Building Blind: Is New Jersey’s Development Boom Overwhelming Schools and Flooding Homes?
If you want to know where the state is growing, don’t listen to speeches. Follow the permits. The NJ DCA 2024 housing permit numbers tell a story of towns building towers while others are sticking to cul-de-sacs with a few re-imagining shopping strips as live-work hubs. This while communities struggle to deal with infrastructure impact and working families still wait...
NJ21st Investigates Berkeley Heights Storm Damage Assessment
Emergency Bond Spending in Berkeley Heights- Storm Recovery or Misplaced Priorities? by Laura Kapuscinski I visited the majority of specific addresses listed in the Township Storm Damage Assessment. . My research was based on the very specific house numbers and scope of work listed on the Township’s Assessment Report. While several houses did not seem to have sustained noticeable damage,...
Debris Chokes Passaic River: Post-Storm Visit Raises Questions for Berkeley Heights Mayor and Council
Debris Chokes Passaic River: Post-Storm Visit Raises Questions for Berkeley Heights Mayor and Council -Michael Leblond Last week’s town council meeting brought renewed attention to debris in the Passaic River, with one resident saying an eight-foot section of fencing was swept away in the July 14 flood. The following day, I visited Passaic River Park at the end of Lawrence...
What 10 Years of Wage Data Tell Us About Living in New Jersey
Over the past decade, wages in New Jersey have gone up—but in many cases, not enough to keep pace with the rising cost of living. NJ21st looked at state and federal labor data to see how different industries have fared since 2013, adjusting for inflation using local cost-of-living data from the New York–Newark metro area. Some sectors did well. Others,...
Statewide Justice Trends – Visualizing New Jersey’s Prison Landscape
Beyond the raw figures of New Jersey’s justice system are countless individual lives, each deeply shaped by everything from where they grew up to their racial background. This report, using the most recent data from March 2025, may be a starting point in understanding how poverty and entrenched inequalities determine who ends up in prison and for how long. While...
From Social Services to Software: A Breakdown of NJ State Vendor Spending
New Jersey spent more than $3.1 billion on vendors during Fiscal Year 2024 — paying for everything from social services and environmental cleanup to consulting contracts and IT infrastructure. But who got paid, how much, and by which agency? Thanks to data published by the New Jersey Department of the Treasury available through NJ’s Open Data Portal, the public can...
A Tale of Two Systems: Comparing City and Suburban School Districts in New Jersey
In New Jersey, public education is shaped not only by state standards and funding formulas, but by local context — especially the economic and demographic makeup of each district. This report compares two distinct groups of school districts: seven suburban districts serving some of the state’s wealthiest communities, and seven city districts serving some of its most economically disadvantaged. While...
Out-of-School Placement Rates in NJ Special Education: By Year and Subgroup
This report presents a multi-year overview of special education placement patterns in New Jersey from 2020 to 2024, focusing on students with disabilities ages 5–21. Using publicly available data from the New Jersey Department of Education, it tracks the percentage of students placed in out-of-school settings—such as separate schools, residential facilities, and home/hospital instruction—across a range of demographic groups. The...
2025 NJ21st 7-District Interactive School Performance Dashboard
We are pleased to announce the launch of NJ21st’s interactive dashboard, developed to help users explore school performance data for each of the seven districts in our region (Berkeley Heights, New Providence, Westfield, Millburn, Chatham,Madison and Summit) . Based on data from the New Jersey School Performance Reports, this tool provides a clear snapshot of academic outcomes and school climate...
2025 NJ21st 7-District Interactive School Performance Dashboard
Data on Dashboard based on 2023-2024 NJ School Performance Reports Return to Main Page
nj21st.com (with the exception of featured images and logo) is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
