By now you probably heard that according to a real estate website Toms River is not a very exciting place to live which may or may not be true. 

Toms River Municipal Building
Toms River Municipal Building (Kevin Williams, Townsquare Media NJ)
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The Movato Real Estate blog placed Toms River in a fifth place tie among the ten most boring places to live in New Jersey and in truth the ranking could be even worse.  That’s because small towns were not considered in the report which ranked Pleasantville as the most boring city in our state followed by Carteret, East Orange and Hawthorne.

The Township of Toms River was tied with boring Bridgeton for the fifth spot with Perth Amboy, South Plainfield, Roselle and Elmwood Park rounding out the dubious top ten.

Of course if you live in Toms River you might be offended and would question what determined the listing of boring towns. First, based on the 2010 census they took the 50 most populated places in New Jersey and then used the following criteria: population density, percentage of residents between the ages of 18-34, percentage of fast food restaurants and non fast food restaurants, Arts & Entertainment, live music venues, nightlife, and active life options.  

What clearly hurt the county seat is what you’ll find in many areas of Ocean County and that is a fairly old demographic with only 18% of Toms River’s population between the ages of 18-34.In truth there is not a lot going for that age group and TR got low grades for having too many fast food restaurants and not enough unique dining options. 

I would like to give a shout-out to three recently-opened restaurants in the 08753 zip code.  Former US Olympian Jesse Goldstein has opened Pub 1850 in the Silverton section, Bob Hansen has Chris Roberts Italian Grill & Bistro on Route 37 East and Sandy Cohen just recently opened the Good Eatz Café in downtown Toms River.  In addition the Water Street Grill has opened a new outdoor deck this summer which has been quite popular.

So back to the boring list. Toms River is still a very good place to live, raise a family and work and of course the home of us at Townsquare Media.  However with a population closing in on 100,000 you do wish at times there was a bit more to do.  Of course I have to believe it’s more exciting here than Bridgeton. At least I hope so. 

 


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