Our work is statewide with many projects located in specific municipalities, counties, or regions within New Jersey.

We promote healthy, resilient communities. We believe great places create great lives, but great places don’t just happen. It takes innovative policy, research, advocacy, and hands-on strategic assistance. Our work spans from housing, transportation, natural lands, to waterways, where we foster vibrant neighborhoods and a strong economy. Explore the issue areas we work on here.

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New Jersey Future is supported by foundations, corporations, and individuals that understand collaborative work is needed to revitalize New Jersey’s cities and towns, protect the state’s open spaces, provide a broader, more affordable range of housing choices, and expand transportation options. To learn more about how you can deepen your commitment to this work, please visit our Donate page.

We work with municipalities and local governments on redevelopment, planning, stormwater and environmental issues, governance, infrastructure, and more. We often provide tools, data, guidelines, help navigating funding issues, and policy recommendations to assist local planning efforts. Connect with us to find out if our expertise is the right fit for your project!

As a member of Jersey Water Works, Lead-Free NJ, Sewage-Free Streets and Rivers, and Great Homes and Neighborhoods for All, New Jersey Future also serves as the “backbone” staff for the collaboratives. NJF staff coordinate daily operations, helping each collaborative achieve its shared goals.

New Jersey Future is a partner of these campaigns and serves as the “backbone” staff. NJF staff coordinate the day-to-day activities of each campaign in support of its shared purpose.

All reports, primers, data tools, and other published materials are available through the Resources section of our website. You can find blog posts in the News section.

Check out our Smart Growth Awards section to explore the plans and redevelopment projects we’ve awarded for following smart growth principles to make their communities healthier and more resilient.

The conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work, and age shape their health and well-being. These are called social determinants of health or non-medical factors that impact health outcomes. These factors include traditional planning domains such as transportation, housing, green spaces, and social domains like good schools and access to good jobs.

Smart growth is development and redevelopment that serves the environment, the economy, and the community. It concentrates development into already-existing communities where infrastructure exists and natural hazards can be avoided. It addresses the inherent interconnections between environmental protection, social equity, public health, and economic sustainability. Learn more about smart growth in our Smart Growth 101 section.

Redevelopment is reinvestment in neighborhoods and commercial areas to replace or repair previously developed buildings or plots of land that are in substandard condition or are no longer useful in their current state.

Zoning is a set of municipal codes that define in which areas residential, commercial, industrial, etc., land uses are permitted or prohibited. Local zoning ordinances contribute to determining how growth happens.

Mixed-use is a term used to describe how a single building or a complex of buildings is designed to serve multiple purposes, such as offering spaces for housing, retail, offices, amenities, etc.

Stormwater is when rain or melting snow flows over the ground, picking up and carrying pollutants like motor oil, trash, fertilizer, pesticides, and animal waste into local bodies of water. Stormwater runoff pollutes the majority of New Jersey’s rivers, streams, and lakes.

Green infrastructure comprises stormwater management strategies that enable stormwater and melting snow to soak into soils near where they fall, or be captured for a beneficial re-use such as irrigation or flushing toilets. Keeping runoff out of the storm sewer system improves water quality and minimizes localized flooding. Examples include rain gardens, permeable pavement, street tree trenches, green roofs, and cisterns.

Combined sewer systems are outdated sewer systems that combine rainfall with industrial and domestic sewage in one pipe. When it rains in communities with combined sewer systems, raw sewage pours into rivers and backs up into basements and onto streets. This is known as a combined sewer overflow (CSO). In New Jersey 21 municipalities have combined sewer systems.

VMT stands for Vehicle Miles Traveled. It is a metric used in planning to measure both the amount of vehicle trips (personal and commercial) and the distance driven in a given area.

Active transportation is a term used to describe walking, biking, and other alternatives to automotive transportation options.