Camden NJ

[danshirley]

finance.yahoo.com/news/Camden-police-and-apf-2334907998.html?x=0
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camden,_New_Jersey
" In 2009, Camden had the highest crime rate in the U.S."

This is the beginning of the end. It appears we cannot afford to continue the most basic functions in the place of greatest need.

WARNING: one of my stories follows:
Many years ago, when I was working for Smith Kline, I got pretty ticked off at the place and quit and took a job... as VP of Information Systems for the County of Camden. The same as above.

My office was on the 'campus' of Camden County College... a community college in the depths of the disaster that is Camden NJ. As part of my job I had to teach two courses at the college. I taught two introductory courses, one in Physiology for nurses and a course in FORTRAN which was a beginning course in DP in those days. After class it was pretty late, dark out and I had to walk from the college one block to the parking lot where my car was.

When I left the building there was always some young toughs hanging around the front of the building. When they saw me they always called out to me really loud: "HELLO MR. SHIRLEY", GOODNiGHT MR SHIRLEY". It kind of irritated me after a little bit and at lunch one day I happened to mention it to another teacher.
He laughed and said: "You don't know why they do that do you?"
Then he told me:
Yelling out my name was a 'heads up' to anyone in the area that I was to be left alone. It was a signal not to mug me. I worked there for a year and in fact was never touched.

maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&sugexp=ldymls&xhr=t&q=camden+nj&cp=8&rlz=1R2ADRA_enUS405&wrapid=tljp1295390177553012&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hq=&hnear=Camden,+NJ&gl=us&ei=2xU2TazzJIH-8Abet8ysCQ&sa=X&oi=geocode_result&ct=image&resnum=1&sqi=2&ved=0CCIQ8gEwAA

If you're interested enlarge the picture a little until you see Broadway, then take the little man, put him on Broadway and take a drive down the street.

[yclept]

Well, I took a run most of the way down Broadway. It looks a lot like parts of Richmond, CA. where I used to work. Except in Richmond they haven't knocked down as many buildings as they obviously have in Camden, which isn't the same as saying the buildings don't need to be condemned, but there are folks living in them. I guess to be fair to Richmond, I've also got to say that there are still a significant number of large manufacturing plants in operation. You have to love the on-street parking availability in Camden versus Richmond. In Richmond it's hard to find a legal parking place that isn't occupied by a clunker or a burned-out, stripped wreck. The other major difference I see is that a lot of those apparently unoccupied buildings in Camden would be corner liquor stores, bars, or storefront churches in Richmond. That and there are a lot more obvious drug dealers on the street in Richmond. Camden looked more like a town that had been hit with the plague -- hardly a soul to be seen. But, again, you have to love the parking!

[rovo]

We occasionally have to go to Camden for one thing or another and it is really scary if you end up lost and off the main roads. You just keep moving and don't stop for anything. Maybe DanShirley has a different impression than mine but as far as I'm concerned they may as well tear down the entire town and convert it to a park.

[tyfighter3]

The trouble with that ROVO is you may get some neighbors you don't want.

[rovo]

I already have two sets of neighbors I don't want.

[973beachbum]

Camden is such a sad place. When you see some of the grand old buildings from long ago you can tell what a beautiful place it used to be. Now it is sooooooo crime ridden and run down it is mind blowing that it is here in NJ and not in some third world country somewhere.

A year ago I got a notice that I had to appear in Camden for federal grand jury. Skipping the part that I would probably take 2 hours getting there, assuming I didn't get lost, why would I want to take that chance with my life for that?!?!? I wrote a letter saying that i refused to go to Camden and do jury duty there. I avoid driving there on purpose why on Earth would I intentionally stop and park my car and get out and walk there for jury duty? They sent me a nasty note saying they could hold me in com tempt if I didn't. All I thought was at least I will still be alive. They actually sent a letter later explaining that if I get called again I can request the times to arrive at the parking lot and get a police escort from the parking lot to the courthouse. If that doesn't tell you that is it way too dangerous I don't know what does.

I do feel bad for the residents that live there and don't have the where with all to move. That has to be like a living night mare.

[yclept]

If Camden eventually mirrors something like what's happening in Richmond, I would look for the following.
Richmond has bay front as nice as any on SF Bay with deep water access that requires little if any dredging. Problem was it was all either old WWII shipyards and pretty much a slum starting about 1960. The worst of the slum was and still is a few miles from the bay. In about 1970, freeway 680 was built which psychologically walled off the bay-side property from the slum. But it was more than psychological, the freeway restricted access to a relatively few number of streets that went under or over it. It made it easy for the cops to wall off and catch evil-doers who ventured down there. There was already a little enclave on the bay side called Port Richmond which hadn't decayed to the extent of the inland properties. Port Richmond became trendy with the old brick hotel and commercial properties taken over by nice shops and restaurants. The whores and drug dealers moved north of the freeway.
Next thing you knew, developers began to put expensive condominiums down by the bay, east of Port Richmond. Most folks thought they were crazy. But they weren't. People actually bought them and with the sort of natural divide the freeway provided, that part of the city became a nice place to live. Since then, the gentrification has been moving north, actually jumping the divide the freeway first provided. Much of that improvement was city redevelopment, but the result has been the slum keeps getting squeezed as old ramshackle housing is knocked down and newer housing replaces it.
Richmond has the advantage of being well served by freeways and a decent commute to any place in the north bay or even San Francisco. There are still parts of it where no sane person would walk unarmed at night, but it's vastly improved from the hell hole it was about 1980.
Looking at the map of Camden, I already see the freeway that might serve as a dividing line, 676. The area to the west bounds the Delaware River, which I'm guessing is a scenic body of water. It looks to be a stone's throw commute to Philadelphia. I don't know how cold it gets there, but maybe in the winter one could skate to work in Philadelphia -- a thing that the sort of oddball, but brave type of folks who moved early to the improved part of Richmond would have thought to be wonderful.
If I was back there where some of you guys are and had the time to wait it out, I'd be looking seriously at parcels of land in Camden that are close to the Delaware.
A lot of younger folks don't want the McMansion in the far-out suburbs that much of their parents' generation sought. They want smaller houses with much shorter (preferably mass-transit) commutes. Camden looks to me to be a diamond in the rough. Hell if I was 20 years younger and lived back there I'd buy a river-front lot and about 5-10 others up and down the river, build a nice house with a good electric cyclone fence with razor wire and put a 12ga-3" mag by every door and window. The word would get out, and I'll bet nobody would mess with me after they hear what happened to their buddies. You've got the river right there to carry away the bodies! In ten years you sell off the other lots and take down the cyclone fence.
Of course, a more humanistic approach would be to get together with some other investors and a developer and start building nice condos in the area walled off by the freeway. Let the gentrification commence!

[yclept]

I just took a Google tour down by the riverfront park, though they didn't cover some of the streets closest to the river. I'm guessing the PKinney system is mass transit trains of some sort. South of the park there is so much empty land, it's unbelievable. I'd say start by buying something near that nasty metal scrapyard. Then get what's left of the city government to condemn it as a river polluter (which it no doubt is). Build north from there up towards the park. This misuse of land is a crime against nature.
Oh, and keep in mind that not so many years ago almost all of Richmond was a place where no sane person ventured night or even day without a degree of trepidation. Come to think of it, a year or two ago I was in West Oakland down near Ikea which was a horrible slum in the 60s when I worked my way through school by working nights at the main post office distribution center. I saw a young white (not that it should make a difference, but it used to be that part of town where skin color somewhat defined one's safety) mother riding her bicycle with a trailer behind it in which she was towing her baby. She would have been dead meat down there in the 60s. Camden's just 40 or 50 years behind the curve, but the location will eventually overcome all of the current negatives.
So where are all the slum dwellers going to go? If California is any prognosticator, they start to move to the older suburbs that are too far out for a reasonable commute. Let them live in McMansions!

[rovo]

The state has been trying to improve Camden for about 20 years, maybe it is actually less than that. Anyway, Christy Whitman started to condemn and tear down old slum areas to get rid of the druggies and prostitution. At first it looked pretty good but eventually the city balked. The State also was trying to promote new businesses in the area but the residents balked at that also as being too noisy or too dusty.

The reality is Camden is just like 50 other cities in this country that are in such bad shape that they have pretty much ceded the city to the street thugs. From what I'm reading in the local papers it appears these thugs are well less than 10% of the population and they are terrorizing the other 90+%. Every community has a certain amount of thugs in the population but the percentage is higher in Camden as it appears to be a haven for these types.

I don't have answers to the problem or even legitimate ideas because I just don't think anything will work until the thugs are removed. But how do you do that? You can't "run them out of town" and even if you did they would just terrorize someplace else. Jail doesn't seem to work as they come out more hardened than when they entered. It is a difficult problem and all potential solutions are iffy and expensive.

[tyfighter3]

What they need to do is fire all of the police, then give all of that 90% of the people a brand new gun and tell them to police themselves.

[rovo]

I want to make one thing perfectly clear on my comments. The vast majority of Camden's residents are Black or Hispanic as are the thugs. In no way was I implying the problem was a minority population causing the problems. A minority of the population is the problem as it always is and in this case the majority population is of the same racial mix as the problem causers.

Giving the majority of the population guns, as suggested above, can not work. It should be doable but the laws are stacked against people solving their own local problems.

[Cookies Galore]

Just a note, the Delaware River doesn't freeze, so residents of Camden can't skate to work. There is, however, public transit that goes from NJ to Philadelphia.
I am a Philly person, which means I only go to Camden for concerts and if I'm lost. It's such a shame that nothing is coming from this city, because the waterfront improvements have been a good addition. I've never been to the minor league baseball stadium (River Sharks?), but have gone to plenty of concerts at the What-Have-You Center and Wiggins Park, plus I've been to Adventure Aquarium. It's just a damn shame that the city has not only given up, but people in and out of the community as well. Didn't they turn the old RCA building into condos a few years ago? Gentrification didn't exactly come calling like it has in Fishtown and Kensington across the river.
It's like Chester (right outside of Philadelphia). We go there since the Union (soccer) play there, but it's a lock the doors and get out of town as soon as you can type of city, much like Camden.