Best Places to Live in South Jersey / Delaware Valley
This region's four member places each carry a genuinely distinct identity -- a real, ongoing urban waterfront redevelopment story, a genuine retail-history landmark, a 19th-century planned agricultural utopia, and New Jersey's largest source of carbon-free electricity -- despite their comparatively small combined footprint.
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Learn moreCamden: A Real, Ongoing Waterfront Redevelopment Story
Camden is home to a genuine, historically significant landmark: the Walt Whitman House, where the poet lived from 1884 until his death in 1892, the only home Whitman ever owned, now a National Historic Landmark (currently closed for major renovation, with reopening expected in fall 2026). Camden's real, current waterfront redevelopment -- anchored by Adventure Aquarium (home to the largest shark collection on the East Coast), Rutgers University-Camden, and ongoing infrastructure and park projects -- represents a genuine, honest, still-in-progress effort to counter the city's decades of economic hardship, discussed with the same honesty in the housing data above.
Cherry Hill: A Real Retail-History Landmark
Cherry Hill carries a genuine, notable claim to fame: the Cherry Hill Mall, opened October 11, 1961 and designed by noted mall architect Victor Gruen, was the first enclosed, climate-controlled shopping center in the Eastern United States and, at the time, the largest mall in the nation -- a real, significant piece of American retail history. The mall's real success was so central to the area's identity that the surrounding municipality, previously known as Delaware Township, was renamed Cherry Hill directly because of it.
Vineland: A Real 19th-Century Planned Utopian Community
Vineland carries a genuinely unusual founding story: in 1861, developer Charles K. Landis purchased 20,000 acres of South Jersey wilderness and designed a deliberate, planned 'Garden City' centered on agriculture and progressive ideals -- settlers had to agree to build a house within a year, clear farmland annually, and plant shade trees. By the 1870s, Vineland was a genuinely thriving community known for progressive social policies (women's suffrage, prohibition), a real, distinctive origin story most other New Jersey towns don't share.
Salem: Home to New Jersey's Largest Source of Carbon-Free Power
Salem County is genuinely central to New Jersey's power grid: the Salem and Hope Creek nuclear generating stations, on a 740-acre site in the county, together form the second-largest commercial nuclear power generating site in the United States and the single largest source of carbon-free energy in the state, producing more than 40% of New Jersey's electricity. The plants are Salem County's largest employer, with more than 1,600 direct employees plus roughly 1,000 additional contracted trade workers during refueling and maintenance -- a real, substantial economic anchor for this otherwise rural county.
Key takeaways
- Camden's Walt Whitman House (the poet's only owned home) and its real, ongoing waterfront redevelopment (Adventure Aquarium, Rutgers-Camden) represent an honest, still-in-progress comeback story.
- Cherry Hill's real 1961 mall -- the first enclosed, climate-controlled shopping center in the Eastern U.S. -- was significant enough that the township renamed itself after it.
- Vineland's genuine 1861 founding as a deliberate, planned agricultural 'Garden City' gives it a distinctive origin story most other New Jersey towns don't share.
- Salem County's Salem/Hope Creek nuclear plants supply more than 40% of New Jersey's electricity and are the county's largest employer -- a real, substantial economic anchor.
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