[dec0dedab0de]

Boston, DC, Philadelphia, and Baltimore are all reasonable drives away and NYC is right next door.

not to nitpick, but Philadelphia is just as close as NYC (maybe even closer) I routinely joke that Philadelphia and NYC are part of New Jersey, usually to upset citizens of said cities. Then I point out that the culture in those cities is much more like NJ than the rest of their own states.

[SmellTheGlove]

I grew up in NJ - I'd do the same thing to rile people up, but deep down I knew: South Jersey is part of Philly, and anything north of Mercer Co is basically NY. Except for the shore counties - they hate all of us equally. So I consider them to be New Yorkers out of spite.

[dec0dedab0de]

Most of the "hate" is just as superficial as programmers teasing people that use other languages, or sysadmins trash talking other operating systems. I can see the Walt Whitman bridge from the end of my road, and I have made friends with plenty of people from North, and Central Jersey.

...Another fun one is to pretend that Central Jersey doesn't exist, or to claim to be a proud Shoobie (or Benny) to the shore people :-)

[SmellTheGlove]

Totally. Jersey Pride is actually a unifying force. Kind of like how we all pretend to not like Seaside and Wildwood.