I've been checking with local planning boards to see if anything can be done about the census designation (Census Designated Place, or CDP) for my town, Cliffwood Beach. I'm working on getting the Census Bureau to adjust the Cliffwood Beach CDP and Laurence Harbor CDP so that they more accurately reflect how Cliffwood Beach is part of two townships (Aberdeen and Old Bridge) and crosses between two counties (Monmouth and Middlesex). I'm of course trying to amend the Cliffwood Beach article at Wikipedia and get a proper map, but that can't be done if the Census Bureau doesn't agree with me. That's not good at all.
Monmouth County's Planning Board has a Research & Special Studies section that deals with the census, mapping, etc. I found a point of contact at the bottom of the page. For Middlesex County, their webpage was less definitive, so I went right to the Contacts List and found who I needed to talk to. I phoned both offices and was well received by each place. Monmouth said that the area is coordinated by the Census Bureau's Philadelphia Office and that nothing could really be done as long as Middlesex continued to define Laurence Harbor CDP to include the portion of Old Bridge that I think is better defined as part of Cliffwood Beach CDP. Middlesex wasn't sure whether a CDP could cross county lines. I'm now on Middlesex's contacts list regarding Census 2010 to include my input on the CDP border definitions. Cool.
American FactFinder is a great site for researching places using the resources of the US Census Bureau. Put a city and state into the search fields and you will get a data page with lots of hyperlinks to maps and data. The "reference map" link will take you to a dragable map of the region that includes the place you searched but a whole lot more information I found I didn't need, while the individual "map" links up and down the data page provide a more clearly defined map of the place you're looking at. Since I was interested in border definitions, the "map" hyperlinks worked best for me.
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