It's one of the oldest debates in New Jersey - there's North Jersey, there's South Jersey, but is there really a Central Jersey? And if so, where is it?
A new bill introduced in the state legislature Tuesday would formally define the once-nebulous region, and require the state to promote tourism there accordingly.
Assembly Bill 4711 would mandate state tourism officials to redraw their maps to include a Central Jersey region made up of Hunterdon, Mercer, Middlesex, and Somerset counties. They would then be required to promote that region just as they promote other parts of the state.
(The bill has a number of tangentially related provisions as well, including guidelines on spending federal relief dollars and a mandate to promote tourism to farms and other agriculture-linked locations.)
Gov. Phil Murphy famously laid the debate to rest - or tried to, at least - in 2018 by publicly proclaiming that Central Jersey did in fact exist.
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But the new legislation would actually codify the region and in theory boost it as a tourist destination.
