Hoboken....The Edgecity

I recently visited Hoboken, which is a small city in New Jersey right on the outskirts of Manhattan. In fact to get into New York City all you have to do is hop on The Path and it’s a ten minute subway ride and you will find yourself in Penn Station. Hoboken is all of one square mile but it is a bustling city all on its own. It is filled with young adults, usually fresh out of college, who are trying to make it on their own for the first time. It is now considered a hip and fresh place for college grads to go and the atmosphere shows this. Bars are on every street and 27 year olds rule the city, walking around causing mayhem of all sorts. Each apartment has a “backyard” or a small piece of a courtyard to spruce up any way the owners want. Every set of apartments has a courtyard in the back of it that the different apartment buildings share and it forms a fun sense of community. One can see into everyone elses backyard yet it is not too intrusive that there is no privacy.

Once returning to Fairleigh I shared my Hoboken experience with my suitemates and told them that I thought it seemed like a great place for us to continue our style of living once we graduate college. I explained to them that it was almost like a suburb outside the city that still gave its occupants a city life feeling. After class on Tuesday I found a name for Hoboken, an Expolis. This means that the Central Business District has exploded like a zit as Haskaj would say. It has become too overcrowded for the one small area to handle and has spread out all around the CBD. This causes many multi-pole cities and cities on the edge. Hoboken would be one of these cities on the edge, and edgecity (tough terminology right?). While discussing these different types of city expansion Hoboken popped right into my head. I had been wondering what it would be considered because it is not really a suburb even though it is a town on the outskirts of the city. It has too many components of an actual city and fits perfectly into the Edgecity definition.

Hoboken in general is a very fun place and if you are looking to find out more about the city check out this blog.

http://thehobokenjournal.blogspot.com/2009/03/peter-cammarano-denounces-state.html

It discusses all sorts of political, social, and economic issues that face the residents of Hoboken today.