Camden, New Jersey: America's Most Desperate Town

http://m.rollingstone.com/culture/news/apocalypse-new-jersey-a-dispatch-from-americas-most-desperate-town-20131211

by georgecmu • 12 years ago

89 73 12 years ago

m.rollingstone.com

VLM3• 12 years ago

A disappointing effort by Taibbi, usually does a lot better. Way too much exaggeration.

Its a dying city because its population dropped about 0.3% per year. Like saying my blood pressure has dropped about 1 point due to some (minimal) exercise in the last month, therefore I'm dead. And then later on the population is now booming because of white heroin addicts moving into the city, but its also dying anyway at the same time or some foolishness.

The rust belt was news and new and insightful in 1970 or so. Unfortunately its almost the spring of 2014. That's all ancient history. Like reading breathless reporting of the activities of Martin Luther (not MLKjr, I mean the original ML). My grandpa thought stories about "rust belts" are "news", and I'm not that young anymore.

"Not long ago" means a century ago, in a nation with a 24 hour news cycle. Uh huh. Just a few moments ago I was driving my covered wagon to work and ... oh wait.

There is some insight in the "future is already here, just unevenly distributed" aspect of the story. Also its got some "true crime" voyeurism.

He's a good writer, usually better than this. If joe average journalist wrote this I wouldn't be as... offended. For my local fishwrap of a newspaper this would be an average tolerable article, which might be why its going out of business slowly, the point is he usually does much better than this.

It is funny to see articles like this on a site with so many hard core followers of urban living. For 99% of the population, Camden is "real urban living" not SV/SFO and NYC. So you can see the disbelief bordering on laughter WRT urban revival. Yeah I can't wait until I can live in Camden and walk to work LOL, sounds like paradise. And Camden is a thousand miles from here, but where I live you need a car and a suburban house and a (short) commute if you don't want to live in Camden-Lite. And that's what the real world is like.

JackFr3• 12 years ago

I agree in the assessment of disappointing, because I think there could be a good story here. I think it's hurt not only by the exaggeration and breathlessness, but also Taibbi's need to force everything into his chosen political narrative with mixed results. Subtlety is lost on him and he seems incapable pursuasive writing -- guiding the reader to reach conclusions rather than explicitly setting them out.

andyjohnson0• 12 years ago

"The rust belt was news and new and insightful in 1970 or so. Unfortunately its almost the spring of 2014. That's all ancient history."

I understand why you view this as "old news". From that point of view, it probably is a bit disappointing.

My take on the article, as someone who doesn't live in the US, was sadness that such things are still happening. That large groups of people can be effectively abandoned by civil society, that elected politicians connive to do this for their own gain, that so many lives are ruined by neglect and poverty. That this is still happneing is the whole point.

VLM3• 12 years ago

"as someone who doesn't live in the US"

Ah I understand and thanks for the perspective. Locally its very well understood thanks to "if it bleeds, it leads" and infotainment in general. There's a checkbox that every single night there must be a report about violent crime in the inner city. Often a murder or shooting, but always something... Its extremely heavily propagandized.

Numerically you're far more likely to die in a car accident than get shot walking down alleys in the inner city at 2am, BUT, I checked the math and you are about 5000 times more likely to get shot in the inner city than where I live about 20 miles away. No kidding, about 5000 times.

The other part which probably isn't understood outside the country is even in the north, we segregate extremely heavily. Its extremely unusual other than maybe student dorms to ever see a mixed ethnicity neighborhood. Note I'm making a correct factual observation not a value judgment. The value judgement comes up when you can take a wild guess about what the TV news editors decide to report about neighborhoods of certain ethnic groups. As you can probably guess the "national sacrifice zones" are absolutely not populated by members of the dominate ethnic group, if you know what I mean, and the people in charge pretty much like it that way (again, an observation of their behavior, NOT an agreement with their behavior)

rayiner3• 12 years ago

The rust belt was news and new and insightful in 1970 or so

As someone living in a city gutted by de-industrialization and the drug trade (Wilmington, DE), I think it's news that 40 years later, these places are still in poor shape. The usual response to concerns about technology or globalization putting people out of work is that it just frees them up to work on something better and more useful. "New jobs will replace those that are lost." Well, the people here are still waiting for those new jobs to replace the ones that got automated or outsourced away.

And Camden is a thousand miles from here, but where I live you need a car and a suburban house and a (short) commute if you don't want to live in Camden-Lite.

I think this is quite exaggerated. Aside from Detroit and New Orleans, cities in the Delaware Valley like Camden and Wilmington have some of the worst crime in the country, because they face the challenges of other Rust-belt cities and are also on the major drug trade route up I-95.

Fully a quarter of the U.S. population lives in the metro areas of just six cities: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington, San Jose/San Francisco, and Boston. These cities are all quite safe, and the idea that people might either move into the core cities or to satellite cities in those areas is hardly ridiculous. And there's a long list of cities that are perfectly safe that aren't one of those six: San Diego, Austin, Seattle, Portland, Charlotte, etc. And there are even more cities that are perfectly safe in the areas middle class people would actually live. I lived for seven years in Atlanta, and it was very safe as long as you lived on the north side.

bluedino3• 12 years ago

> Fully a quarter of the U.S. population lives in the metro areas of just six cities: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington, San Jose/San Francisco, and Boston.

Chicago and Los Angeles are safe if you live in a upper-middle class white neighborhood. Chicago is the most dangerous large city in the US.

VLM3• 12 years ago

The problem with "fully a quarter" is WRT Chicago they're talking about a metro area, Skokie and Romeoville, maybe Lake Geneva, heck maybe Milwaukee... I'm talking about actually in the city, walk to work, urban renewal stuff, not suburb a long commute away. Like the north side of Milwaukee or south side of Chicago. Not say, Chenequa (which is a rather wealthy suburb of Milwaukee, more or less, but is technically part of the "metro area")

For example, and I speak from experience, there are no middle class people left anymore in the city of Milwaukee. School district stats show 90%+ poverty rates in the public schools, and a couple $25K/yr private schools for the wealthy leaders, and almost nobody in between, until you commute at least 5 to 10 miles away.

maxerickson2• 12 years ago

The violent crime rate 5 miles outside of Detroit (Livonia, others) is lower than Manhattan or the Bronx.

efbenson• 12 years ago

Lets not forget Chester and Coatesville I don't know if every area has these sink holes or its just the NE's reliance on those lost jobs and the population density that make these places occur.

jseliger• 12 years ago

As someone living in a city gutted by de-industrialization and the drug trade (Wilmington, DE), I think it's news that 40 years later, these places are still in poor shape.

Yet some places hit by these trends (Boston and Seattle come to mind) were reinvented, and others didn't; the question of why some did and others didn't is a fascinating one, and I've seen many of the arguments from urban / geographical economists like Edward Glaeser and Richard Florida.

My GF and I were actually thinking about moving to Wilmington for a job, and we can't figure out why it isn't semi-desirable even for its proximity by train to NYC and DC. There are now some new mid-rises near the train stations, but those are weirdly expensive (we got quotes of close to $2K for one bedrooms; for that kind of money, where's the competition with Brooklyn or downtown Seattle?)

The separation of the U of Delaware from Wilmington by 15 or so miles is certainly unfortunate and may help explain why Boston (innumerable universities) and Seattle (University of Washington, Seattle University) succeeded while Wilmington did not. It also started from a MUCH smaller base; the 2010 Census says that Wilmington is 70K, which is TINY and probably too small to achieve clustering effects in most industries.

If I were a civic booster type in Wilmington, I'd probably try to focus on proximity by train to DC, but the university problem means that I think the city is a lost cause.

smacktoward• 12 years ago

The rust belt was news and new and insightful in 1970 or so. Unfortunately its almost the spring of 2014. That's all ancient history.

Not for the people who are still living there, it isn't.

This type of thinking is part of the problem we have in America -- "eh, too bad that your town got eaten alive, sucks to be you I guess." But the blight doesn't stop, it just keeps spreading. It's not hard to imagine a near future where the United States is a few islands of fantastic, unbelievable wealth -- NYC, the Bay Area, DC -- in a vast sea of potholed highways, shuttered businesses and backyard meth labs.

I guess if you think you'll be fortunate enough to be one of the few people living on those islands, you don't care. But life has no guarantees, and as wealth concentrates more and more people will find themselves effectively voted off the island they thought would save them.

bluedino3• 12 years ago

> In September, its last supermarket closed, and the city has been declared a "food desert" by the USDA.

There might not be a Safeway or a Kroger, but there are still places to buy groceries.

http://i.imgur.com/Ey903PW.png

Really tied of the media exaggerating the term 'food desert'

xionon• 12 years ago

What are these buildings? Are they discount grocers, with cheap but OK food, or are they gas stations, with lunchables and frozen pizzas? It's hard to tell from a screenshot of a map.

I'm not denying that the term "food desert" is suspect, I just can't tell what you're trying to prove.

tptacek3• 12 years ago

They're Food-and-Liquors. You can buy milk and eggs there.

gphil• 12 years ago

Based on street view (and my limited knowledge of Camden based on living across the Delaware River in Philadelphia) these are all corner stores and bodegas that in some cases may have some limited fresh food, but most of the sales volume is likely packaged goods.

The idea of a "food desert" as I understand it is that it's an area with limited access to nutritious foods. Most of Camden definitely qualifies, especially for residents without cars.

SyneRyder2• 12 years ago

There's also plenty of places to buy food in Philly. You can walk there across the bridge, but it's something like a 30 minute walk each way (so not ideal for a proper grocery trip). There's also buses to/from Philly, unless that's changed since mid-2011.

I assume the notorious Dunkin' Donuts store is still operating in Camden.

Crito5• 12 years ago

Philly is not exactly packed with grocery stores either. Without a car getting across the bridge is the easy part, you then need to get to one of the grocery stores and get back from it with your food. That will take a while, even on buses (which are rather poor in Philly), so in order to make it worth your time you will need to get a lot of food at once... which is difficult without a car, even on buses.

larrys3• 12 years ago

"Really tied of the media exaggerating the term 'food desert'"

This article has been given the full "MATT TAIBBI" treatment. Of course he's a writer and wants to sell magazines.

He didn't add a "to be sure" phrase he is going for maximum gullibility of the readers to get emotion and engagement.

For example:

"where oblivious tourists pour in every year, gobbling cheese steaks and gazing at the Liberty Bell, having no idea that they're a short walk over the Ben Franklin Bridge from a full-blown sovereignty crisis – an un-Fantasy Island of extreme poverty and violence where the police just a few years ago essentially surrendered a city of 77,000."

So the definition of "oblivious" is "not aware of or not concerned about what is happening around one."

That would seem to imply to me that they have some kind of an obligation to be (when they are going on vacation) aware of what is happening across the river (and out of site) in a major city in the US. As if they are the CEO and aren't aware that there is sexual abuse going on and hey they should be. No such requirement exists. That they feel bad or should have some clue. Sorry not the case. Work hard, make money, take family on vacation. Saving the world do that on a different trip. Why not skip the trip and give the money you would spend to the poor people of Camden? Good for you.

Note also the triviality of "gobbling cheese steaks and gazing at the Liberty Bell" juxtaposed against true tragedy. Why does that matter? It doesn't but it provides color to the story and contrast. (By the way Philly is way more than cheesesteaks and the Liberty Bell I wish the media would get off of that already with the city).

Tourists of course are most likely aware that there is poverty somewhere in any big city. There is also plenty of poverty in North Philly but Taibbi doesn't focus on that (and that's just as close and in the same city).

By the way I wonder how many people going to Rock Concerts are "oblivious" to all the things that go on with respect to musicians, drugs and the drug trade? Or do they just want to hear good music? That's fine, right?

dec0dedab0de• 12 years ago

There is an aldi's in camden, albeit on the border. I go there sometimes after getting off the train.

SyneRyder2• 12 years ago

For folks wondering why this is on HN, there's some interesting info in the middle of the article about the tech the new police force are using in Camden:

"There are 35 microphones planted around the city that can instantly detect the exact location of a gunshot down to a few meters (and just as instantly train cameras on escape routes)."

colechristensen• 12 years ago

Check out these maps of shots fired in Minneapolis: http://www.minneapolismn.gov/police/statistics/crime-statist...

brk• 12 years ago

Yeah, that's more hype than reality. Those gunshot detectors work 'ok' not perfect. And they don't have enough detectors or cameras for anything other than the most basic coverage.

jmngomes• 12 years ago

"For folks wondering why this is on HN"

I'm glad it is. There are (much) bigger problems in the world than growth hacking and nginx performance.

There are many bright people here, it'd be a waste if important issues like these weren't discussed in this forum.

Kynlyn• 12 years ago

And there are countless forums to discuss such "important" issues. Just because a story has humanistic touch, that doesn't mean it belongs here.

elwell• 12 years ago

There are (much) bigger problems in the world than growth hacking and nginx performance.

Hmm... what about Clojure?

Raphmedia• 12 years ago

Don't upvote it if you don't want to see it. That's all. That's how it works.

mynewwork• 12 years ago

That's also how reddit works, and in 6 years it's gone from technology, programming and world news to memes and cat pictures.

When anyone can create an account and start voting, both moderation and reminders from existing users about appropriate content are needed to prevent or slow the move from specialized articles to general interest timewasters.

It happened to digg and reddit, I'm perfectly happy with people voicing concerns where appropriate to prevent HN from just becoming another reddit/digg/fark/somethingawful/thechive

mrfusion• 12 years ago

I wonder if they could do the same thing for the sound of breaking glass? That would probably indicate a crime or at least an accident.

cglace• 12 years ago

I'm sure you could. I have glass break sensors throughout my home to detect someone entering through a window.

tptacek3• 12 years ago

Previously on HN:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4034528

JackFr3• 12 years ago

According to Taibbi, the only person in the state of New Jersey with any moral responsibility for his or her actions is the governor. The city of Camden is populated entirely by victims, and the cause of their misery is Chris Christie.

Edmond3• 12 years ago

I believe Camden is more or less under state control so it is right to blame the state. NJ has an awful track record when it comes to how it treats its urban areas. Newark, which would be considered a crown jewel anywhere else has been left to rot for 40yrs. The state is very unequal in terms of investment to various areas, basically you can quickly tell where the high income earners live and where the rest live wherever you go in NJ.

I didn't realize how shitty NJ's resource distribution model was until I moved down to Baltimore and saw how differently Maryland invests in the state as a whole.

cafard• 12 years ago

New Jersey has very fragmented local government. In Maryland, the school districts (for example) are by county.

As for Baltimore, a) for eight years the governor was William Donald Schaeffer, a former mayor of Baltimore who thought of Maryland as a life-support system for Baltimore, b) not coincidentally, the cash cow of Maryland has for many years been Montgomery County, which is full of good-government types who seem to lack the technical political skills to make their influence felt.

yummyfajitas2• 12 years ago

According to the article Christie was unable to take over the schools in Camden, and took over the police force in 2013. Blaming him for not fixing the problems of Camden in less than a year is a little silly.

Complaining that NJ didn't force Hoboken to subsidize Newark is silly - San Fransisco and Toronto didn't subsidize Camden either, but I don't see you blaming them.

twoodfin• 12 years ago

I don't think that's a fair reading of the piece. By the end, Christie comes off pretty well:

Then, this year, after two years of chaos, Christie and local leaders instituted a new reform, breaking the unions of the old municipal police force and reconstituting a new Metro police department under county control.

...

Predictably, the new Camden County-run police began to turn crime stats in the right direction with a combination of beefed-up numbers, significant investments in technology, and a cheaper and at least temporarily de-unionized membership.

...

In recent months, Christie has visited Camden several times, making it plain that he puts the daring 2011 gambit here in his political win column. And not everyone in Camden disagrees. One ex-con I talked to in the city surprised me by saying he liked what Christie had done, and compared Camden's decades-long consumption of state subsidies to the backward incentive system he'd seen in prison. "In prison, you can lie in your bed all day long and get credit for good time toward release," he said, shaking his head. "You should have to do something other than lie there."

For a guy like Taibbi, who can't describe union "excesses" without persistent scare quotes, this is praising with faint damnation.

JimWillTri2• 12 years ago

Camden was a shithole even in the early '70s. My great grandmother was robbed, beaten, tied up and left for dead on the floor of her tenement looking apartment. She was found alive a few days later.

RankingMember• 12 years ago

Woah. I'm not questioning the authenticity of your story, but do you have a news article about that? That's a crazy thing to have happen to you anywhere and I'd be curious where exactly in Camden it occurred.

larrys3• 12 years ago

Can't verify the parent story but can verify that Camden was a stinkhole in the early 70's.

JimWillTri2• 12 years ago

This was the 70s so of course you can't exactly link a story. This wouldn't have been that big of a story back then - too much crime going on at once.

nakedrobot2• 12 years ago

"a graphic preview of what might lie ahead for communities that don't generate enough of their own tax revenue to keep their lights on. "

With shrinking tax revenue from corporations cheating on their taxes and the rise of bitcoin sucking even more fiat currency away from taxes, I do not like this future.

bluedino3• 12 years ago

> The police force alone in Camden costs more than $65 million a year.

I'd be curious as to how much of that $65,000,000 goes towards funding things like pensions and healthcare for retired workers. All of the new cops are starting without pensions in most municipalities (at least the ones that are low on money) and a huge part of their budget is paying for long-retired cops.

trailcable2• 12 years ago

There is no police force in city of Camden anymore. It is a county wide police force for Camden County.

invalidOrTaken• 12 years ago

I'd like to play devil's advocate for a bit: are we ignoring the value of credibility with cops? Cut off benefits previously promised, and you find potential workers no longer trust you.

This really is devil's advocate, because I think pensions are outdated and shouldn't be offered to new workers. But part of the bargain with the civil service has been, basically, lifetime employment + retirement. There are costs to backing out on that.

dmschulman• 12 years ago

I believe the term is "poverty porn": http://www.phillymag.com/news/2013/12/12/rolling-stone-camde...

Thanks Taibbi for stoking people's fears needlessly

blisterpeanuts2• 12 years ago

If I were the king, I would fix Camden (and dozens of other grim urban districts around the country such as Detroit, north St. Louis, etc.) with the following plan:

1. Legalize drugs. Allow local municipalities to regulate and tax recreational substances. Boom. You have an instant local revenue stream, the police are suddenly out of the business of arresting people for "possession", and can focus more on violent crime, domestic disturbances, etc. In the short term, drug-funded gangs will turn to theft and robbery to stay in business, but anyway a major, relatively safe and easy source of revenue will be gone.

2. Declare certain urban areas to be economic development zones with drastically reduced taxes and regulations. Make it dirt cheap to locate factories and plants there. Provide start-up grants to local entrepreneurs, with real oversight, not just feel-good handouts. Lower the barriers to business start-ups and there will be business activity, and it will accelerate as the cycle of crime and poverty is reduced.

3. Fix the K-12 schools. Double the teachers' pay, double the security around the schools and provide secure bus rides to and from the projects and tenements. Make the school day longer, and ratchet up the standards. Demand higher achievement, and don't let a kid just flunk and walk away; make them re-take, make them realize the importance. Make school a destination, not a chore.

Teach democracy in the schools. Emphasize basic literacy skills, ethics and morality, history, how to speak and write properly, mathematics and science. Make the schools the best in the state in terms of standards.

These are all easier said than done, but can we afford to do anything less? We have spent trillions of dollars trying to fix similar problems in other countries, so why not spend a tenth of that or a thousandth of that fixing some of the problems in our own country?

grecy• 12 years ago

If I were the king, I would fix

I've always thought the troops should be brought home and all those trillions spent on infrastructure and community projects within America.

Unfortunately, it's more important to spend trillions on other countries than on America and Americans.

"If Americans knew what Swedes receive for their taxes, we would probably riot."

http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?artic...

r00fus• 12 years ago

Unfortunately, it's more important to spend trillions on other countries than on America and Americans

Clarification (I agree with your gist), that money gets funneled through the military industrial complex back into "construction companies" (i.e., haliburton), security companies (i.e., Blackwater/XE) and various other US-based corporate socialism babies.

Very little of foreign development money is actually seen by the countries we "occupy" or "assist". Please see Confessions of an economic hit man for more details:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confessions_of_an_Economic_Hit_...

rayiner3• 12 years ago

I'm not sure about the impact of drug legalization on the local economies of these areas. Right now, the drug trade is actually one of the few sources of remunerative work available for unskilled people in these cities. You mention police arresting people for "possession" but the fact is that they have little time for that around here. There's enough dealers and traffickers to keep them busy. You think all those guys are going to go straight when drugs are legalized? I think legalization would help, don't get me wrong, but I think the positive impact would be a lot less than many opponents of the drug war would like to believe.

These areas are already very cheap to build in. Delaware, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey practically give away abandoned industrial sites hoping to find companies to take them over. Getting rid of regulations can be iffy. After all, the outputs of polluting activities in Camden flow down the Delaware River to a whole bunch of other people.

Fixing education in these communities is intractable. You can't teach kids in a community where gang leaders have more authority than parents. You have to fix the community before you can make a dent in the education problem.

blisterpeanuts2• 12 years ago

I should have said "dealing", not "possession". Regarding education, keep in mind that for some if not most children in dysfunctional homes and communities, school is their only hope, the only place where they interact with people who actually care about them (or at least, are supposed to care about them).

Cheap buildings aren't enough. You need a full stack, top to bottom, crash program to attract businesses and encourage local entrepreneurship. A special economic zone means low or no taxes for X years, little or no regulatory interference (e.g., zoning laws, architectural requirements, ethnic/gender hiring mandates, union lock-in, etc.), just basically leave them alone and let them build a business in a war zone. Of course, you can't simply suspend OSHA, ADA, and anti-discrimination laws, but if you can make it cheap enough to conduct business, the incentives will outweigh the danger and inconvenience and they will come.

djs123sdj3• 12 years ago

Agreed with legalization not necessarily reducing criminal behavior. Where I live in the Bay Area, the reduction in the street drug dealing trade (perhaps due to legalized dispensaries, and also the prevalence of smartphones) has coincided with an increase in the armed robbery and burglary rate.

Local police investigators have confirmed that many individuals who have been apprehended for robberies were previously involved in the local drug trade.

mindslight3• 12 years ago

Drugs are the entire basis of their dysfunctional economy. The resources that drive the aggressiveness are supplied by the extremely profitable drug trade. Most people don't want or respect the cops because they benefit from the autonomous zone, and so would rather support their non-state-sanctioned force monopoly. Stop persecuting drugs and we're left with a city that's just poor and would appreciate the official police for providing net safety instead of the current chaos. Only then can the poverty itself be addressed.

(As an aside, can we stop with this "regulate and tax" boot-kissing of politicians? We all know that's how they stick their grubby fingers into everything and ruin it; there's no need to encourage it)

Also, while this article focuses on the progress being made by the police, if you switch your perspective and imagine yourself living there, it pretty much sounds like the beginnings of a standard sci-fi dystopia.

Crito5• 12 years ago

It is more important that we stop breaking up families and rendering people unemployable with pointless drug-related felonies and prison sentences, than it is we stop politicians from sticking their fingers in everything.

Taxes on drugs are a small price to pay if it furthers legalization.

squozzer• 12 years ago

I think Camden and other cities in similar situations can provide us with learning --

1) Can cities outlive their usefulness? My answer = yes. 2) If yes, what should happen when they do? My answer = most try to hang on or re-invent themselves, but restructuring sooner rather than later might be best.

geoka9• 12 years ago

Elsewhere, struggling white rural America is stocking up on canned goods and embracing the politics of chaos, sending pols to Washington ready to hit the default button and start the whole national experiment all over again.

Is it really that bad?

djs123sdj3• 12 years ago

The greatest tragedy of places like this is that the law abiding population is held hostage by the threat (and exercise) of violence by the dangerous members of their own community - who are relatively fewer in number.

In such circumstances, those who can afford to leave - leave, and those who must stay make the choice to speak out against the situation and put themselves at terrible risk, or stay quiet, and witness the decline of the community.

Camden, New Jersey: America's Most Desperate Town

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