Put your preconceived ideas about Jersey on the shelf with your DVD box set of the Sopranos. Sure there isn’t a single county designated as rural and only two of the 21 counties have less than 100,000 people, but the state isn’t all interstates, suburbs, and strip malls.
There are still over 10,000 farms in the Garden state and while they average only 71 acres the state as a whole is one of the top 5 producers of cranberries, bell peppers, spinach, peaches, blueberries, and cucumbers. The state is also boasts bringing in the highest dollar value per acre farmed.
Needless to say, despite all the farming goodness the state has, their ebb and flow of people is definitely effected by more forces outside of farm labor. That being said, those two counties mentioned above that were under 100,000, were one of only 3 counties to see population decline from 2000-2016.