Some New Jersey farmers say that the closing of several bank branches in rural parts of the state is making their jobs more difficult.
Demographers say that the current trend of closing bank branches is of no surprise. They say that as development booms in once-shrinking cities like Newark and Jersey City and smaller towns along rail lines, rural areas of Sussex, Hunterdon, Ocean and Monmouth counties are losing population.
“And very little traditional suburban development is going on. So the world has changed dramatically,” says James Hughes, dean of Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University.