The New Jersey Meadowlands represents a model of planning we call regional simply because it extends across municipal lines in a state with a very powerful tradition of municipal control over land use. The Meadowlands are marshlands along the Hackensack River within sight of Manhattan. Once considered wasted land, these tidal marshes suffered hundreds of years of insult and injury at human hands, much of it as dumping grounds for all forms of waste.
Enormously successful in restoring natural resources and promoting sustainable development in New Jersey’s industrial heartland, the Meadowlands program is important for two reasons. It represents a creative effort to restore badly degraded natural resources in an intensively developed context, and, of greatest national interest, it incorporates one of only two functioning tax base sharing programs in the United States (the other being the well-known Twin Cities program).
Vital Statistics:
Chapter of the Book: 8
State: NJ
Year Established: 1969
Geographic Scale: 25,000 acres
Mandatory or Voluntary over Local Government: Mandatory
Authorizing Laws: State
Agencies and Organizations:
Resources:
Hackensack Meadowlands Reclamation and Development Act, N.J.S.A. 13:17-1 et seq.
Strategic Review of the Meadowlands Master Plan
NJ Meadowlands Comprehensive Action Plan
NJ Meadowlands Tax Sharing Program