Camden Arkansas (hotel, travel, jobs)

[matto]

Camden is a depressed old poor little town.

[Trapped In ElDorado]

Originally Posted by matto

Camden is a depressed old poor little town.

Exactly.

What does that make it now?

3 for South Arkansas
10 against
??????

[Trapped In ElDorado]

at least ten characters

[jbs44]

Here is an update on life in Camden. Many of the older citizens of the town ,blamed for Camden not prospering, have passed away. The paper mill is gone. That is probably one of the biggest things that held this city down. You had people making $20-$25 per hour telling you how poor they were when the average wage in Camden was significantly lower than that. All the while these same people were stealing the mill blind, and everytime they needed anything for their home (furniture, cars, ect...) they couldn't wait to tell local business owners they had to go out of town to get what they wanted because "Camden doesn't have what "I" need". Long story short ,on the paper mill leaving, it was one of the best things to ever happen to this town. It has forced Camden to stop relying on industry jobs, and look for other methods of prosperity, which brings me to what is going right for Camden in 2007. We are currently in the process of building a freshwater recreational lake that will be about 9700 acres in size. The lake will be somewhere between 60-80 feet deep at its deepest point, and 2.1 miles wide at its widest point. The lake is being built for residential, retirement, recreation, and a possible source of water for the residents. We have formed an economical development strategy to bring other jobs to Camden (something other than industry), such as movie theaters, department stores, and restaraunts. Both projects (the lake and economic development) are being headed by some of the best in those respected fields in the country. Things are definitely looking up in Camden. While we are a long way from where we want to be, we have new young blood beginning to emerge as leaders of this great community and would welcome anyone who is a hard worker and wants to live in a great small town with a lot to offer and a lot more on the horizon.

[Stormcrow73]

Wow..i'm really not trying to be TOO crass, but service jobs do not make a great basis for an economy. How many service jobs do you need at $6-10/hr to make up for the lost industry jobs in that $20-25/hr range you quoted??? Without those people making $20-25/hr, how will a service industry be supported? Is this lake in a state with an abundance of lakes going to be the driving force in this economy?

I realize there is a chicken and egg relationship between high paying economy driver jobs and the service jobs: if the service infrastructure is poor, you won't land the higher paying jobs and if you don't have the higher paying jobs, you can't maintain a strong service sector. The fairly recent (10 year time frame I believe?) influx of aerospace jobs to Camden is certainly a sign that good things could come and, in my opinion, that is the sector of the economy that needs to be used as the basis for all future growth. The restaurants, theaters, lake, etc are just icing. The aerospace jobs are the cake!

[anjoe]

My spouse has worked at Atlantic Reasearch that is now Aerojet in East Camden for over 20 years now. It's true about Aerospace jobs but we in Camden also have to have something to offer the people that want to be in the Aerospace Industry. One person that had a job interview at Aerojet, flew into Little Rock, rented a car and as soon as he drove past Fordyce he turned around and drove back to Little Rock and flew back home! Camden has to grow and offer more to people that may want our jobs. Most of these ladies that have husbands in the Aerospace Industry want a attractive, growing town to move to. We've lost much business here in Camden. It's time for the old timers in Camden politics to start releasing some of the family money to help save and attract business here. Camden has lots of friendly people but we need more than friendly people and historic homes, etc.

[Stormcrow73]

That's part of that chicken and egg thing. I got the impression from the post above that Camden was more or less abandoning efforts to promote growth in sectors not related to service. The only way the closing of a plant with high-paying jobs can be good is if it wakes up the community and I guess that's what jbs was meaning.

I contacted ARC once about coming down there about 9 or so years ago. I all but scheduled an interview when I came to my senses and realized Camden was a non-starter for me because of the location, and I'm a native Arkansan! I can kinda understand what you're up against. Good luck and I hope the growth helps with recruiting and retaining people! It would be wise of places like Aerojet and the others down there to endow some engineering programs at SAU so you can recruit and retain locally.

[jcj]

i lived in camden for a little while, and for the short time i was there i sadly hated it. theres nothing to do here, and theres no sign of growth. The town mostly consists of industry such as lockheed martin, ratheon, and highland. They have a nice 2 year college called sau tech, along with the arkansas police and fire academy. Don't know too much about the high schools here. From what i have seen of camden its not the most desirable towns in the world, don't come here. You will regret it =(

[chesneyfan77]

Hmmmmm. I have a different perspective of the big lake project. My family lives on the land that is going to be TAKEN from them--and has lived there for many generations--for this city-saving lake to be built on. From our perspective, we see the government doing its usual by overusing their power to take something that doesn't rightfully belong to them. Yes. TAKE. The government may give them a percentage of what their land is worth, but we know the government never does anything fair. My mom, dad, grandfather, aunts, and uncles are being forced off the land they built their lives around. It would sure be nice for someone to step back and look at what is happening on the other side of this lake project. . . . . . But as usual. . . . Screw the weak. . . . . to get what the government says it wants.

[anjoe]

We have the so called river port that was built downtown and it hasn't helped the economy of Camden any. I don't see any growth except for Wal-Mart Super Center being built and it will be one of the small ones being built, smaller than El Dorado's Super Wal-Mart. My spouse has a great job in Aerospace. That's the main reason why we are here and have stayed here. I wished Camden would grow like it did in the 1980's but that was only because of the war then and having Ronald Reagan as our President. He was the best thing that ever happened for Camden's economy because he strongly supported defense spending.