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I just read an AP article on the arrest of accused child-murderer Osvaldo Rivera in a Camden apartment. The article went on to say, "...Camden, an impoverished city across the river from Philadelphia..."
I thought to call an entire city impoverished was pretty strong, so I came on to City-Data to look up the crime stats. I was shocked to see it in the 900s - even higher than Detroit!
So, for those of you who live or have lived in Camden, what's going on? Any theories as to why Camden is impoverished and crime-ridden? I'm sure there's no one answer, but I'm curious as to what has contributed to the city's current condition. I think the declining domestic auto industry is Detroit's biggest problem, but what about Camden?
And please know that I mean no offense to anyone who lives there. I have never been there and am not making a judgment call other than what I read in the AP article and on the City-Data profile.
I think it's the same as Detroit, all the companies that provided jobs and allowed for small businesses to open to cater to the workers closed and shuttered for years (RCA, Campbell's, etc). So no one left except the people who can't afford to get out, no jobs for them, low property values and poor schools, etc. etc. Very sad, some of the residents at the nursing home I work in talk about Camden in the old days, and it sounded like a decent place then.
camden is THE MOST DANGEROUS CITY IN THE U.S ..it has been for a while. the big problem i see as in all "impoverished" areas is the buisnesses close up and all the jobs dissapear...it will never go back to its past glory and the waterfront will never expand to improve things...it is what it is and its never gonna change....
Yep Camden is the probably the most horrible looking place in the country. A high crime rate is just the start, more than half the buildings there are damaged and unlivable. The place looks like an abandoned eyesore. They should just bulldoze the whole city and start over, it would be the only hope for it to ever recover.
Yep Camden is the probably the most horrible looking place in the country. A high crime rate is just the start, more than half the buildings there are damaged and unlivable. The place looks like an abandoned eyesore. They should just bulldoze the whole city and start over, it would be the only hope for it to ever recover.
Either that or gentrify the entire city but that more like putting a bandage on a 3rd degree burn.
Camden used to have a lot of industry- Old Grandad Bourbon, Campbell Soup. People came up from the South and from Puerto Rico for work. During and right after WW2, it was very busy and bustling and all. Then the industries dried up and the suburban sprawl to the east began in earnest, east on Rt. 70 (anchored by the Garden State Racetrack, a Mafia project). The burb that became known as Cherry Hill once it got sprawled enough became the place where people lived (who could afford it).
Camden was cut in half by an eight-lane (?) approach to the tolls for the Ben Franklin Bridge. Anything that made it a good place to live fell apart/left/was unfunded.
It is something like 90 percent single-woman heads of households. There is no supermarket. There are many abandoned buildings.
What's odd is, it's not that far down Rt. 70 to much better environs, but might as well be a world apart.
Buses used to run from the burbs to Camden. Then the Hi-Speed line went in around 1968. It has a couple of stops in Camden (I think near the hospital and one other) but it really meant that people wouldn't go to the center of Camden via bus for town government, library, etc. I do remember once taking the bus into Camden to the library and everything felt very... ended. Also applied for a couple of jobs off the speedline and the streets just didn't feel like a happening small city.
What still amazes me is how close it is to suburban areas of Rt.70, like where the now-burned-down-twice racetrack was, the former Rickshaw Inn, the former Latin Casino (Ray Charles, 1971!) You'd think crime could hop on the road and move on down, but it barely does, although that end of now-Cherry Hill is older, more blue-collar and less new builds. The "new" (new to me) Cherry Hill Library is on that part of Rt. 70,and it's huge. Looks like an office complex. It's enormous. (I remember when the library was a storefront in the Ellisburg Shopping Center strip, then Malcolm Wells designed a gorgeous wooden/glass/contemporary library further down. It wasn't so big and was really beautiful. I don't know what happened to that building.
What everyone else said. Camden used to have a lot of industry and be a lot larger. As the jobs moved away, the city never diversified. Eventually the well-to-do moved to the suburbs and Camden's been dying ever since. Camden boomed during WWII, making ships for the navy, but after the war contracts dried up, a lot of money left town.
I grew up in Camden, and I'm better for it. I have some scars, I have plenty of stories, but I don't think I'd be doing what I'm doing if I'd had it easy growing up.
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