Somewhat suprisingly, New Jersey's geography worked against it when it came to growing a big city and the local politics came together in the modern era to make it sure it never happened.

Central Place Theory:
https://www.geographyrealm.com/centra...

https://www.thoughtco.com/central-pla...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central...

Zipf’s Law:
https://blogs.cornell.edu/info2040/20...

Demographic Gravitation:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/2785468 (free subscription under “Alternate Access options”)

Gravity Models:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity...

https://www.nature.com/articles/s4159...

The Palisades:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pal...)