The Annotated Map of New Jersey

I found this map of New Jersey on Facebook, and having visited New Jersey many, many times – I’ve got friends and relatives there – I will say that there’s some truth to the map, assuming you’re looking at the world from a New Yorker’s eyes. If you’d like a closer look at the map, just click on it.

I narrowly avoided becoming a New Jerseyite. Or is it New Jerseyan? New Jerseyoid?

Back in the early 1980s, my mom got a sweet research job offer from a drug company that would require us to move to the town of Summit, New Jersey, which in the annotated map above is located in the “Executives Living in Mansions Driving Mercedes-Benzes” zone. The deal was a hair’s breadth of going through when U.S. Immigration put the kibosh on the plan, citing some obscure restriction, and we remained in Accordion City. A few months after that happened, Mom was contacted again and told that the restriction had been lifted, but by then my parents had decided to stay in Canada.

I wonder how differently life would’ve turned out had I grown up in a place that had the 16th-highest per-capita income in the U.S. according to the 2000 census, a drive or train ride away from both Jersey Shore and Manhattan. I can’t complain about where I’ve ended up, but it’s always fun to play “What if?”