Best Places to Live in NJ

Real estate site Movoto.com released their top 10 places to live in NJ and a Jersey Shore town made the cut!

kurtlewisart, Flickr

Toms River was ranked #7 in Movoto's list of NJ's best of the best. Recently, they named TR one of the most boring in the state. Not ONE Monmouth town is on here and that is a crock. What methodology was used for this survey? Here's a breakdown.

Movoto used the following seven criteria:

Amenities per person (pizza places, bagel shops, and diners / person)
Amenities total (total pizza places, bagel shops, and diners)
Cost of living (percent above or below state average)
Crime (percent above or below state average)
Education (high school degree attainment rate compared to state average)
Median Income (city’s average compared to state average)
Home value (percent above or below state average)

We started with a list of the 50 most populous municipalities (cities, towns, villages, Census Designated Places) in New Jersey, then gave each city a rank from one to 50 in the individual criteria above based on the data, with one being the best possible score.

As far as amenities go, we chose pizza places, bagel shops, and diners as three amenities that clearly represent New Jersey. From there, we decided to break this category up into both amenities per person and the total number of amenities per city, because while we recognize that it’s great to have a range of choices for each person, we didn’t want to dock cities points just because they have larger populations.

After we rated each city, we averaged the criteria together and gave each city an overall score. The lower this number was, the higher the city ranked.

Check out the Top 10:

The 10 Best Cities in New Jersey By Movoto Real Estate

Here's the top 50:

Movoto Real Estate's Best Cities in New Jersey

CITY	POPULATION	RANK	AMENITIES PER CAPITA RANK	TOTAL AMENITIES RANK	COST OF LIVING RANK	CRIME RANK	HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATION RANK	HOUSEHOLD INCOME RANK	HOME VALUE RANK	BIG DEAL SCORE
Fair Lawn	32,847	1	5	26	30	3	9	6	7	12.29
Edison	100,886	2	2	7	15	22	12	10	20	12.57
Westfield	30,639	3	16	36	30	2	5	1	1	13.00
East Brunswick	47,890	4	16	23	20	12	8	5	12	13.71
North Brunswick Township	41,218	5	5	1	13	15	17	14	32	13.86
Wayne	54,813	6	7	14	45	16	11	3	4	14.29
Toms River	89,600	7	1	4	9	34	13	17	35	16.14
West Orange	46,602	8	4	19	44	13	13	10	12	16.43
Hoboken	52,034	9	9	13	50	16	21	4	3	16.57
North Bergen Township	61,960	10	28	29	27	11	13	9	7	17.71
Brick Township	75,322	11	20	12	13	18	2	35	30	18.57
Livingston	29,526	12	24	39	49	10	6	2	2	18.86
Garfield	30,872	12	25	26	20	23	1	21	16	18.86
Englewood	27,605	14	26	44	11	4	22	20	6	19.00
Hackensack	43,845	15	2	16	27	18	25	26	21	19.29
Long Branch	30,646	15	9	20	11	27	43	14	11	19.29
Sayreville	43,761	17	29	31	6	6	17	18	29	19.43
Clifton	84,722	18	15	11	26	28	27	22	12	20.14
Lakewood	53,800	19	32	23	42	24	7	8	7	20.43
Bayonne	64,416	20	18	9	33	5	26	33	21	20.71
Bergenfield	27,017	21	36	43	27	1	13	12	16	21.14
Union	57,124	22	8	16	43	14	24	16	28	21.29
Teaneck	40,093	23	35	38	46	6	9	6	10	21.43
Rahway	27,785	24	26	36	6	18	23	23	32	23.43
Jersey City	254,441	25	13	2	37	37	30	29	21	24.14
Parsippany-Troy Hills Township	53,709	26	48	47	41	6	19	13	5	25.57
Linden	40,880	27	13	20	36	33	27	27	31	26.71
Willingboro Township	31,844	28	39	42	2	31	4	27	45	27.14
Vineland	60,854	29	21	15	3	40	38	29	47	27.57
New Brunswick	56,160	30	18	18	6	36	39	39	39	27.86
Kearny	41,389	31	23	31	40	30	36	23	19	28.86
Trenton	84,477	32	11	3	19	42	39	45	49	29.71
Ewing	36,252	32	43	48	15	24	19	19	40	29.71
Nutley	28,561	34	21	39	37	37	30	29	21	30.57
Fort Lee	35,732	34	29	31	37	37	30	29	21	30.57
Atlantic City	39,504	36	11	10	15	49	39	49	44	31.00
Pennsauken	35,765	37	49	48	15	35	3	23	46	31.29
West New York	51,464	38	38	28	48	9	48	39	15	32.14
Elizabeth	126,458	39	31	8	33	46	39	42	27	32.29
Paterson	145,219	40	34	6	20	45	43	47	32	32.43
Perth Amboy	51,744	40	40	35	5	29	46	36	36	32.43
Passaic	70,218	42	42	20	20	32	46	48	21	32.71
Millville	28,619	43	37	41	1	47	29	37	48	34.29
Newark	277,727	44	32	5	25	50	45	46	38	34.43
Plainfield	50,244	45	46	45	4	41	36	34	37	34.71
Union City	67,744	46	44	25	47	21	48	44	16	35.00
East Orange	64,268	47	45	45	20	26	30	43	42	35.86
Irvington	54,108	48	41	29	30	44	30	37	43	36.29
Camden	77,250	49	47	31	9	48	50	50	50	40.71
City of Orange	30,744	49	50	50	33	43	30	39	40	40.71

Filed Under: best places to live in nj 2014

Categories: Articles, Lifestyle

Toms River One of the Best Places to Live in NJ

Movoto Real Estate's Best Cities in New Jersey