One town forward, two towns back

January 26, 2012 8:21 AM

My colleagues in New Jersey often refer to places as "the next town over" or "two towns down from me." I get the general idea, but as life-long Southern Californian, I feel like I'm not getting the full, nuanced meaning.

For example, is Culver City one town down from Beverly Hills? Venice from Santa Monica? Reseda from Encino?

Despite some of these places having their own local governments and school districts, I and most Angelino's really view these as neighborhoods.

Would a better analog be Glendale, Pasadena, Burbank? This seems better to my mind from a distance and cultural perspective, but it still feels funny because there's no open space between Glendale and Burbank. Are there just no towns in SoCal? If that's the case, can someone describe this concept?

posted by bluejayway to Religion & Philosophy (26 answers total)

"The next town over" means a town that shares a border.

"Two towns down" means a town which shares a border with the next town over, but no borders with the town it is two towns down from.

So, for example, to put it in Massachusetts terms: Cambridge is the next town over from Boston.

Arlington is two towns over from Boston, as it is the next town over from Cambridge, but shares no borders with Boston.

That said, exactly what constitutes a "town" will be different from one person to the next. This is true everywhere, not just SoCal.
posted by FAMOUS MONSTER at 8:31 AM on January 26, 2012 [2 favorites]

For SoCal I'd probably think of Oxnard as being "2 towns over" from Thousand Oaks. The idea being, I guess, that there's a single road with a series of cities along it. When you get into these more populated areas like you mention, they're not so much towns as they are "regions" because they're not seperated by empty space - the way much of the rest of america is. Dallas and Houston are similar to SoCal - you have to get well outside of them before it stops merging all together. (Conroe, Porter, etc)
posted by RustyBrooks at 8:32 AM on January 26, 2012

That said, exactly what constitutes a "town" will be different from one person to the next. This is true everywhere, not just SoCal.

Definitely true, but I doubt anyone would say Cambridge is "the next town over" from Boston. Westford may be the next town over from Chelmsford--but with dense urban areas like Boston and Cambridge, I've never heard the phrase used.

That's why I don't think you see it in the densest parts of SoCal--but Murieta is the "next town over" from Temecula, sure, why not?
posted by Admiral Haddock at 8:38 AM on January 26, 2012 [1 favorite]

Best answer: California is vastly more spread out than NJ, which is very compact.

New York city, you wouldn't say 'next town over' when you're talking about the boroughs, just as you wouldn't do that for LA or San Fran - because they are cities. when you get out of the cities in Cali, the towns are not typically right up against eachother as boroughs are in a city. But in NJ, may towns are as close or almost as close to eachother, so the lines get a little blurred.
posted by rich at 8:47 AM on January 26, 2012

Seymour Zamboni has it right: it's clearly geographically designated. In addition, the concept of county government jurisdiction over unincorporated regions doesn't make sense because New Jersey has no unincorporated regions. (per Wikipedia, California has over 2000.)

This effectively means in New Jersey (as well as in the states properly part of New England further north-east, like CT or MA) that when you leave a town, you immediately enter a new town. There is no area that isn't in town. Even big parks are all in a town or over a few towns. When you say "but it still feels funny because there's no open space between Glendale and Burbank", it feels weird to me that you could leave a town, be in some sort of void, and then enter a new town.

(I'm using 'town' colloquially to mean township, town, city, borough, and all things that are really just variations of the same, with different forms of government.)
posted by cobaltnine at 8:48 AM on January 26, 2012 [6 favorites]

Best answer: Mainly, what constitutes a "town" is hazy in Los Angeles. Most neighborhoods abut and blend. They tend to to be oddly shaped and sometimes aren't even continuous (look at the outline of Culver City!). There are defined areas, but they exist in the minds of city supervisors and are blurred by residents and real estate agents. Plus neighborhoods in LA are linked by a combination of local and highway roads, meaning "two over" might not mean anything if you're getting there by different routes.

Older towns in the East Coast have well-defined centers, that are (or were) the commercial and civic heart of each town. Then there's a decent amount of open area separating each town, though this tends to be erased by suburban sprawl.

I've lived on the densely settled East Coast and in LA as well, for periods of time exceeding a decade.
posted by Mercaptan at 8:48 AM on January 26, 2012

In NJ, quite unlike anywhere else I've ever lived, there's no such place as outside of town. Once you leave one municipality, you have entered another. Even wide-open, rural parts of the state are a patchwork of municipalities. What that means is that there are so many 'towns' in NJ that you sort of have to explain things in terms of their physical relationships with one another, or become hopelessly confused about which direction you're talking about.
It doesn't help that all the ancient municipal boundaries mean a lot of the local roads snake around in incoherent directions.
Where I grew up in Oregon, if you go east until you leave town, you're east of town for many miles before you come to another town. Where I live now, if you go south until you're out of town, you're in another town, but not the same town you'd be in if you left to the southeast, southwest, east, or west. So there's a lot more "You want to go toward Sparta, then keep going until you get to Oak Ridge" in the directions than "Go east until the road forks, then head north toward Sisters."
posted by willpie at 8:49 AM on January 26, 2012 [5 favorites]

I grew up in Georgia, and moving to the northeast was the first time I ever realized that some states (primarily in the northeast) have no unincorporated land. In other words, in many states (including Georgia and California), you primarily have unincorporated counties and incorporated towns/cities. If you don't live within the incorporated boundaries of a town or city, by default you live in an unincorporated area. It's like swiss cheese; the holes are the incorporated towns/cities, and the cheese is the unincorporated county.

In most of New England as well as New Jersey, there is no such thing as unincorporated land. You are always within the boundaries of some incorporated town, township, borough, village, city, etc. That makes it a little easier to understand the "next town over" business, since there is always, by definition, a town next to yours, unlike other parts of the country where there may be several miles of unincorporated (yet still densely populated) land between you and the next town.

This is all further complicated by U.S. Post Office addressing conventions. For example, unincorporated areas are typically addressed using the name of the nearest town, even though the address is not physically within the boundaries of that town. (I lived in Cobb County, Georgia, for several years. My postal address was Roswell, the city limits of which are technically only within neighboring Fulton County. People in the next neighborhood over from me had a postal address of Marietta. None of us lived in either town.) In states where there is no unincorporated land, addresses typically correspond more precisely with the towns where they are located.
posted by Nothlit at 8:49 AM on January 26, 2012 [1 favorite]

I grew up on Long Island (NY) and my experience is the same as willpie's. I never experienced leaving a town and not immediately entering another one until I went to Colorado.

Growing up, if someone would say "I'm from X", we could figure out where X was based on what it was next to, say Y. If we didn't know where Y was, we'd continue asking until we got to a place we knew and that would give us a path to X. I lived in the western edge of Nassau county and almost everything on Long Island was east of me but it works either way.
posted by tommasz at 8:58 AM on January 26, 2012 [1 favorite]

In states where there is no unincorporated land, addresses typically correspond more precisely with the towns where they are located.

Not always in New Jersey. Incorporated townships often go by different names for postal purposes. For example, you don't mail a letter to Evesham Township, New Jersey. You mail it to Marlton. You don't send it to Hamilton Township. You send it to Yardville or Mercerville or Hamilton Square.
posted by amro at 9:00 AM on January 26, 2012 [1 favorite]

You don't sent it to Lawrence Township, you send it to Lawrenceville... (Sorry, just taking a trip down memory lane of the places in New Jersey I have lived. For the record, if you live in Princeton Township you will mail your letters to Princeton.)
posted by amro at 9:03 AM on January 26, 2012

NJ municipalities aren't usually very large, either. When the area of a township/borough/town/city/village (yes, NJ's got all five) may not be more than one or two square miles, two towns over is likely less than five miles away.
posted by asperity at 9:05 AM on January 26, 2012 [1 favorite]

I was going to say pretty much what cobaltnine did. To give an example, I just checked out her profile and we're in the same state, so I know I live 11 towns over from her. Not that anyone would ever really say that with such a large number of towns in-between, but just to illustrate that when someone from NJ or New England says this, they're basically thinking of a map in their head. You can see in this map of CT that the town borders are clearly marked; you just have to count them off to know how many towns over you are. And there's no non-town (or non-city, as the case may be) space between them. There's just a road sign on the border that says the town name. (There are places where "what's a town" gets a bit confusing, e.g. Mystic, but in those places you'd probably just use whatever is locally thought of as/called a town.)

But even in the Northeast, we don't say "two towns over" when one of the "towns" in question is a large city like NY or Boston, or some place immediatly bordering a large city. At least I don't think I've ever heard anyone say that. So if there's a CA equivalent, it's not to be found in the LA area.
posted by DestinationUnknown at 9:09 AM on January 26, 2012

Not always in New Jersey. Incorporated townships often go by different names for postal purposes. For example, you don't mail a letter to Evesham Township, New Jersey. You mail it to Marlton. You don't send it to Hamilton Township. You send it to Yardville or Mercerville or Hamilton Square.

You don't sent it to Lawrence Township, you send it to Lawrenceville... (Sorry, just taking a trip down memory lane of the places in New Jersey I have lived. For the record, if you live in Princeton Township you will mail your letters to Princeton.)

These places are all in south-central/south jersey, which has more open space and traditionally lower populations/pop density than central and north jersey.

Really, this is one of those regional things that is only applicable to the region in which it's used. I grew up in a 3-mile wide central jersey town (North Plainfield) that was directly between several other towns--Plainfield, Greenbrook, Watchung. Moving from one to the other involved nothing more than driving down a road. There would be no "space" between them--in fact, growing up, my cousin's front yard was in Greenbrook and her backyard in Watchung. And as everyone else had said, these weren't just neighborhoods, but towns--with defined borders, separate local governments, etc.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 9:17 AM on January 26, 2012

The example that comes to mind for me is that my parents moved three towns over, from Williamstown to Swedesboro. (Link to Google map.) And indeed if you drive down that road, there are two places along it (Glassboro and Mullica Hill) where you'll have to stop at a traffic light, where there are a bunch of buildings, and so on; in between them there just isn't much there.

Starting at either of those locations and going north, though, I'd find it a lot harder to count "where the next town is" -- north is heading towards Philadelphia, so the population density gets higher and there's less open space.
posted by madcaptenor at 9:31 AM on January 26, 2012

There would be no "space" between them--in fact, growing up, my cousin's front yard was in Greenbrook and her backyard in Watchung.

That happens here in Massachusetts as well, and it's not a trivial matter. I went to elementary school with someone whose house straddled the line between a town with a very average school system and one with an excellent school system (we were both attended school in the town with the average system).

I'm not entirely sure, but somewhere I heard that in cases where a town border bisects a house, residency is determined by which town a person's bed resides in. I quickly tried to confirm this via Google, but a cursory search doesn't turn up much information.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 9:36 AM on January 26, 2012

I and most Angelino's really view these as neighborhoods.

Lifelong northern NJ-type here. The 'towns = towns' vibe that people are depicting is 100% right on in my experience. We also had/have named neighborhoods, which as a kid I experienced mainly when I'd visit small library branches that were named after their 'hoods. As an adult (with no sense of direction - GPS has changed my life) it's more about noticing whether things like street sign design or police cars look different.
posted by mintcake! at 10:05 AM on January 26, 2012 [1 favorite]

Marylander/Pennsylvanian.

I would use "next town over" etc. to describe small-ish towns in a more rural or suburban context. I wouldn't use it to describe neighborhoods in a city. I also wouldn't use it to describe anything with a metropolitan (or probably even micropolitan) area--I wouldn't say that Camden is the next town over from Philadelphia. Next to, but not "next town over."

In suburban Maryland where I grew up there were relatively few legally delineated suburban towns with their own governments compared to Pennsylvania or New Jersey. There I would still probably use "next town over," but would be referring to the most dense commercial buildups in an area with a given place name. Where they stopped and started would be much less cut-and-dried than in RonBNS' case--where I grew up could be considered either Colesville or Cloverly, but I might say that both Aspen Hill, neighboring Colesville, or Ashton, neighboring Cloverly, would be the next town over.
posted by The Bridge on the River Kai Ryssdal at 10:07 AM on January 26, 2012

Definitely true, but I doubt anyone would say Cambridge is "the next town over" from Boston.

But that's just because Boston isn't a town. You would certainly say Arlington was the next town over from Cambridge.

For the record, if you live in Princeton Township you will mail your letters to Princeton.

Princeton Township is no more.
posted by escabeche at 10:39 AM on January 26, 2012

Not always in New Jersey. Incorporated townships often go by different names for postal purposes. For example, you don't mail a letter to Evesham Township, New Jersey. You mail it to Marlton. You don't send it to Hamilton Township. You send it to Yardville or Mercerville or Hamilton Square.

Amro, it's even worse. I grew up in Hamilton, and we're supposed to use Trenton as our mailing address. We lived three miles from the Trenton border, in a 1950s development. Between us and Trenton was solid development. Hamilton Township, at that time, had the 8th largest population of any municipality in the state, just about equal to Trenton's, yet it had no postal identity. Weird NJ indeed.

But addressing the original point, and PhoBwan's comment, we didn't really use the "x town" over terminology growing up. Perhaps is it a more northerly construct. I think in particular of Bergen County, in the northeast corner of the state, where there are a lot of very small towns right next to each other. I can see where it's very easy to use that phrasing in that sort of environment, which is typical of most of the northeast corner of the state, and perhaps right around Camden as well.
posted by mollweide at 10:48 AM on January 26, 2012 [1 favorite]

These places are all in south-central/south jersey, which has more open space and traditionally lower populations/pop density than central and north jersey.

I'm not sure what that has to do with what I was saying.

I grew up in Hamilton, and we're supposed to use Trenton as our mailing address.

I live in Hamilton and some of my mail comes addressed to me in Trenton at the same zip code.

Princeton Township is no more.

Yeah, I knew about the merger but for some reason thought that it was all going to be township now, and that "borough" was going to disappear. My bad.
posted by amro at 10:54 AM on January 26, 2012

I grew up in Hamilton but my recollection was that some years back (long enough ago that I was young enough to not be paying a lot of attention) the mayor did something (or at least took credit for doing something) that got the USPS to recognize Hamilton as its own place, cutting down on delays for mail that people were sending to Hamilton.

After we moved to a new place in Hamilton Square my family, at least, kept using just "Hamilton" as our mailing address and never had any problems.

I definitely use the "next town over" sort of thinking. As others have said, since you're always in some 'town', it makes sense.
posted by Godbert at 11:48 AM on January 26, 2012

These places are all in south-central/south jersey, which has more open space and traditionally lower populations/pop density than central and north jersey.

I'm not sure what that has to do with what I was saying.

I'm saying that in south jersey, where you're more likely to have unincorporated townships where postal services are still diverted to larger towns (mostly due to historically lower population/population density), the terminology the OP mentioned is is less common, though growing more so. In north and central jersey, it's far more common to have municipal services tied to a named town, no matter how small (see: Dunellen).

(In New York State, where I currently live, there are all sorts of hamlets and villages within towns, so it's closer to S. Jersey in that respect).
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 1:40 PM on January 26, 2012

PhoBWanKenobi, I think you misunderstand. Evesham Township, for example, is not having its postal service diverted to Marlton. Rather, Evesham Township and Marlton have the exact same geographic boundaries. Likewaise, Yardville and Mercerville and Hamilton Square are all within the boundaries of the township of Hamilton.
posted by amro at 2:06 PM on January 26, 2012

Sorry, "diverted" was probably the wrong terminology. But the crux of what I'm saying stands: this is mostly colloquial speech that's largely relevant and used north jersey/north-central jersey area. South Jersey is geographically (and in some ways, culturally and linguistically) distinct, largely because it traditionally had a lower population density. As a result, both the terminology and the ways of determining political/municipal boundaries are different there.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 2:38 PM on January 26, 2012

Even further from New Jersy, I grew up on the Illinois side of the St. Louis area (east of East St. Louis, as the man says).

I would pretty much use "next town over" the way foks are describing here for another 10 miles or so further away from St. Louis than where I lived - towns that shared a border. Once you get out to where there's a gap between towns (agriculture or what have you) I've generally undertstood it to mean, next town like area along the highway or exit with a town on the interstate (two towns on either side of an intersection of two interstates would be the next town over from one another despite the interchange.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 6:17 PM on January 26, 2012