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When you hear the phrase "primeval old-growth forest," chances are New Jersey doesn't spring immediately to mind. But the state known for jokes about its mammoth turnpike does in fact boast such a pristine wilderness: a 65-acre one. In Franklin Township. This surprising 46-square-mile municipality, home to several different villages, also contains a towpath along a 19th-century canal beloved by bikers and runners, and bucolic back roads dotted with colonial houses and working farms. "The other day I saw a fox in my backyard," says Angela Wen-Bianchi, 37, a full-time mother who moved here in 1998. Is this place really just an hour from Manhattan?
Residents can catch a train to New York City in neighboring New Brunswick, which also has good restaurants and theaters, but they need not head to the big city to find jobs. There are plenty of high-tech, pharmaceutical and research and development firms in the area, not to mention Princeton just to the south and Rutgers and Robert Wood Johnson Medical School to the north. What's more, housing is a deal-for this part of the country, anyway. Starter homes go for less than $250,000 in Somerset (the neighborhood closest to Manhattan); a lovely Cape Cod on nearly an acre in the verdant historical village of Griggstown recently listed for $369,500. And the solid school system has a 95% graduation rate.
On the downside, New Jersey's tax burden is notoriously high. The township's property taxes run about $7,000 for the typical $385,000 three-bedrooom, two-bath house. Still, for overall affordability, convenience and natural beauty, as well as remarkable economic, religious and ethnic diversity, nowhere else in Jersey-and few places anywhere-can match it.

 Article from Money Magazine 2008

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