Rahway tumbled to No. 467 in New Jersey Monthly‘s biannual ranking of top towns in the Garden State. Rahway ranked No. 400 the last time the magazine compiled rankings two years ago. The city was sandwiched behind Monroe Township (Middlesex) and ahead of Harvey Cedars Borough (Ocean), slotting into the 83rd percentile, the bottom fifth of the state’s 566 towns. (Bedminster (Somerset) ranked No. 1, accompanied by a story, and here’s a .pdf of the entire ranking.)
Eight of Union County’s 21 towns ranked in the top 100, led by Mountainside (8) a
nd followed by Berkeley Heights (19), Clark (24), Cranford (34), New Providence (66), Scotch Plains (75), Summit (76), and Springfield (85). Five county towns ranked behind Rahway: Hillside (507), Roselle (533), Linden (540), Plainfield (543) and Elizabeth (563). Other nearby neighbors ranked No. 280, Edison, and No. 358, Woodbridge.
It seemed like a rather peculiar ranking this year, as more than a few towns within the top 20 had jumped from the 200s and 300s the last time around.
According to the report, NJ Monthly‘s research team selected “a prototypical indicator corresponding, respectively, to each of these eight categories”:
* Population growth rate since the last Census (2008)
* Three-year change in median home prices (2009)
* Median property tax bill combined with change in median taxes the past two years (2009)
* Percentage of land preserved as open space (2009)
* Unemployment rate (2008)
* Total crime rate (2008)
* Proficiency on state-mandated standardized tests for fourth-, eighth- and 11th-graders
* Number of acute-care hospitals within 10 miles
“To level the playing field, household income was not considered and home values were measured by the rate of increase/decrease over three years rather than current prices. To compare land development, towns with relatively slower growth and more open space were rated more favorably. Towns with lower unemployment and crime rates also scored higher, as did those close to more hospitals.”
yeah, but how many of these towns can boast of having a $90,000 custom made fine Italian piano?
Clark, the town right next door to Rahway, is 24. And Rahway is 467. Am I missing something???
Meh. NJM is really geared towards the hedge fund crowd, so I always take their rankings with a grain of salt. If you earn less than $250k/year, you're not really among their targeted readership.If population growth and open space are included as criteria for the rankings, towns that have experienced suburban sprawl and have open space to preserve would have an advantage over older, more densely developed towns, no?
Then by that logic, you'd figure this would have the Westfield crowd up in arms with their 154 ranking.
"[T]owns with relatively slower growth and more open space were rated more favorably … "Well, things have definitely slowed down in Rahway. I guess if the skeleton of The Savoy were removed and it was turned into a park, it would increase the amount of open space in Rahway. A nice park in that part of town would be cool …
Take this magazines ratings with a grain of salt. While they post the alleged criteria for their ratings, it becomes painfully obvious that there is no consistency between last years ratings and this year for a great number of towns. Such drastic changes indicates an extreme change in the methods employed to render the result or (much more plausible) that the ratings are really not done in using any discernible scientific method. My guess is higher ratings are granted to towns that have higher subscriptions to (big surprise) "New Jersey Monthly"!
It all depends on what the "rankings" are based on, and usually they're just to generate discussion.You do have to take it with a grain of salt but I doubt it has much to do with subscription rates. I think part of it is that the report seems based solely on data (it's like Spock did a survey, no emotion/subjectivity). Three of the towns in the top 10 have fewer than 500 population and two of those are in double digits. Teterboro has 17 residents and an airport and ranked 20th (???). The general consensus, even on NJ Monthly's comments page, seems to be: "WTF are you talking about?"I can't disagree, but let's look at what data the rankings use.- Population growth. My guess is the less growth, the better for the ranking given NJ's density. Rahway has has added almost 2,000 to the population since the 2000 Census.- Median home prices. Everyone's down, just a matter of who's down less and Rahway is about average to below average there.- Open space. Rahway has added a few parks in recent years but I bet density is still higher than average for NJ.- The city's crime rate is more typical of towns behind Rahway in the ranking (Linden, Roselle); middle of the road in good years when compared with the rest of the county.- Test scores. Again, I think Rahway is usually in the middle to the lower half of the county when comparing test scores.
Mark, I agree with all you have listed, but there can be no rationalization for the extreme 1 year ratings swings for many towns. This is primarily why I feel that the survey is no based on Spock like logic and data, but are highly subjective.
NJ Monthly didn't have the old link to the study of two years ago, but from what I included in that post, it looks like many of the same categories were used, except instead of median home values the past three years, it was home values for 2007 and percentage increase from 2000. Three years instead of % increase over 7, and three years that were a huge, huge change.Perhaps that's what could be responsible for the wild swings. Places like Teterboro certainly could be affected given how little data they have (17 residents). Imagine if one homeowner added a bedroom or a kitchen and what that might do to data if the other handful of homes remained the same. Just a theory…If it was subjective in anyway, I can't see how places like Morristown, Hoboken or Red Bank fall near 500.