Living within the influence of one of the largest and most important
cities in the world, how does New Jersey define itself? Is it simply a
region of commuters, or have communities created effective local
governments and satisfying cultural activities for one of the most
diverse populations in the country?
In the state with the country's densest population, the region known as
North Jersey has sacrificed more than 30 percent of its land area to the
vast web of roads and highways that carry more than 300,000 commuters to
work in New York. Greater New Jersey probes challenges posed to the
identity of New Jersey by the New York-centered mass media, professional
sports, and organized crime families, while examining pressures internal
to the state itself, including extraordinary social diversity, high
population, fragmented governments, extensive political corruption, and
diminishing land and natural resources.
Greater New Jersey sets itself apart from other works about the state
by virtue of the scope of its inquiry. While contemporary in outlook,
the book underscores the role of history in shedding light on the
Manhattan and New Jersey of today. Dennis E. Gale examines the complex
interactions that knit together a region that has dual citizenship and
argues that northern New Jersey is undergoing a gradual transformation
to become symbolic of a new kind of suburban area, one that borrows
culture, image, and economy from a metropolis but also maintains the
day-to-day living patterns of heartland America in the face of rapid
social change. Readers interested in the puzzling intricacies of modern
life will find much to interest them in this account of a regional
identity asserting itself in the face of a looming megalopolis.
