These Are The 10 Best Small Cities In New Jersey

If you’re looking to move to New Jersey and want to know what it’s really like to live there, do yourself a favor and never, ever watch a reality show about the state. What with all of the table-throwing, glass-throwing, and just plain throwing up they shows, they miss the real essence of what is wonderful about the state—its beauty, its beaches, and of course, all those bagels. Even better than all that, there are the often overlooked small cities of New Jersey. The places you can raise a family, start a business, or just go out for a good meal. These are the places that they don’t show you on T.V. These are the best small cities in New Jersey: 1. Borough of Florham Park
2. Municipality of Princeton
3. CDP of Lakewood
4. Borough of Middlesex
5. Borough of Somerville
6. Borough of Oakland
7. Borough of Lincoln Park
8. Borough of Freehold
9. Borough of Ramsey
10. Borough of Hasbrouck Heights
Now this isn’t our first rodeo here at the Movoto Real Estate Blog, so we know what some of you guys are thinking: these aren’t cities. You’re right. Technically they are not called cities, but these communities, mostly made up of boroughs, still ranked well enough in our analysis to grab the top 10 spots. To find out just how they managed to do so, keep reading. We’ll go over the method behind said analysis and take a peek at what makes each of these communities so special.

Our Methodology

Whether we’re talking about exciting places, boring places, or even the topic of safe places, when we create our Big Deal Lists we use facts and figures rather than our own opinions (even though our own opinions are most certainly always correct and awesome). So in creating this list, we started by gathering up a list of places in New Jersey with populations between 10,000 and 60,000 people. We then used sources like the U.S. Census 2010, AreaVibes, Sperling’s Best Places, and business listings to collect data on the following criteria:

Amenities per capita
Quality of life (cost of living, median home price, median rent, median household income, and high school graduation rate)
Total crimes
Tax rates (sales tax and income tax)
Unemployment
Commute time
Weather (temperature and air quality)

Next, we ranked each of our 127 cities, boroughs, towns, Census Designated Places, and municipalities with scores from one to 127—the lower the number, the better. We then averaged each place’s rankings into one Big Deal Score, where the place with the lowest score was our best place, the oh-so-awesome Florham Park. If you’re interested in seeing more than just these top 10 places, feel free to hop down to the bottom of the post for a look at the top 50. Otherwise, we’ll head to Florham Park to start our virtual tour of the state’s best small cities.

1. Florham Park

This spot won mostly because of the overall great quality of life here. Residents seemed to be better educated than nearly anywhere else in the state, with a high school graduation rate of 97 percent. The median household income was over $105,000 per year, and this little area was home to some of the most expensive homes and houses in the state—which may not sound like a whole lot of fun, but it does indicate a strong housing market. Florham Park was also among the safest places on this list, with just 644 crimes per 100,000 people in 2012. To put that into perspective just take a look at someplace like Atlantic City where there were 8,136 crimes per 100,000 people that same year. It’s no wonder the Jets chose this place over several other contenders to train; who wouldn’t want to be here?

2. Princeton

There are college towns and then there is Princeton. But this municipality (the recent combination of Princeton Township and the Borough of Princeton) is home to much more than one of the best schools in the country; it’s also a hell of a place to live for non-students. Speaking of classrooms, perhaps not surprisingly, Princeton ranked well for its high school graduation rate (91 percent), which was just one of the many factors contributing to its overall high quality of life. Where this town really aced it, though, was for its number of amenities per capita and short commute time (a very walkable place, this college town). But really, Hoagie Haven is reason enough to move here.

3. Lakewood

Just to be clear, here, we’re talking the smaller Census Designated Place of Lakewood, which is within the larger Lakewood Township. And now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, what exactly makes this community in particular so special? Well for starters, along with Princeton and a few other communities, the average commute time here was just 22 minutes, compared to some places like Guttenberg, for example, where it was over 35 minutes. This is good news seeing as Lakewood had one of the lowest unemployment rates (4.70 percent), so there were bound to be lots of people out driving to work. And the cherry on top—it ranked as one of the best places for its low average summer temperature of 71 degrees, so you can even roll the windows down.

4. Middlesex

If you happen to value the safety of your family, nice weather, less time spent driving around, and oh, you know, just the good things in life, this little borough might be the place for you. In 2012, Middlesex had just 980 crimes for every 100,000 people. That’s compared to the 8,136 of Millville or the 7,723 of Asbury Park. Middlesex also beat out the competition with a lower than average summer temperature (71) and an actualy decent air quality score of 40 (in most places in the state it was at least in the 50s, and the lower here, the better). With a commute time of just 23 minutes on average, residents can spend less time in the car and more time enjoying the weather. Or, of course, the barbeque at Manila.

5. Somerville

What makes Somerville so wonderful? Let us count the ways. There’s Martino’s Cuban Restaurant, the desserts at Cafe Picasso, YESTERcades Arcade—and those are just a few of the amenities! It’s no wonder this place raked so well in that category. But that’s not all. Somerville also ranked among the best for its short commute time, its ideal weather (in the summer, at least), and an unemployment rate of just 4.90 percent. Just to put this into perspective, just take a look at Atlantic City where it was 14.90 percent.

6. Oakland

Named for the area’s beautiful white oak trees, this Bergen County borough is more than just a pretty face. Granted, one of the things it is, is expensive, with a cost of living of 129 where the national average was 100—but like with anything, you get what you pay for. Here, what you’re paying for is a great quality of life. This community had a 93 percent high school graduation rate, a median household income of $116,067, and according to the real estate prices, a booming housing market.

7. Lincoln Park

Lincoln Park may not have had quite the number of amenities per capita as, say, our next city, but what it lacked in restaurants and shops, it more than made up for elsewhere. Its low unemployment rate of 4.70 percent, for example, was the sixth lowest out of all the places we looked at. It also ranked well for a lower than average summer temperature of 71 degrees and a commute time of just 25 minutes. Which, okay, wasn’t as short as the 20 minutes in, say, Pleasantville, but it sure beat the absolutely insane 45-minute commute in Robertsville. 45 minutes? Really? You guys should just move.

8. Freehold

You know how we mentioned those famous New Jersey bagels in the beginning of this post? Well, we may have found the home of some of the best—Eli’s Hot Bagels is not to be messed around with. Matter of fact, Freehold is the home of lots of “bests,” considering out of everywhere we looked at, it had the very most amenities per capita. It also had some of the best weather, a commute time of just 22 minutes on average, and the fifth lowest unemployment rate in our analysis—just 4.50 percent. But seriously, the Everything Bagel at Eli’s? Worth. Moving. To. Freehold.

9. Ramsey

This little community tucked away in the foothills of the Ramapo Mountains may be a short commute away from New York City, but really—who needs it? With some of the most amenities per capita, from delicious pizza at La Gondola to the gelato at L’Arte della Pasticceria, you certainly don’t need to go far for a good meal. Or for a good quality of life, for that matter. In fact, Ramsey residents had one of the best qualities of life out of anywhere we looked at—this community had a high school graduation rate of 96 percent, a median household income of $119,430, and home and rent prices that might make you cry (that is, if you couldn’t afford them with that big salary).

10. Hasbrouck Heights

Last and certainly not least on our list is Hasbrouck Heights. As residents undoubtedly know, this community is much more than a bedroom community for New York. It had its own amenities (the 29th most per capita in our analysis, thank you), it had an unemployment rate of just 5.20 percent, and when it came to crime, this place was like paradise compared to New York. In 2012, Hasbrouck Heights had just 609 crimes per 100,000 people—the second lowest out of the 127 places we looked at. To put this into perspective for you, this is less than the number of violent crimes alone New York had that same year (which was 639 per every 100,000 people). Total, NYC had 2,361 crimes for every 100,000 people. OH, and the cost of living in Hasbrouck Heights was 125 compared to New York’s 146. Just sayin’...

Living in the Garden State

Clearly life in the Garden State is a bit different than they make it out to be on reality television—well, except maybe on HGTV. If you’re looking to move to one of these 10 places, or even one of the 50 below, feel free to get in touch. After all, aside from create illuminating posts about New Jersey like this one, this one, oh, and my personal favorite, this one, we can actually help you find your home there. The best bagels, though, you’ll have to sniff out on your own.