aid. The Census Bureau also has a hard time every ten years.

Related Topics:
Federal Government - Township of the Borough of Verona - Township of South Orange Village

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Forms of government

The five types of municipality differ mostly in name. Originally each type had its own form of government, but more modern forms are available to any municipality, even though the original type is retained in its formal name. This is the only difference between boroughs and cities or townships: only boroughs can have the "borough form" of government.

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Starting in the 1900s, largely driven by reform-minded goals, a series of six modern forms of government were implemented. This began with the Walsh Act, enacted in 1911, which provided for a 3 or 5 member commission elected on a non-partisan basis. This was followed by the 1923 Municipal Manager Law which offered a non-partisan council, a weak mayor elected by and from among the members of the council, and introduced Council-Manager government, with an (ideally apolitical) appointed manager responsible for day-to-day administration of municipal affairs.

Related Topics:
Walsh Act - 1911 - 1923 Municipal Manager Law - Council-Manager government

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The Faulkner Act, originally enacted in 1950 and substantially amended in 1981, offers four basic plans: Mayor-Council, Council-Manager, Small Municipality and Mayor-Council-Administrator. The Act provides many choices for communities with a preference for a strong executive and professional management of municipal affairs and offers great flexibility in allowing municipalities to select the characteristics of its government: the number of seats on the Council; seats selected at-large, by wards or a combination of both; staggered or concurrent terms of office; and a Mayor chosen by the Council or elected directly by voters. Most large municipalities and a majority of New Jersey's residents are governed by municipalities with Faulkner Act charters.

Related Topics:
Faulkner Act - 1950 - 1981 - Mayor-Council - Council-Manager - Small Municipality - Mayor-Council-Administrator

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While municipalities retain their type of government, they may have changed to one of the modern forms or further in the past to one of the other traditional forms, leading to municipalities with formal names quite baffling to the general public. For example, though there are four municipalities with the Village type of government, Loch Arbour is New Jersey's only one remaining with the village form of government. The three other villages -- Ridgefield Park (now with a Walsh Act form), Ridgewood, (now with a Faulkner Act Council-Manager charter) and, most confusingly, South Orange (now the Township of South Orange Village) -- have all migrated to other, non-Village forms.

Related Topics:
Loch Arbour - Ridgefield Park - Ridgewood - South Orange

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