Above: Trenton is located on the "fall line", where the Delaware shifts from a pure, fresh-water flow to a tidal estuary. It is an urban center surrounded by suburban sprawl.

We have a neighbor in the Mill Hill section of Trenton, who celebrated his 90th birthday in late 2009.  Jon lives alone in a lovely, restored row home.  Most days he steps out of his house to shop for food:  John doesn't own a car, so he walks or rides a bicycle to the store and most other places he needs to go.  When he needs to go to NYC, which he does a couple of times a month, he'll walk to the train station and hop the train into the city.  He's a frequent, and highly opinionated contributor to the neighborhood "e-group", and is often greeted and engaged by his neighbors as he makes his way around the neighborhood. 

We're not suggesting that Jon is a typical 90-year-old.  But we are pointing out that in Trenton he is able to live a sustainable life-style that would simply be impossible to duplicate in many of the suburban settlements that have sprung up around Trenton, and across NJ and much of the United States in the post WWII period.

Density Works

Part of what makes living in Trenton so gracious is that the population density of its intact neighborhoods is just about perfect.  It's dense enough so you get to know your neighbors.  Dense enough that at least some amenities are within walking distance.  But not so dense that it traps the summer heat or ever feels oppressive.

From many neighborhoods in Trenton you can walk to the Train station.  From all of Trenton, you can cycle to the staion, or walk to a bus stop or the River Line and take public transit.  If you want to drive to the station, you can, and it's a 5 minute drive through an urban grid system of streets, with typically no traffic bottlenecks.

Energy Efficient Building Styles

The typical, fully detatched suburban home loses heat on 5 surfaces: through four exterior walls and the roof.  It is inherently less energy efficient than many urban styles: a row house saves heat by sharing common walls on two surfaces.  And a typical interior loft shares common walls on 4 surfaces.  These urban styles were invented when the real cost of energy was higher than today.  As energy prices maintain their relentless upward pressure, we're rediscovering how wise these inventors were.

Trenton's Time is Now, Again

Even if developers wanted to perpetuate the car-centered, sprawl-producing pattern of development of the past few decades, in NJ they can't, since virtually every large tract of land has been developed.   Population growth will have to be accomodated in the state's cities.  Trenton, which once had a population of 125,000 people (and is now about 80,000) is prefectly placed to catch the "next wave" of development.