From NJBiz.com:
For years New Jersey has won kudos for successfully marketing itself as summer’s ideal vacation spot with its “New Jersey and You” campaign, and for using its “Jersey Fresh” promotions to remind people that they live in the Garden State.Yet when it comes to the state’s image as place to do business, New Jersey has long suffered a black eye. This stems from a combination of high taxes and operating costs, and a regulatory environment many businesspeople view as hostile. “Perception is definitely part of the problem,” says Bob Franks, president of the New Brunswick-based Health Care Institute of New Jersey, which represents the state’s large pharmaceutical companies. “You see rankings conducted by a variety of national business magazines that rank New Jersey’s economy and business climate relatively low among other states.”
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But, in terms of its business climate, New Jersey is like a Rodney Dangerfield of states that gets no respect. “There’s a psychology that ‘New Jersey has never been a good place for business, so why bother,’” says Diane Brake, president of the Trenton-based Regional Planning Partnership, a nonprofit smart-growth research and advocacy group. “That really is an attitude that has to change.”
Also from NJBiz.com:
So many crucial economic issues are hurtling together in New Jersey these days that it almost takes a scorecard to keep track of them all. From weak employment growth to dwindling fiscal resources to efforts to rein in property taxes, the state is clearly at a turning point in its economic life.The outcome of these issues will have a strong bearing on New Jersey’s ability to provide a healthy environment for businesses to grow and create good jobs. Without an expanding base of private employment, the entire state could suffer the fate of once-vibrant and now impoverished cities from which manufacturers have fled.