http://news.google.com

You just described my childhood in south jersey in the 70s and 80s. Marlton to be specific when it was still a bit rural.

Guido transplants from south philly or 100% 4th gen redneck.

I was amazed that I kept meeting people who loved BR and commuted to NY from BR for 10+ years. They were spending 4 to 5 hours a day commuting. When would they have time or energy to enjoy their hometown? Bonkers

Actually i think I’ll change my handle to bonkerz. more appropriate on many levels

Nicholas,

That’s not the whole picture. The spreads have gone bonzo. Many are taking delivery, storing it, and selling the back months against the physical.

The public has spoken, and we’ve listened. In response to demand for information about our country’s financial challenges, CNN/U.S. will air the broadcast premiere of the acclaimed documentary I.O.U.S.A. on on Saturday, January 10 at 2:00 p.m. EST and on Sunday, January 11 at 3:00 p.m. EST. Accompanying the documentary will be an unscripted panel discussion with policy leaders about various economic solutions currently under consideration.

This exclusive televised event will air only on CNN, and will be hosted by Ali Velshi and Christine Romans, co-anchors of CNN’s Your $$$$$, the network’s weekend business roundtable program.

Throughout I.O.U.S.A.’s broadcast premiere, Velshi and Romans will engage a distinguished group of panelists, including Pete Peterson, Chairman of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation and former U.S. Commerce Secretary; Dave Walker, President and CEO of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation and former U.S. Comptroller General; Alice Rivlin, noted economist and former Director of the Office of Management and Budget; and Bill Bradley, a Managing Director of Allen & Company and former U.S. Senator and Democratic presidential candidate, in discussions about issues raised in the film and their ties to current economic events.

No worries. There’s a river of wealth running under Manhattan.
/off sarcasm

Newark-Union
Essex County
Hunterdon County
Morris County
Sussex County
Union County

Edison-New Brunswick
Middlesex County
Monmouth County
Ocean County
Somerset County

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_Statistical_Areas_of_New_Jersey

For additional information.

WSJ reporting is pretty balanced. Op-ed is a different story.

Contrast that to NYT/LAT/Globe/Post, which puts their liberal spin in the story selection and the content itself. Or the Post, which does the same thing, only with a conservative spin.

It isn’t enough to read the Op-Ed; look at what the news outlet chooses to cover, and how they present it. I find that to be a surer measure of bias.

America’s 25 Weakest Housing Markets

There is another region where the worst may be to come: New York City-area metros. Housing values in Newark, N.J., could fall 26%.

Likewise, Edison, N.J., is also among the mid-sized metro areas expected to see the steepest drops this year. But the worst could be over by the end of 2009 for New York’s satellite cities.

Manhattan, now at the epicenter of the financial crisis, is noticeably absent from the top 25 weakest markets list. So far, the city has been isolated from the popping bubbles in the rest of the country.

Property prices were rising in Manhattan until early last year. Zandi believes Manhattan could be spared a steep drop. He expects a fall of around 20%. Even if big bankers lose their bonuses, “Manhattan is still supported by international demand,” he says.

That prediction may prove conservative. The value of new contracts signed have already dipped 15% to 20% in the fourth quarter, according to a Beige Book report from the U.S. Federal Reserve last month.

The report said much of the activity came from “desperate sellers,” so it may not be a fair gauge of where prices will go from here.

Of course, that depends on how many more sellers become desperate.

I can say the same about Basking Ridge.
My fondest memories of my time in Brigadoon West aka Basking Ridge

1) Seeing stay at home moms and children in designer clothes at the local playgrounds, with some moms saying how they were happy hubby went back to work cause they were about to lose the house. Now they can go back to remodeling.

2) My neighbor telling me she was keeping her kid out of kindergarden for another year because BR was so competitive, and she knew of 15 other families doing the same for the 2009-10 school year. I wanted to shout “it’s f*cking kindegarden, what’s wring with you people”

3) A pitbull came after my 3 year old son. I stepped between my son and the dog, which broke his charge. The cute doggie kept trying to get behind me to go after my kid and followed me to my car while I was carrying my son. I was going to carmegeddon the cutie, but he took off.

4) Any time it snowed I could instantly tell when I had entered BR because the streets were so lousy. I guess all the high taxes don’t go for plowing the roads.