Nassau and Bergen

[King of Kensington]

These counties seem pretty similar demographically but Bergen looks to have become more liberal relative to Nassau since 2008, and Trump had less appeal there.

Closer proximity to Manhattan?  More transplants/less insular than Long Island? 

[Matty]

The state of NY had some pretty bizarre results imo. I did not expect trump to do so well on well educated and upscale long island.

Hillary won some counties upstate that I thought trump would win by 10+.

My pre-election prediction map for NY had trump winning virtually every county outside of NYC and close suburbs, except for albany and buffalo.

I had clinton winning long island as well.

[(Still) muted by Kalwejt until March 31]

The state of NY had some pretty bizarre results imo. I did not expect trump to do so well on well educated and upscale long island.

Hillary won some counties upstate that I thought trump would win by 10+.

My pre-election prediction map for NY had trump winning virtually every county outside of NYC and close suburbs, except for albany and buffalo.

I had clinton winning long island as well.

-Yeah; Suffolk's strong showing for Trump was almost as surprising as Orange County's strong showing for HRC. The difference seems to be in owner-occupied housing and percentage Hispanic.
www.census.gov/quickfacts/table/PST045216/06059,36103

[The Free North]

Bergen is a bit wealthier on the whole and is home to more highly educated upper middle class suburbanites (including quite a few Jews as well). Nassau has its wealthy areas but there are some middle and lower middle class areas that fit into Trumps demographic much better.

[Tintrlvr]

The main difference these days is that Bergen has a lot more Asians, about double the percentage in Nassau. There are other differences as well; the higher Asian presence in Bergen is indicative of key differences in the white populations as well.

[King of Kensington]

Bergen is a bit wealthier on the whole and is home to more highly educated upper middle class suburbanites (including quite a few Jews as well). Nassau has its wealthy areas but there are some middle and lower middle class areas that fit into Trumps demographic much better.

Isn't Bergen's Jewish population heavily Orthodox?

[(Still) muted by Kalwejt until March 31]

Bergen is very much a part of the Acela corridor.

[King of Kensington]

College graduates:

Bergen  46%
Nassau  42%

Graduate/professional degree:

Nassau  19%
Bergen  17%

$100,000+ HH income:

Nassau  49%
Bergen  42%

$200,000+ HH income:

Nassau  16%
Bergen  14%

[King of Kensington]

So Nassau has more high earning households, but Bergen has more college graduates.

In some ways, Bergen looks like a Westchester-Nassau hybrid.

[Tintrlvr]

Bergen is a bit wealthier on the whole and is home to more highly educated upper middle class suburbanites (including quite a few Jews as well). Nassau has its wealthy areas but there are some middle and lower middle class areas that fit into Trumps demographic much better.

Isn't Bergen's Jewish population heavily Orthodox?

Not at all. There's significant clusters of Orthodox in Englewood and Teaneck (which are both very Democratic because they also have large minority populations). Fair Lawn has some also. That's pretty much it. Fort Lee and Tenafly have eruvin but very few Orthodox, in the latter case because Tenafly is extremely expensive due to great public schools, and the Orthodox don't care about public schools so won't pay to live there (conversely Englewood and Teaneck have mediocre schools so are cheaper and thus draw more Orthodox). Otherwise the Orthodox population is negligible. It's not like Rockland County. Or, for that matter, Nassau, which has a lot more Orthodox than Bergen.

[King of Kensington]

Not at all. There's significant clusters of Orthodox in Englewood and Teaneck (which are both very Democratic because they also have large minority populations). Fair Lawn has some also. That's pretty much it. Fort Lee and Tenafly have eruvin but very few Orthodox, in the latter case because Tenafly is extremely expensive due to great public schools, and the Orthodox don't care about public schools so won't pay to live there (conversely Englewood and Teaneck have mediocre schools so are cheaper and thus draw more Orthodox). Otherwise the Orthodox population is negligible. It's not like Rockland County. Or, for that matter, Nassau, which has a lot more Orthodox than Bergen.

That seems like a good number of "exceptions."

[King of Kensington]

Maybe this thread is more appropriately placed in Political Geography and Demographics?

[BaldEagle1991]

Favorite son effect

[King of Kensington]

Bergen has a lot more diversity in housing than Nassau: only 53% of dwellings are detached houses in Bergen, compared to 75% in Nassau. 

[King of Kensington]

Bergen does have a large Orthodox Jewish population.  26% of Jewish households in Bergen are Orthodox.

http://www.jewishdatabank.org/Studies/downloadFile.cfm?FileID=3405

[Tintrlvr]

Bergen does have a large Orthodox Jewish population.  26% of Jewish households in Bergen are Orthodox.

http://www.jewishdatabank.org/Studies/downloadFile.cfm?FileID=3405

This is blatantly overstating the number of Jews in the Orthodox areas and understating the number of Jews elsewhere. No doubt there are Orthodox in Bergen County, but the idea that they are 26% of Jews in Bergen County when they live in just a handful of towns is pretty ridiculous. The survey asserts that somewhat over a quarter of Bergen County Jews live in just Teaneck and Bergenfield (which are only about 8% of the population of the county taken as a whole and also minority-majority so cannot be more than 35% Jewish even if close to every white person there is a Jew*), absurd on its face.

*Probably not all that far from the truth for Teaneck; less so for Bergenfield, which has (or had, before the large influx of Filipinos and Colombians in recent years) a lot of lower income Catholic (mostly Italian) whites.

Not at all. There's significant clusters of Orthodox in Englewood and Teaneck (which are both very Democratic because they also have large minority populations). Fair Lawn has some also. That's pretty much it. Fort Lee and Tenafly have eruvin but very few Orthodox, in the latter case because Tenafly is extremely expensive due to great public schools, and the Orthodox don't care about public schools so won't pay to live there (conversely Englewood and Teaneck have mediocre schools so are cheaper and thus draw more Orthodox). Otherwise the Orthodox population is negligible. It's not like Rockland County. Or, for that matter, Nassau, which has a lot more Orthodox than Bergen.

That seems like a good number of "exceptions."

I only named three places with significant Orthodox populations. Would add Bergenfield that has some spillover from Teaneck. Teaneck, Englewood, Bergenfield and Fair Lawn together are only about 15% of the population of the county, and none of them (except maybe Teaneck, but Teaneck is minority-majority, so Orthodox are most likely outnumbered by blacks) is predominantly Orthodox Jewish.

[King of Kensington]

Bergen isn't your standard upper middle class Reform-dominated suburban Jewish community:

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http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/bergen-county-new-jersey

A bit dated (but the Orthodox would likely have grown or at least not shrunk).  Still 20% are in Teaneck/Englewood alone.  Fair Lawn has a significant Orthodox Jewish community as well.

[Tintrlvr]

None of this refutes my statements. The central problem is that Jews outside of the Orthodox strongholds are being undercounted (and, in surveys, Jews in Orthodox strongholds are overcounted). Places like Closter, Glen Rock, Ridgewood and Tenafly have a ton of moderate Jews but are being undercounted in the surveys for whatever reason.

Although I guess it's been about a decade since I lived in the area; maybe the Orthodox population has truly exploded and the non-Orthodox population collapsed. But I have a tough time believing that the ~17,000 Jews in Teaneck and Bergenfield make up a quarter of Bergen County's Jewish population, as the survey that asserts 26% Orthodox has in its survey, and even there a minority of Jews were Orthodox in my experience, though definitely with certain Orthodox stronghold neighborhoods.

[King of Kensington]

Not always.  Sometimes Orthodox Jews are undercounted in community surveys.  But that's more a problem among the ultra-orthodox than the Modern Orthodox, and it's the latter group that dominate among the Orthodox in Bergen.

So basically you're saying these Jewish community studies are completely out to lunch because you know there are all these undercounted secular and Reform Jews in places like Alpine and Franklin Lakes?

[Tintrlvr]

Not always.  Sometimes Orthodox Jews are undercounted in community surveys.  But that's more a problem among the ultra-orthodox than the Modern Orthodox, and it's the latter group that dominate among the Orthodox in Bergen.

So basically you're saying these Jewish community studies are completely out to lunch because you know there are all these undercounted secular and Reform Jews in places like Alpine and Franklin Lakes?

They admit it in their surveys, too (they talk about undercounts in areas of lower Jewish population in the description of survey itself).

[King of Kensington]

It's also not uncommon for non-Orthodox Jews to leave a community when it reaches an Orthodox "tipping point."  The Five Towns in LI for example were initially dominated by non-Orthodox Jews.  This has happened in other places too like North York in Toronto.  It's likely happened in Teaneck as well.

[King of Kensington]

To the broader point:  Both Nassau and Bergen have sizable Orthodox and non-Orthodox Jewish communities, and I'm not sure if Nassau is really more Orthodox-dominated than Bergen.