The prison bedroom communities of “suburban” New Jersey

In the quiet cul-de-sacs of New Jersey’s suburbs, where white picket fences and manicured lawns symbolize the American Dream, a quiet crisis unfolds daily. Meet Sarah (name changed to protect her guilty—husband), a middle-class mother of two in Paramus County: by 8 a.m., she’s dropped her kids at school, navigated a 20-minute drive to the nearest supermarket, and begun her remote workday—all before her first Zoom meeting. Her life, like millions of women in suburban America, is a logistical marathon shaped by an urban planning regime that remains stubbornly stuck in the 1950s.  

The Ghost of Postwar Planning

New Jersey’s suburban landscape was forged in the postwar era, when federal policies and cultural norms idealized the nuclear family—a male breadwinner commuting to the city and a homemaker tending to domestic life. Zoning laws prioritized single-family homes, segregated residential areas from commercial hubs, and dismissed public transit as unnecessary. Decades later, these design choices persist, even as 76 percent of New Jersey mothers with children under 18 are in the workforce. The suburbs, built for a society that no longer exists, now shackle women to a second shift of “time poverty,” as commutes, errands, and caregiving devour hours that urban design could have spared.  

The Tyranny of Distance

Car dependency is the engine of this inequality. In towns like Edison or Cherry Hill, zoning laws prohibit mixed-use development, forcing residents to drive for groceries, healthcare, or childcare. For middle-class women—often balancing jobs and caregiving—this spatial segregation exacts a steep toll. A 2022 Rutgers study found that New Jersey mothers spend 40% more time on household travel than fathers, much of it dubbed “trip-chaining”: a frenetic zigzag from school to pharmacy to supermarket. Without walkable neighborhoods or reliable intra-suburb transit, women like Sarah become de facto chauffeurs, their labor subsidizing the gaps in infrastructure.  

The Childcare Apartheid  

Urban planning’s gender bias is starkest in the scarcity of childcare. In suburbs zoned strictly for residential use, daycare centers are often exiled to distant commercial corridors. The result? Mothers in Morris County drive an average of 12 miles round-trip for childcare, a trek that disrupts work schedules and strains budgets. In Bloomfield long waiting lists haunt new parents.

“I pay more in gas than my gym membership,” states a Bloomfield parent.

For middle-class families, who earn too much for subsidies but too little for nannies, the math is unforgiving: women reduce work hours or exit the workforce entirely, perpetuating a cycle of economic marginalization.  

Reimagining the Suburb

The solutions are neither radical nor elusive. Cities like Hoboken have embraced mixed-use zoning which shortens the walks to amenities and can reduce car trips by 20 percent.

Expanding NJ Transit’s patchy bus routes to link suburbs to local hubs—libraries, clinics, schools—could further ease the caregiving burden. Pedestrian-friendly redesigns, from sidewalks to protected bike lanes, would make neighborhoods safer and more accessible.  

Yet progress demands confronting a deeper bias: the assumption that suburbs are “apolitical” spaces. As urbanist Dolores Hayden noted, the suburban home was never neutral—it was a stage for gendered roles. To redesign these spaces is to reimagine gender equity itself.  

Conclusion

New Jersey’s suburbs are at a crossroads. Will they cling to an outdated model that stifles women’s autonomy, or evolve into inclusive communities where caregiving is a shared responsibility, not a solitary burden? For middle-class women, the stakes are visceral: it’s the difference between a life of logistical warfare and one where time—that most precious resource—is finally theirs. The American Dream was never meant to be a solo journey. It’s time urban planning caught up.