11 Towns in Southern NJ That Suck The Most

This is absolutely vicious.

Now, let me start by saying I am a lifelong resident of South Jersey. I grew up in Collings Lakes, moved to Williamstown when I was four, I went to high school in Haddon Township (Paul VI Eagles!), and now live down the shore where I've worked in the Atlantic City area for nearly 25 years. With that said, it pains me to write this.

And note right up front: this is not my list of eleven towns that suck.

Grab a hoagie and let me es'plain.

I was perusing the internet the other day and I stumbled upon a recent article from Money Inc. that ranked the worst places to live in New Jersey.

Without reading the article and only the headline, perhaps you immediately thought of some cities in the Garden State that would automatically be on that list like I did. You know, the usual suspects: Newark, Camden, Trenton. Those cities are easy to beat up for the problems that they have.

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Then I read what they wrote.

Sure, those big cities are there, but many little South Jersey towns are, too.

If you think your sleepy little town couldn't possibly be on this list, think again. I mean, it includes some places you would never associate with being a horrible place to live.

And their descriptions are somewhere between savage and vicious.

For starters, they say,

New Jersey has a lot of great things going for it. But nowhere is completely immune to problems, New Jersey included. For every exclusive, glitzy beachside community, there’s a trouble spot. In some of New Jersey’s less salubrious destinations, unemployment and poverty rates are skyrocketing, while crime, drug dealing, and other nefarious activities are getting worse by the day.

At the top of the list is Newark, but a South Jersey town is right behind it at #2 -- and it's not Camden.

Eleven Towns That Suck the Most in South Jersey

Money Inc. used things like poverty rate, property values, quality of schools, and crime to rank the worst places to live in New Jersey. Here are the South Jersey cities that made their list.

These NJ towns have the highest rates of sexually transmitted diseases

Looking at data compiled by the Department of Health in 2019, the most recent year for which reports are available, we determined the rate of STDs for 1,000 people in every municipality. The data combines reports of chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis. For a different look, you can check out this article for a list of New Jersey towns that saw the highest increase in STD/STI cases in recent years.