By Tanvi Misra
CityLab
“Jersey City is really blowing up.” That’s a common refrain among people living in and around New Jersey’s second-largest city.
The historically industrial area has come a long way from the 1960s and 1970s, when jobs, residents, and investment began to disappear. The city has since repackaged itself as the cheaper, homier alternative to Manhattan and Brooklyn. Today it has young and diverse residents, many of whom work in New York, a short train ride away. By living on the Jersey side of the Hudson they avoid those high New York state income taxes.
But Jersey City’s growth, like that of so many U.S. cities, has been unequal. New residents funnel into the swanky, walkable neighborhoods downtown and along the waterfront, where most of the last decade’s development has taken place. The annual median household income of Port Liberté, for example, is $100,000. Rents there can climb above $2,000 a month.
In less sought-after neighborhoods, meanwhile, median household income ranges between $20-30,000, and rent can dip below $750. (For context, the city’s median household income is approximately $58,000.) Some of these neighborhoods are losing residents, especially the ones far from transit options.
Read full coverage here.