In Camden, 2014 was a year of change. The education system was fully under state control, the new metro police force was ramped up, and a bevy of tax breaks were handed out to corporations for moving to Camden. Through all this change, there is one critical question that is being asked more and more often by Camden’s residents and advocates. Who benefits from all these changes? If 2014 was a year of change, 2015 is the year Camden needs to fight to get its fair share of the resources designed to help the city.
What's the positive impact for ordinary unemployed residents? #localkn #CamdenNJ https://t.co/BsH8xAMbUZ
— Juan R. Rodriguez (@JuanRRodriguez7) January 2, 2015
Negotiations that ensure Camden residents are part of the “Camden revival” are starting. Groups like Camden Churches Organized for People have been focused on a “Contract for Camden” which redefines “success” of these policies by arguing, “The success of job creation policies is measured by a decrease in the unemployment rate.” At the same time, neighborhood groups such as the Cooper-Grant Neighborhood Association (of which I am a member) are trying to understand how they can assure that their new neighbors are good neighbors. These groups are researching Community Benefit Agreements, which have the potential to ensure that some of the windfall companies receive for moving here results in improvements for the city and its residents, not just another isolated corporate campus with a fence around it.
So, in 2015, neighborhoods will argue for the little things. They will negotiate to ensure that new corporate headquarters pay to take care of their own physical space, by cleaning up their property. They will fight for little things like ensuring their is enough parking at headquarters, so employees do not fight residents for parking. And they will propose new ideas and collaborations, like one resident’s idea to turn a local water tower one of the world’s largest displays of public art:
Communities will also argue for the bigger things, such as trying to integrate new corporations with local business. Just before the holidays I stopped by Pete Toso’s Little Slice of New York, a pizza place just a few blocks of campus, and chatted with him about some of these issues. He was skeptical, particularly of new businesses coming to town, saying he sees little business from the L3 building or others just around the corner. These facilities often have their own cafeterias. Essentially, Pete told me, “these companies are good enough to move to Camden, but not good enough to do business in Camden.”
Why can’t local restaurants be embedded into these cafeterias? Why couldn’t local residents be hired to be the “eyes” of the street rather than a firm like Allied Barton whose security officers are unfamiliar with the city?
It’s becoming evident that residents will have to fight for such projects to include them. Jason Nark captured the attitude of companies coming to Camden when he wrote about this quip by the CEO of the 76ers:
Kelly Francis, a Camden resident for 65 years and Camden County chapter president of the NAACP, was there for the announcement because he attends nearly every meeting in the city. He was not smiling.
“It was all hype,” Francis said when asked about it this week.
To keep the credits, the Sixers are required to maintain 250 jobs, and 200 already are filled. When Francis asked team CEO Scott O’Neil whether there would be entry-level jobs for Camden residents, O’Neil replied, jokingly: “We need a shooting guard.”
Francis didn’t laugh.
The challenge of integration is a large one. It’s the reason I’m such a big fan of groups like the Latin American Economic Development Association, whose Dine Around Camden program seeks to link the downtown to fantastic locally-owned restaurants across the city. It’s also the greatest failure of the waterfront development, which feels more like an oasis from the city (and is seen that way by locals) than an integrated part of the city. That is a design failure; the waterfront is difficult to get to because of parking lots, there isn’t enough local programming (the Camden Children’s Garden being the welcome exception), and during big events the police are there to make sure tourists don’t accidentally find themselves in “real Camden.” Even more heartbreaking are the stories I heard at the Camden Christmas Parade from folks who work with young people in the city who find the youth they work with have never even been to the waterfront.
And so, just like the development of decades past, 2014 saw new investment in Camden with little integration with local business or residents. The challenge for 2015 is to make sure that integration happens. More power to those community activists, local entrepreneurs and neighborhood leaders doing the hard work to make sure that happens.
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This is all so important to talk about as we head forward with these tax breaks and as these companies move into the city. As much as I love that a company of young, tech-savy, and possibly city-friendly people, Webimax, is coming into town, I struggle to see them integrating much with downtown. Like you said, those buildings are so far removed from the rest of the city that you can drive in and drive out without ever being on the non-waterfront, and it’s the same story for Lockheed or the 76ers. They’re isolated, alone in a sea of parking lots, with nothing around them to even capture their lunchtime dollars. The tax breaks they’ve received represent the literal least you can do to help the local economy.
What I believe needs to happen is a multi-faceted campaign to bring more businesses to Market Street and Broadway and people to patronize them. We have to un-silo people if any of this is going to mean anything for the city. There’s so much potential downtown already; the “eds and meds” really do bring so many people downtown on the weekdays even before you get into the L3 and waterfront workers. But to get those people out from their buildings, downtown needs more than pizza shops. It needs goods and services just like any downtown, and the weekday foot traffic on those two streets I mentioned are more than any charming suburban downtown’s in the area. The potential is there, but it needs vision beyond tax breaks to work. The city only needs to look to its bigger brother, Philadelphia, which itself struggled with keeping people downtown in the 1990s, and which has succeeded spectacularly at it.
In some ways it’s a chicken and egg problem, with storefronts staying empty because workers don’t get out of their buildings, and workers staying in their buildings because there’s nowhere to go. I wonder if a streamlined support system for local businesses isn’t in order for helping to bolster local businesses that really help a city thrive. Can we attract small businesses to Broadway, to capture the Cooper Hospital and Rowan-Cooper students there on a daily basis? Or to all those empty storefronts on Market Street west of 5th Street? (The latter is particularly frustrating to me, as thousands of people walk past those empty lots and buildings from PATCO on their way to the waterfront on event days. Those could be businesses getting new patrons, attracting money, giving people places to eat or hang out before and after shows, for instance.) And once we do that, can we then build up a marketing campaign to get people out of their buildings? Think of Visit Philly, Collingswood’s intense community building efforts, or any other venture in the region to prettify and market a town’s commercial area. Camden *has* a special services district, but it seems they do nothing of this sort. All of these are important pieces of building a vibrant downtown, and they’re all severely lacking in Camden.
All of this is part of the reason I’m more looking forward to projects built on lots in the heart of downtown than in isolated areas. For instance, Rutgers is supposed to be constructing a nursing building at 5th and Federal Streets, where there’s currently an immense break in the urban fabric. And a company is rehabbing historical buildings across from Cooper-Rowan for residential units. I think these types of projects have more potential to bring economic growth downtown than tax-break recipients far away on the water.