One of the goals of this blog is to provide another place for community discussion to happen. In that vein, Joseph Russell (@thegreengrass), a South Jersey native, has reached out again with his thoughts. You can read his first post here:
One thing that becomes almost immediately evident when you pay attention to Camden is newspapers’ and news anchors’ obsession with crimes and crime statistics. At first glance, it seems like it makes sense. It’s a beleaguered city that suffers an exceptional amount of crime. A new police force is out to prove itself. A governor who wants to regionalize other police forces in the state needs it to succeed to push his agenda forward. And unfortunately, shocking crime sells air time and ad space.
But to focus on crime as the sole aspect of the city is to only follow half the story. Policing only attempts to address the symptom, not to fix the root cause of the problem. After all, it is no more Camden County Police Chief Scott Thomson’s job to make sure Camden thrives in the 21st century than it is Chief Charles Ramsey’s job to ensure that Philadelphia succeeds economically. Their roles are merely supplemental to the success of their cities.
So what is the root cause of Camden’s problems? In my view, there is no more important issue in the city than the lack of jobs. I imagine most people would agree that if there were more sources of employment for city residents, crime would be less of an issue. If the drug dealers had a legitimate way to make money, they would probably choose a less deadly profession. If women could get steady employment, they wouldn’t have to sell their bodies. Most of the demand for both trades comes from the suburbs anyway, so to paint this as a Camden-only problem is unbelievably short sighted.
Unfortunately, there seems to be a lack of understanding about this, or at least, a lack of leadership to address it. To illustrate this, I’ll explore two recent opportunities for economic development that the city and its business community has seemingly done nothing about.
In 2012, Amazon announced the intention to build two new distribution centers in New Jersey. Last year, they announced that the community of Robbinsville, located just outside Trenton, had been selected for the first center. We haven’t yet heard where the second location in the state will be, but in my mind, Camden is the perfect location. It benefits from being in close proximity to Philly’s shipping assets. It’s the kind of work that requires minimal training and no special college degree. It’s a win-win for the city and it’s people, yet I haven’t read one thing to indicate that Camden’s public and private leaders even know amazon is looking to build another center in the state. In my mind, they should be doing all they can to work together to bring that center to Camden.
The second possible opportunity is not yet lost, though time must be running out. Last year, Subaru announced that they would be looking to move from their long time home in Cherry Hill into a new building that would consolidate and centralize their offices and accommodate a growing workforce. Considering that their workers come from all over South Jersey, it seems obvious to me that Camden should be the location of their new headquarters. There are so many empty lots in downtown Camden that the city must be able to put together any land package that Subaru would hope for; they could build the headquarters of their dreams. Of course, with the way we run a 21st century economy, getting a company to move into your city or town usually involves tax breaks and other incentives, which Camden may not be in the best position to offer. But the possibility hadn’t even been raised. It appears that no one is talking about seizing the opportunity to bring a huge international company’s headquarters into the city.
The people of Camden want to work. When a housing company announced it would be accepting job applications in October, a few thousand people showed up with resumes for one of the few hundred jobs the company would bring to the city in its first year. Several months later, several thousand job seekers filled a hall in the neighboring town of Collingswood in search of work. While there might be a deficit of highly skilled labor in Camden, there is obviously no lack of will. In order for the city to truly turn around, for gruesome crimes to stop being the only news coming out of the city, we need our newspapers and media outlets to hold the city government and business community responsible for fighting to bring opportunity to the city. They won’t win every time, but to see them do nothing is heartbreaking.
Editor’s Update:
The Latin American Economic Development Association (LAEDA) wrote me to highlight their leadership on developing and supporting local businesses in South Jersey and, specifically, Camden. Here’s what they had to say:
“Have you ever heard of the Latin American Economic Development Association (LAEDA)? We are a non-profit based out of the City of Camden and have been in existence since 1987. We offer a 9-week Entrepreneurial Development Training Program three times each year. As a result, LAEDA has empowered over 120 entrepreneurs throughout South Jersey over the past 4 years. Many of these businesses are based in the city of Camden.”
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