ABSTRACT
New Jersey's evolving patterns of land use, population density, and industrialization have always been intimately related to transportation efficiency and accessibility. Canals had long been advocated, mostly to develop the growing western trade by overcoming the nonnavigability of the natural rivers to the west of the fall-line cities. New Jersey built a similarly cumbersome, and likewise ultimately unsuccessful, canal across its mountains - Morris Canal. New Jersey has long capitalized on its position astride the transport backbone of the evolving megalopolis. Atlantic City had quickly captured an enormous tourist hinterland, thanks to the speed and convenience of the trains. Its success inspired frantic endeavors to initiate reasonable facsimiles of Atlantic City on every beach along the coast. There are a number of statistical methods of ranking ports, which is why several different ports can assert that they are ranked above New York-New Jersey. The Delaware River ports have several handicaps compared to the New York-New Jersey port.
