Future Facts
New Jersey Future Contributes Resiliency Planning Chapter to Planning Guide
October 12th, 2018 by Tanya Rohrbach
The New Jersey Chapter of the American Planning Association has published the 2018 edition of the only comprehensive print resource for an overview of New Jersey planning law, regulation and policy.
New Jersey Future Planning Manager David Kutner, AICP, PP, co-authored the Resiliency Planning chapter of the 2018 edition of the Complete Guide to Planning in New Jersey, published by the New Jersey Chapter of the American Planning Association. Co-authors on the chapter include Hoboken Community Development Director Brandy Forbes, AICP; Hoboken Chief Sustainability Officer Jennifer Gonzalez, AICP; and Hoboken Principal Planner Caleb Stratton, AICP. With so many land use planning changes in New Jersey since the 2010 edition, particularly in the realm of sustainability, the need for this fourth edition of the guide was evident.
This is the first edition to include a chapter on Resiliency Planning. As part of the Resource Planning section of the guide, the Resiliency Planning chapter highlights important issues, provides an overview of adaptation strategies for building resilient communities, offers examples of resources, and makes recommendations for integrating resiliency into traditional planning methods. Read the rest of this entry »
The Transportation-Emissions Reduction Strategy No One’s Talking About
October 8th, 2018 by Tim Evans
Transportation is clearly an emissions and energy-use issue; moving people and goods from one place to another requires energy, which in turn generates emissions. In fact, the transportation sector is now the biggest contributor to New Jersey’s greenhouse gas emissions. In recognition of this fact, the Board of Public Utilities recently conducted a stakeholder meeting on “Clean and Reliable Transportation” as part of its effort to update the state’s Energy Master Plan. Read the rest of this entry »
New Jersey Future To Participate in Trenton Innovation Challenge Grant
October 2nd, 2018 by Elaine Clisham
New Jersey Future is a strategic partner in the $100,000 state Innovation Challenge Grant awarded to a consortium in the City of Trenton, and played a key role in the application process.
The grant will help the city develop the Trenton Production and Knowledge Innovation Campus, envisioned as an incubator, maker’s campus and training center near the Trenton Transit Center. Its investments will focus on both real estate development and workforce entrepreneurship training and mentoring, and will involve partnerships with several area institutions of higher learning as well as Trenton public schools. Read the rest of this entry »
Stormwater Camp: A Summer Week To Remember
September 25th, 2018 by Louise Wilson
New Jersey Future-funded Stormwater Camp in Sussex County finishes its second successful year.
“Whose rain garden is this?”
“Ours!”
That’s the question that Nathaniel Sajdak, watershed director at Wallkill River Watershed Management Group, asks of the children who help to plant, mulch and maintain a few big, beautiful rain gardens in Sussex County schools and parks. And that’s the answer they shout: “Ours!”
These bioretention basins collect and clean hundreds of thousands of gallons of stormwater runoff that otherwise would pick up pollutants on its way through pipes directly into the Paulinskill River, a pristine tributary to the Delaware River that flows through New Jersey’s Highlands. Read the rest of this entry »
Yes, Millennials Really Are Fleeing the State. The Data Say So.
September 12th, 2018 by Tim Evans
The number of Millennials has actually increased over time, both in New Jersey and nationally, thanks to international immigration, but far less in New Jersey than should be expected.
Summary
Contrary to some of the latest headlines, the recently released report commissioned by New Jersey Policy Perspective does in fact show that there is currently a net out-migration of Millennials from New Jersey, corroborating New Jersey Future’s 2017 report. The fact that Millennials are leaving the state is not a myth.
The NJPP report set out to answer two questions: whether Millennials are leaving now at a faster rate than they have in the past; and whether Millennials are leaving at a faster rate from New Jersey than from select other high-cost states. The report concluded that the answer to both questions is no, but the data in the report showed that indeed Millennials are leaving both New Jersey and its neighbor states. Whether they are leaving faster, slower, or at the same rate as the previous generation of young people — for which appropriate data to support these assertions do not exist — does not change the fact that this generation is looking to live elsewhere. The young-person migration issue and the NJPP analysis are analogous to saying that our state’s water is polluted and has been for some time and is about as polluted as the water in neighboring states. It’s interesting to know this information and that we are consistent, but we still have a problem.
New Jersey Future has planned for the fall a series of articles looking into where out-migrating New Jersey Millennials have gone, and whether specific types of destinations provide clues as to what Millennials are looking for but are not finding in New Jersey. We will send out an announcement when each of these articles is live. In the meantime, below is a more detailed analysis of the trend.
Analysis
Let’s start out by defining “Millennials” as people born between 1980 and 2000. How many such people are there, nationally and in New Jersey?
In 2000 — the year in which the last of the Millennials were born and when we’re first able to count all of them — the youngest Millennials were under 1 year old and the oldest were 20. So the age range 0 to 20 roughly represents the Millennial generation in the year 2000. In that year, there were 84,522,713 people 20 and under in the country, and in New Jersey there were 2,380,877.
In 2016, the youngest Millennials (those born in 2000) were 16 years old, and the oldest (those born in 1980) were 36. Unfortunately, the standard Census Bureau age ranges do not match up exactly to these endpoints, so we have to approximate. Based on inferences from Census Bureau age range data , in 2016 there were approximately 92,178,152 people aged 16 to 36 nationally and 2,420,989 in New Jersey. (More detail on how these approximations were calculated is available upon request (tevans
njfuture
org) .) Read the rest of this entry »
New Model Ordinance Will Help Reduce Polluted Runoff in New Jersey
September 4th, 2018 by New Jersey Future staff
The following was written by Becky Hammer, NRDC’s deputy director of federal water policy, and originally appeared on the NRDC blog.
A new model ordinance will help New Jersey communities curb harmful stormwater runoff that pollutes local waterways and contributes to urban flooding.
The model ordinance is a new “action” promoted by Sustainable Jersey, a nonprofit organization that provides tools and training to support communities as they pursue sustainability goals. Under Sustainable Jersey’s sustainability certification program, municipalities undertake voluntary “actions” to earn “points” toward certification.
The model stormwater ordinance, which was developed in collaboration with NRDC, joined the menu of eligible sustainability “actions” last month. Read the rest of this entry »
DOT’s Municipal Aid: Look Beneath the (Re)Surface for Innovative Uses
August 17th, 2018 by Missy Rebovich
Municipal Aid application deadline is October 8.
Rendering of an upgraded Washington Street in Hoboken, including planned green infrastructure.
Dear municipalities,
Some of you are leaving money on the table.
The NJDOT’s Division of Local Aid and Economic Development has $115 million to offer municipalities through its Municipal Aid program to support a wide variety of local infrastructure projects. And while the program is often thought of as a resource for road preservation projects such as resurfacing or reconstruction, it can fund a wide array of improvements. Some municipalities may not have thought to envision what they could use the money for, so here are some ideas. Read the rest of this entry »
Are the Suburbs Back? Depends On How You Define ‘Suburb’
August 13th, 2018 by Tim Evans
Hackensack: City or suburb? Graphic: DMR Architects
Starting around 2008, demographers, economists, and urban planners started noticing something – long-dormant cities, towns, and older suburbs that pre-dated the automobile era began gaining population again, many for the first time in decades. New Jersey Future commented on this nascent trend as early as 2009 (“Suburbs Still Growing … But So Are The Cities”; “Cities Show Signs of Reversing Trend, Gaining Population”), observing that “several demographic trends may be converging and conspiring to dampen suburban sprawl while fueling the rebirth of cities and older, close-in suburbs.” The proximate cause for the reversal of previous patterns was the Great Recession of 2008, which, combined with $4/gallon gas prices at the time, seemed as if it may have been prompting people to reevaluate their residential locational decisions. Perhaps people were finally questioning the wisdom of the “drive ‘til you qualify” strategy of home buying, wherein one purchases a home of a desired size on a desired budget by looking far enough out on the suburban perimeter to find low enough home prices, and trading the lower home price for a longer drive to work and other regional destinations. Read the rest of this entry »
Combined Sewer Permit Holders Meet Report Deadline
July 25th, 2018 by Moriah Kinberg
NJDEP has posted all required reports on its website, and is inviting public comment
Sailboats near a combined-sewer outfall in Perth Amboy.
New Jersey municipalities with combined sewer systems just got a little closer to reducing the amount of raw sewage being dumped into our waterways. July 1, 2018, marked the end of the first three years of the combined sewer overflow (CSO) permits that were issued to 21 municipalities and four utilities by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP). All of the permit holders met the state-mandated deadline for providing reports on the status of their efforts to comply with requirements to address their CSO systems. These reports include: Read the rest of this entry »
Eleven Great One Water Ideas From the Jersey Water Works Membership Meeting
July 24th, 2018 by Elaine Clisham
One Water: the idea that all water, regardless of source or use, has value and should be managed as one cycle looking across economic, social, and ecosystem needs to deliver multiple benefits.
A rain garden at work, holding and infiltrating rainwater after it runs off the pavement, so it doesn’t wind up in the sewer system.
This was the topic of discussion at Jersey Water Works’ July 19 annual membership meeting. Led by longtime Jersey Water Works member Chris Daggett of the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, participants went through an exercise at their tables that asked them to talk about a project, either current or upcoming, that exemplified the concept of One Water. What we learned was that there are an enormous variety of projects that exemplify the One Water concept here in the Garden State. Here are several that stood out: Read the rest of this entry »
