Many NJ Residents Fear Area Cities

If you think New Jersey's major cities are dangerous, you are certainly not alone.

A statewide survey of over 1,000 registered New Jersey voters released Monday by Fairleigh Dickinson University's (FDU) PublicMind reveals the overwhelming majority fears that they could be in real danger if they visit Atlantic City, Camden, Newark or Trenton.

"Just 11 percent feel very safe in Atlantic City. Seven percent say the same for Trenton, 5 percent for Newark and a mere 2 percent of people say they would feel very safe visiting Camden. In 2011 that number was 2 percent also, so really nothing has changed in Camden," said Krista Jenkins, professor of political science at FDU and director of the poll.

New Jersey's four major cities would like to attract the attention and money of visitors, but instead they continue to battle perceptions of danger lurking around the corner, Jenkins said.

"You have these big metropolitan centers that are really struggling and you can see why - I mean so many people just would not even go there because of the safety issue it sounds like," Jenkins explained.

Those polled were also asked about two major metropolitan areas outside of the Garden State. Nearly one-third (32 percent) said they feel very safe in New York City and 13 percent said the same for Philadelphia.

"Ironically those polled say they feel safer in Manhattan and Philadelphia as compared with feeling safe in any of the New Jersey cities we asked about," Jenkins said.

The poll of 1107 registered voters in New Jersey was conducted by telephone with both landline and cell phones from Oct. 13 through Oct. 19, 2014. The margin of error is +/-2.9 percentage points.