Asbury Park Press front page Tuesday, May 26 2015

Out with the suburbs, in with the cities. And superstorm Sandy didnt help.Towns along the shoreline in Monmouth and Ocean counties lost thousands

of residents during the first part of the decade, while urban areas such as Jer-sey City, Hoboken and Newark absorbed an influx, new U.S. Census Bureaudata show.

The migration figures seem to support the belief that the millennial genera-tion those born roughly between 1980 and 2000 and raised during the digitalage are gravitating to cities where they can live, work and find entertain-ment without needing a car.

The areas closest to New York City are growing, said James W. Hughes, aneconomist and dean of the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and PublicPolicy at Rutgers University. New York over the past decade has accountedfor the lions share of job growth in the region. Thats the economic locomotive,and thats where young people are gravitating.

BRIGHTLIGHTS,BIG BOOM

New censusfigures showshift out ofN.J. suburbsto the majormetro areas

MICHAEL L. DIAMOND@MDIAMONDAPP

GROWING AND SHRINKING IN N.J.

5 towns with the most growth, 2010-14:

1. Jersey City: +13,4322. Monroe (Middlesex Co.): +3,4803. Franklin (Somerset Co.): +3,4494. Elizabeth: +3,4315. Hoboken: +3,195

5 towns with biggest declines, 2010-14:

1. Trenton: -9192. Vernon: -7173. Washington Township: -6724. Lower Township: -6265. Winslow: -619

SOURCE: U.S. CENSUS BUREAU

Tucked in the back of the Mieleville Trailer Park inHazlet is a faded yellow-and-green trailer with a Holly-wood connection.

Rust seals shut one entrance, while the other, oncelocked by the down-and-almost-out fictional wrestlerRandy The Ram Robinson, is now secured by meansof a wooden closet door nailed over the passage.

The mobile home looked rough by design sevenyears ago, when it served as the home base of MickeyRourkes redemptive protagonist in the AcademyAward-nominated movie The Wrestler. Now it is offi-cially uninhabitable.

The trailer is one of 32 slated to be either hauledaway or rehabilitated under order of the township be-cause they are fire hazards or otherwise public healthrisks.

In all, 108 out of 130 trailers in the park have been

RUSS ZIMMER@RUSSZIMMER

TANYA BREEN/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

The Mieleville Trailer Parks owner has been ordered by Hazletto repair or remove 32 abandoned trailers that the townshipsays represent threats to public health or fire hazards.

Curtain falls for

mobile home that

once starred in

movie Wrestler

See MOBILE HOME, Page 6A

ASBURY PARK PRESS APP.COM $1.00

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