Essay: From Kearny to Jersey City, a Comparison

Kearny ➡️ Jersey City

There’s nothing you can’t find in Jersey City. In terms of amenities it offers nail salons, hair salons, bodegas, delis, hospitals, doctors, shoe repair shops, tailors, botanicas, temples and churches for several religions, and more, all within a 10-minute walk of each other. There are financial offices, banking offices, industrial plants, power plants, car manufacturing plants, landfills, waste disposal plants, and more. The city is a well-woven tapestry of a variety of ethnic backgrounds, financial backgrounds, cultures, and customs. It also belongs to the New York Metropolitan area which puts it in the center of the action of one of the largest and densest cities in the world. Within the city are luxury apartment buildings as well as Section 8 housing and rooms for rent within larger units. People in Jersey City either live in abject poverty or in apartments equivalent to luxury units found in the tallest New York City penthouses. I personally always drive to Jersey City, and my journey is quick and easy. Two roads, State Route 280 East and Route 7, connect the much smaller town of Kearny directly to Jersey City like arteries. Compared to Kearny, Jersey City is much more fast-paced due to the overwhelming amount of residents that also commute to their jobs right in the city. Walking around in Jersey City for five minutes, you can observe some kind of token from nearly every culture and economic status. People there live in a similar way to Kearny residents; welcoming different forms of diversity but also becoming accustomed to them in a way that it becomes routine. Kearny is almost like a miniature version of Jersey City, but with limited transportation it won’t ever achieve the same potential.

Jersey City, NJ is as robust as it gets in terms of economic and ethnic diversity. The total population according to the 2010 census is 247,597, making it the second-most populous city in the state next to Newark. Of that number, the breakdown by race is as follows: 67,526 (~27.27%) Asian, 63,135 (~25.4%) Hispanic or Latino, 63,788 (~25.8%) black or African American, 55,493 (~22.41%) white alone, 1,039 (~.4%) American Indian/ Alaska Native, and the rest a mixture. There is some overlap here between white and Hispanic which makes the numbers total up strangely, but it’s because some ethnically Hispanic people are considered racially white. The city’s median age is 33.9. Of the city’s population of 247,597, 23,675 are between the ages of 18-24. Of those 23,675, 6,185 (~26.1%) have attained at least a high school degree or more. Of those aged 18-24, 5,692 (~24%) have achieved a Bachelor’s degree or higher. As age increases, percentages of those educated hover around the same numbers. There are 186,744 (~75.4%) people over the age of 25 in Jersey City, of which only 43,900 (~23.5%) are high school graduates and 49,593 (~26.5%) have accomplished a bachelor’s degree. A staggering 18.7% of individuals in Jersey City live below the poverty level. Of 60,923 families identifiable in the city, 15.1% of them are living below the poverty level. Jersey City contains 112,169 total housing units, 100,049 (~89%) of which are occupied. Of those occupied units, only 28,569 (~28.5%) are owner-occupied and the remaining 71,480 (~71.4%) are renter-occupied.

Compared to Jersey City, the township of Kearny consists of a much smaller population of 40,684. Of Kearny’s population, approximately 29,933 (~73%) are white (however, some Hispanics are considered white, so part of this number is still Hispanics), 2,186 (~5.3%) are black or African-American, 163 (~0.4%) are American Indian or Alaska Natives, 1,793 (~4.4%) are Asian, 16,253 (~39.9%) are Hispanic or Latino, and a mere 32 (~.07%) are Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander. The township’s medan age is 37.4, not that far off from Jersey City’s. Of Kearny’s 40,684, 3,958 (~9.7%) are between the ages of 18-24 and 1,180 of those between 18-24 (~29.8%) are high school graduates. Those between 18-24 with bachelor’s degrees reach a total of 575 (~14.5%) residents. Concerning those 29,326 (~72%) Kearny residents over 25, 10,450 (~35.6%) are high school graduates and 5,145 (~17.5%) have achieved a bachelor’s degree. Eleven percent of Kearny residents live below the poverty level. Of those 11% of Kearny residents, 15.4% are under the age of 18. Of 10,132 families in Kearny, 9.1% of them live below the poverty level. The township holds within it 14,465 housing units, 6,369 of which are owner-occupied and 7,104 of which are renter-occupied.

Transportation is a major supporting pillar of Jersey City’s success. It shapes the city into a place where commuters to New York want to live for ease-of-access to work, but also where residents with no link to New York feel no need to own their own vehicle. Jersey City offers an incredibly wide range of forms of transportation both within the city itself and to other areas of New Jersey. In fact, over 8% of the city’s commuters walk to work and nearly 47% take public transportation. This is actually the second highest percentage of public transit riders of any city with a population of 100,000+ in the US, falling second only to New York City while still coming in before D.C. The Grove St. PATH Station offers a route from the bustling downtown nightlife area straight to lower Manhattan, and Journal Square PATH station connects to the busy finance and banking district. The Hudson-Bergen Light Rail offers commuters 24 stations, 13 of which are located in Jersey City. Ferries bring passengers across the Hudson to New York, and a competing Water Taxi is also available. Commuters also have the option of grabbing a bus from Journal Square or Exchange Place that will bring them anywhere along the 1, 2, 6, 10, 22, 64, 67, 68, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 123, 125 ,305, or 319 lines. As if these options weren’t plenty, there are also “jitney” busses (privately owned low fare methods of transport) that have been decreasing public bus usage over time. Kearny has absolutely no train support, the bus line isn’t even half as useful, and there is no set transportation system for moving around within city limits.

Transportation is quintessential in shaping Jersey City into such a sprawling metropolis. The ease-of-access factor is probably the most defining aspect of the city and what separates it from Kearny the most. While the two have economic and ethnic diversity in common, Kearny is built for people with cars and Jersey City is for those without them. Marshall says in How Cities Work that “transportation is the most visible and active in shaping a place.” He describes how people’s connection to the city was so crucial that they would sacrifice suburban living for a low-rise apartment building to maintain it. That’s the reality for most Jersey City residents, and creates another sacrifice for them; not owning a vehicle. However, this sacrifice is made with the knowledge that they won’t need it. Kearny was originally built for foot traffic, following a “main street” sort of development, however nothing in Kearny now revolves around ease-of-access. While I couldn’t find any official data on how many residents own vehicles or use public transportation, I am willing to make the educated guess that more than three-fourths of Kearny residents rely on cars as their primary method of travel.

With regards to community, Marshall says that “the car and highway have produced places that are fractured physically, and in the related patterns of commerce and business.” While this may be true for newer cities, Kearny still contains relic communities from a time where it was still geared around the “main street” mentality. Communities in Kearny exist in the realm of residential blocks, and in comparison communities in Jersey City exist in the realm of ethnic and cultural groups bonding in familiar locations such as churches and cultural centers. Newer Kearny residents like my family don’t find it essential to participate in our proximal community of neighbors, while newer residents of Jersey City might involuntarily participate in communities based solely on their involvement in day-to-day activities.

All in all, when considering the idea of the great “inversion,” Jersey City is experiencing an inversion of utility and Kearny is experiencing an inversion of community. Once a dirty manufacturing town, Jersey City is a blossoming metropolitan hub. Once a quaint, close-knit group of neighborhoods, Kearny is moving toward a desire for anonymity and privacy. No one moving into Kearny now wants a list of the names of people that live on their street. Everyone moving into Jersey City thinks it’s a glamorous satellite-city to NYC. Some luxury apartments in the city are reaching rent prices of $5500 a month, and rooms in Kearny are going for $300-400. Another good point that Erenhalt makes in his Q & A is that crime inversion is also occurring in cities and suburbs. The PATH, NJ Transit, and bus connections to Jersey City have become safe, the city itself has become safer, and people generally feel more comfortable living there because of it.