USA Sprawl Festival continued: Bergen & Passaic Counties, New Jersey

[James Bond Agent 007]

Link to the first thread in this series:
USA Sprawl Festival

Or, click on the following links to see just individual cities in that thread:

Kansas City
Some northern Denver suburbs
Albuquerque
Seattle
Las Vegas
Dallas-Fort Worth
Some western & southern Minneapolis suburbs
Orange County, California
Philadelphia
Tucson
Orlando
Northern Virginia/DC
Cleveland
Houston
Atlanta
Indianapolis
Long Island, New York
Jacksonville
Boston

And the 2nd round ones:

Phoenix-East
Phoenix-South
Phoenix-North
Phoenix-West
Portland
Silicon Valley
Los Angeles
San Bernardino County
San Diego - south
San Diego - north
Buffalo
Broward County, Florida
Dallas-Fort Worth II
Riverside County, California
Denver - south suburbs
Orange County II

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BERGEN COUNTY, NEW JERSEY - with some Passaic County, too.

Windows Live Local had bird's-eye coverage of all of Bergen County but only part of Passaic County, and the parts of Passaic County it had were mostly the lower part which isn't so "sprawl-y." So most of these are Bergen County.

Glen Rock, Bergen County.
This is a special picture. That small house in the left-center with the green roof is the house I grew up in.
I can tell this bird's-eye is about 5-6 years old because that new house just being finished to the left of my house was completed about 5-6 years ago, and in this pic it appears to be just finishing construction.


Ridgewood, Bergen County.


Wyckoff, Bergen County.


Waldwick, Bergen County.


Saddle River, Bergen County.


Old Tappan, Bergen County.


The Radburn area of Fair Lawn, Bergen County. This is a famous planned community from the 20's. Notice the pathways in back of all the houses and the common green space in the middle. I spent a lot of time as a kid riding my bike through here.


Somewhere else in Fair Lawn.


Paramus, Bergen County.


And speaking of Paramus . . . here come the malls!

Paramus - Garden State Plaza. I remember when this was an open-air mall.


Paramus - Paramus Park. I remember when this first opened in the mid-70's. It stole the thunder from Garden State Plaza and eventually led to GSP deciding to enclose their space and add a lot of square footage. Once GSP did that, it re-stole the thunder from Paramus Park.


Paramus - the Fashion Center. Once upon a time this was a small but upscale 60's-style mall. Once Paramus Park opened it went downhill. Last I heard it was still barely hanging on.


Paramus - Bergen Mall. This was sort-of a downscale version of the Fashion Center, also quite old for a mall (I think it dates from the 50's). Last I heard, it, too, was barely hanging on.


Hackensack - Riverside Square. This is *almost* in Paramus but it's actually in the Hackensack city limits. At one time it was a small shopping center, but somewhere in the 80's they really fixed it up. Last time I ever went in there, it was still quite nice. But I haven't been there in a while.


Bergenfield, Bergen County.


Alpine, Bergen County.


Teaneck, Bergen County.


Englewood, Bergen County.


Ramsey, Bergen County.


Mahwah, Bergen County.


Montvale, Bergen County.


Harrington Park, Bergen County.


Oradell, Bergen County.


Tenafly, Bergen County.


Englewood Cliffs, Bergen County.


Palisades Park, Bergen County. This is starting to get into the southern areas of the county which aren't really sprawl. But they're interesting for comparison purposes.


Hackensack, Bergen County. Not really sprawl I suppose.


Bogota, Bergen County. For those not in the know, this isn't pronounced like the South American city, it's pronounced BO-ga-ta.


Fort Lee, Bergen County. Not really sprawl.


Fort Lee again. DEFINITELY not sprawl.


Closter, Bergen County. Nice commercial district of the type you find in many Bergen County cities.


Demarest, Bergen County.


Franklin Lakes, Bergen County.


Northvale, Bergen County.


Now on to Passaic County. They didn't have coverage of Wayne or anything north and west, so we just get some limited stuff here.

Far-away bird's-eye of Clifton. Not really sprawl.


Close-up of a typical Paterson neighborhood. More un-sprawl.


Far-away view of Paterson. Not really sprawl.


Hawthorn. Hawthorn was right next to my town of Glen Rock. It was generally denser than Glen Rock, but not all of it. This is one of the denser areas.


Prospect Park. More un-sprawl.


Not all of lower Passaic County is denser stuff. Pompton Lakes.


North Haledon.

[Wheelingman04]

A lot of that sprawl is better looking than you might see in a lot of other areas.

[James Bond Agent 007]

^
Yes, but a lot of it is worse, too.

[TomAuch]

Doesn't look like there are many cul-de-sacs in Bergen.

[grfrednet]

Regarding your Philadelphia sprawl thread...

I have a hard time believing that most of those photos if any are actually from the city of Philadelphia. If they are, what sections are they? If they are not from the city proper, why didn't you post what county or towns they are from as you did with some of the other locations you've shown, such as this Jersey thread?

Furthermore, since I'm quite confident that (most) or all of those pics aren't from "Philly," don't call it Philadelphia. Those pics would be known as the suburbs in either Montgomery, Bucks, or Chester counties my man, not "Philly."

[Evergrey]

Truly, this is the nadir of American civilization.

[Evergrey]

Originally Posted by grfrednet

Regarding your Philadelphia sprawl thread...

I have a hard time believing that most of those photos if any are actually from the city of Philadelphia. If they are, what sections are they? If they are not from the city proper, why didn't you post what county or towns they are from as you did with some of the other locations you've shown, such as this Jersey thread?

Furthermore, since I'm quite confident that (most) or all of those pics aren't from "Philly," don't call it Philadelphia. Those pics would be known as the suburbs in either Montgomery, Bucks, or Chester counties my man, not "Philly."

Calm down, dude.... you're making Philadelphians look bad. At least complain about the threads titled "Orlando", "Tucson" and "Buffalo" in addition to the fabled Philadelphia.

[Jersey Mentality]

Nice Jersey thread, I didnt spot too much sprawl or if it was sprawl it was pleasing to the eye unlike all the other hell-holes you've showed. Thanx.

[James Bond Agent 007]

Originally Posted by grfrednet

Regarding your Philadelphia sprawl thread...

I have a hard time believing that most of those photos if any are actually from the city of Philadelphia. If they are, what sections are they? If they are not from the city proper, why didn't you post what county or towns they are from as you did with some of the other locations you've shown, such as this Jersey thread?

Furthermore, since I'm quite confident that (most) or all of those pics aren't from "Philly," don't call it Philadelphia. Those pics would be known as the suburbs in either Montgomery, Bucks, or Chester counties my man, not "Philly."

Yes, of course they were in the Philly suburbs.

But when I had my link to "Boston" sprawl, none of those were in Boston proper, they were all in the suburbs. When I had a link to "Buffalo" sprawl, very few of them were in Buffalo proper, most were in the suburbs. When I had a link to "Cleveland" sprawl, all of it was in Cleveland suburbs and not the city limits itself. And so on for most of the cities in my list.

The only reason why certain metro areas got special treatment for sub-areas is because those metro areas were so big, it was worthwhile to break them down into sub-areas. I've got 4 threads on metro LA sprawl, so I might as well subdivide them into their respective geographic regions and call it "Orange County, "Riverside County," and so on. Same with metro NYC - I've got "Bergen/Passaic Counties" as well as one for Long Island.

Philly just wasn't big enough to do that.

[Lecom]

Thanks for showing my county, the place where I spent my last four years. Each of those towns rings a bell on a whole separate set of memories.

Ahh high school. So glad I'm out of New Jersey for now.

[EtherealMist]

nice Jersey pics you covered alot of my home county (bergen). Probably the worst example of sprawl there was the pics of Paramus Mall's parking lots, god damn! Towns like Wyckoff are also pretty sprawled out I remember I went to a house party there one time and I couldnt get over how spread out everything was compared to my town.

[niwell]

Nice stuff. A lot of the "un-sprawl" looks like a pretty nice place to be.

It really gets me how big the lot sizes get as soon as you get into post-war development. Grid pattern or not, some of those lots are huge.

[hereinvannuys]

I lived in Woodcliff Lake, NJ and thought it was a beautiful town--with farms, winding roads, stone walls, large houses, streams. It has developed its farming into corporate campuses and the roads are now full of McMansions.

But the communities of Bergen County, NJ share nothing in common with the vast incoherant and non-governmental sprawl of Southern California where you wait an hour for a cop to answer your pleas for help and the schools and hospitals are falling apart and the freeways are jammed 24/7.

[dharper6]

[QUOTE=hereinvannuys;2532700]I lived in Woodcliff Lake, NJ and thought it was a beautiful town--with farms, winding roads, stone walls, large houses, streams. It has developed its farming into corporate campuses and the roads are now full of McMansions.

I lived in Bergen County (Ramsey) for a short time when I was a kid and remember it as one the best places I've ever experienced. My cousin's house where I stayed was at the highest point in the county. In one direction I could see the Ramapo Mountains (I think that was the name) and in the other the NYC skyline, both from his house.