10 NJ Towns You’ll Love to Live In — and 10 You Might Want to Avoid

While we all know New Jersey is the best state in the country, let's be honest — it's a rather unique part of the country.

For example, within a 30-minute drive, you can go from being in the middle of nowhere (hello, Salem County) to going past multi-million dollar houses, and then into an area where you probably don't want to be after sunset.

And regionally speaking, the shore is terrific, especially if you have millions of dollars to spend on a house, the Pine Barrens are incredible if you want to get away from it all, and the mountains in the northern part of the state are fantastic.

But we don't live in a utopia. No one does.

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With 9,500,000 people jammed into 7,354 square miles of land, we looked at the ten best and worst New Jersey cities to live in.

What Makes a City the “Best” or “Worst” in New Jersey?

Now, obviously, "best" and "worst" are subjective and relative terms, so let's briefly define them.

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For the top of the list, we turned to Travel & Leisure, which consulted with local real estate experts, and they took things like education and overall well-being into account.

Conversely, high crime rates were used to rank the worst cities.

Explore the top 10 best and worst cities to live in New Jersey based on safety, education, and quality of life. See if your town made the list! Ten best cities to live in 2025, the ten worst cities to live in 2025