'Garden State' is often used to describe New Jersey with a sense of irony, but the nickname is less a myth than a testament to the complex and often contradictory identity of the state. Today New Jersey is both dense and dispersed, organized more by flows of people, goods and information than by landscape or geography. The effects of Hurricane Sandy were only the most dramatic of the many challenges facing the state as it attempts to renew, update and redesign its existing systems. With only piecemeal statewide planning, residents depend heavily on systems of transportation and mobility. But as those systems age and decay they must be updated to serve the changing needs of the state. Garden [City] State examines the existing infrastructures of New Jersey in relation to the changing social, economic and environmental needs of the region. Taking the form of an atlas, it outlines a new strategy of mobility and development in which digital media, personal mobility, and networked technologies are inseparable.
This hybrid system is presented in a provocative collection of essays, maps, and collages focused on 10 New Jersey communities: New Brunswick, Princeton, Florence-Roebling, Cherry Hill, Hammonton, Atlantic City, Red Bank, Point Pleasant, Toms River, The Amboys.