This week I (little_silvered of the Jersey Shore Bubble Blog) am helping Grim with his blog while he is on vacation as he helped cover for me while I was on my vacation last week. Although I am more familiar with the Jersey Shore real estate market compared to North Jersey, I do keep an eye on what’s going on in Hudson County, particularly Hoboken.
Reading Craigslist and Hoboken real estate ads over the past few months I have noticed that Union City is being pushed pretty hard as the “new” Hoboken. Some real estate ads have gone so far as to call Union City “West Hoboken.” This is false advertising in my opinion since Union City is more like “North Jersey City” or “East Newark.” In any event, if you are thinking about buying a house or condo in West Hoboken, do not be fooled, there is no such place as West Hoboken.
The NY Post has an article today about Union City.
“December 10, 2005 — Hoboken. Jersey City. Montclair. For a decade these were the cities whose names were dropped when the conversation turned to New Jersey real estate. Well, it’s time to add another name to the list: Union City.
The traditionally quiet town, which lies just west of Hoboken, 200 feet above the Hudson River, has more than 30 new developments under way. Plans call for high-rise condos, a branch of the Hudson County Community College, the opening of a light rail station and three new schools to address the anticipated population growth.”
Yeah and if your part of the lower and lower middle class that lives there for generations you have been getting scared for the last three years, because where they hell do you go when they gentrify Union City? Hoboken getting super nice pushed a lot of people up the hill.
Go ride the 159 down bergenline your thinking more South Bronx or Western Jersey City and it’s very population dense.
West Hoboken HA!!!
Agreed.. Union City is far from being a part of Hoboken. It took Hoboken a LONG time to get where they are now. Lots of building in the early 80’s put them there.
Honestly I don’t see the hype of Hoboken, I guess it’s just the close proximity to the city, but then again, being close to the city doesn’t excite me much either. The farther away I am from the noise, filth, and pollution, the better off I am.
I’ll stick with the grass and trees, and won’t have to worry about squeezing my car into a parking spot with a shoe horn.
-Richie
i’m with your richie. unfortunately my wife grew up in queens and only knows an urban lifestyle. she just can’t seem to adjust well to the suburbs. this may force me to go back to a compromising area like hoboken (since nyc is out of the question due to high cost of housing). while it has some pluses it’s basically got too many old, run down single family homes and is congested with college kids just out of greek life.
Union City has a great infrastructure to become a new Hoboken. Bergenline Avenue could be as cool as Washington Street, but it would take MASSIVE spending and investment in already overpriced properties to get it to that level. (Also, many renters here are Section 8) to clue you in on the current demographic.
It would take about 15-20 years for this place to gentrify, and that would be a very difficult 20 years.
Journal Square in JC is a better bet right now. Union City is very, very shady.
this idea that every ghetto neighborhood is bound to gentrify sooner or later is ridiculous. I get so sick of reading articles in the NYtimes portraying these geniuses who move into a total hellhole as “urban pioneers” who will one day be filthy rich once everyone else discovers how great it is to be surrounded by projects.
there are only so many yuppies and most of them will only move to sketchy areas if there’s no other choice. as soon as the market drops, all of the upwardly mobile people bolt from “up and coming” areas to more established ones.
just because SoHo was once a sh*tty neighborhood does not mean that every sh*tty neighborhood will one day be SoHo. Last time I checked, there are about 10000 poor people for every one i-banker and most of them aren’t moving.
Also, what happens to all the people who can’t afford to live in all these revitalized areas?
They obviously can’t afford to live in the $450,000 one bedroom studio. It just puts a cruch on the low-income families. Then all these families have to team up and you have single family homes with 5 families in them. Then the schools get overcrowded. Taxes go up. City starts whining that they don’t have enough resources, blah blah blah.
Lack of proper planning in the cities leads us to these problems.
-Richie
Well, Liebeskind (sp?) of Freedom Tower fame is apparently designing a building for Union City.