All three are in “strong affluent market areas,” said James Hughes, a professor of urban planning and policy development at Rutgers University in New Brunswick.
“So all locations have high market potential for repurposing — demonstrated strong consumer purchasing power,” Hughes wrote in an email.
“The town — if it’s a redevelopment area — is in the driver’s seat,” said James Hughes, a professor of urban planning and policy development at Rutgers University in New Brunswick. “They could acquire the land and totally control it.”
Professor Clint Andrews takes his students on a field trip to the Jersey Shore for his class Temporality in Housing Markets: The Jersey Shore Case
Urban centers like Newark and Jersey City, as well as downtowns like Ridgewood and Westfield, rebounded in the past decade and drew back dollars that had gone to malls, Hughes said.
By themselves, any one of those factors could have caused malls to struggle, other than the top-tier ones in New Jersey like Garden State Plaza and American Dream…
“Sort of the perfect storm hit,” Hughes said of Livingston Mall.
On Monday, December 15, 2025, the New Jersey Target Zero Commission officially adopted the first New Jersey Target Zero Action Plan, reaching a major milestone in the State’s goal to eliminate all roadway fatalities and serious injuries in the state by 2040. The New Jersey Target Zero Action Plan is now publicly accessible via the New Jersey Department of Transportation’s Target Zero Webpage.
“New Jersey is a state whose politics are controlled by political machines, and they like to know who’s going to vote,” Julia Sass Rubin said. “And the primary is the most important election in New Jersey, because we don’t have very competitive general elections for the most part.”
“The Northeast region’s economy is really dependent on the Northeast corridor, particularly linking Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York and Boston,” Hughes said. “Once you stop a project it’s very difficult to start again.”
New Jersey’s energy infrastructure has essentially been underdeveloped for years, observed Clinton J. Andrews, director of the Center for Urban Policy Research at the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning & Public Policy at Rutgers. That shortage of capacity is a big reason why New Jersey utility customers “are being hit with these crazy cost spikes.
“It was an earthquake that definitely left cracks in the wall,” said Julia Sass Rubin, an associate dean at Rutgers University’s Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy. “But the wall is still there, for now.”
Congratulations to Andrea Hetling, Ph.D., on her appointment to the Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management (APPAM) Policy Council, the organization’s governing board. In this role, Dr. Hetling will help shape APPAM’s strategic direction and policy priorities.