Your description of "several small towns pushed together" basically describes much of northern New Jersey. I used to live there. It was not safe for cycling.

Your description of "several small towns pushed together" basically describes much of northern New Jersey. I used to live there. It was not safe for cycling. The place really was a bunch of small towns, that all ended up growing into one big mass, with little downtown areas with shops, surrounded by residential areas. The problem is that growth was never planned for, so the road system is a mess, and small little 1-lane roads actually serve as the main thoroughfares to get between all these little towns in many places. So there's very few places where it's actually safe to ride a bike if you're trying to actually get anywhere. Riding around a little housing development might be fine, but if you want to go from township A to township B, you're going to be on a very narrow road with a lot of fast-moving cars that are in a big hurry. Worse, cars don't stay in their lanes at all: any time someone is turning left on one of these narrow roads, cars will simply go around them on the shoulder (which AFAICT is perfectly legal there) to avoid waiting and blocking traffic. If you're riding on that shoulder, that's a great way to get hit.