One of the most interesting discussions happening in Camden right now is about gentrification and development. Some Camden residents, rightfully, are skeptical that when big development comes, it’s going to wipe out local community and start over. There are plenty of reasons for such skepticism — there’s the national history of urban renewal, which took a bulldozer to urban communities. There’s the local history of the Cherokee development, which would have claimed thousands of homes in East Camden to make way for a golf course (among other things). Have this debate often enough, and one of the things it comes down to is balancing the need for investment/income/middle-class residents to provide an infusion of capital into the system with the history that Camden has of desperately throwing resources towards attracting that capital while ignoring the at-times-immediate needs of people who already live in the city.
Matt Katz famously wrote that while investment was happening in the aquarium (and, let’s be honest, Rutgers) downtown, while the city was unable to fix broken pipes that literally pumped human waste into a family’s basement. It’s an extreme example, but it speaks to the costs (and what is left undone) when resources are focused on attracting something new to the city.
That’s why I read my friend Patrick Miner’s piece on why he came to the city with such interest. Here’s an excerpt:
My first consideration in choosing a place to live is location and commuting. Knowing I wanted easy walking/biking/transit access to Center City (for work and much else), downtown Camden beat out Philly locales because:
- The price
- The Bridge walkways are beautiful, and separated from cars for 1.5 miles, and
- PATCO runs 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with good frequency and reliability, (and wifi at stations).
Both PATCO and the Bridge are within minutes walking from my house. If I need to drive somewhere, Zipcars “live” one block away at Victor Lofts. If heading to New York, I walk one block and board the NJ Transit River Line (a diesel-powered tram connecting Camden to Trenton Transit Center).
There’s a lot more, and I want to try to unpack this a bit. First of all, let me just say that I really like Patrick, consider him a friend, and think it’s great that he’s moved into Cooper Grant. It’s an unambiguously good feeling that contradicts my more conflicted feelings about other new neighbors on the waterfront (particularly large waterfront high rises).
On one hand, it’s a little surprising that I’m so high on Patrick’s view of the city — in many ways it’s the manifestation of the “this is good for the middle class” approach to Camden that often feels so disconnected from the neighborhoods where I do my research. In those neighborhoods, the transportation is not good and Philly is often another world. But, Patrick’s reflections parallel my own — I do enjoy being downtown (it’s closer to Center City than when I was in South Philly), I do enjoy a walkable/bikeable lifestyle (I work two blocks from the Victor), and much of what he said resonated with my own experiences (including the discussion of price).
But the biggest thing that I appreciate about Patrick’s choice to buy here is that he did it because of Camden, not in spite of Camden. We’ve seen over and over again what it looks like when we have to shoehorn in people/venues/corporations that see Camden as a negative. We see offices in a sea of parking lots. We see internal cafeterias. We see buildings, such as the new Rutgers-Rowan building going up on Broadway, that replace local businesses with stagnant, blocks with primarily educational use that ends when students go home. These things are done in part because Camden is seen as a threat, and these people/institutions need a buffer from it.
What impresses me most about Patrick is that he sees the opposite. He sees Camden as an opportunity. He goes to neighborhood meetings, gets involved, fights for the bridge walkway to be open later, and most of all, no one has to ask him or pressure him to do so. He gets involved and supports Camden establishments because he sees good in them.
This is my first principle of development for the city of Camden. Let’s recruit companies, people, attractions that want to be a part of the city, not that are willing to take our money but prefer to stay isolated. That’s my dividing line. It’s why when a company answers with “drug testing” when ask about Camden residents I get so upset. It’s why when companies are more focused on running shuttles for employees than on supporting a walkable lifestyle that would help local businesses, I get upset. I, like Patrick, see so much that I’m happy to support, and honored to be a part of. I want to see our development reflect the same sentiment.
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@Joseph
Those businesses moved down Broadway and you didn’t patronize them anyways. Market street will host more businesses in the future but the main concern for everyone is the fact that Camden is still “Camden” to the people who have money to spend.
What I see is my hometown being built to the vision of those who control it for their own self interests. Visiting over the last couple of months all I see is development but it is all a facade for what is really going on. None of the social inequities or issues are being addressed. New employers come in and say that they cannot hire within because people are not experienced or cannot pass a drug test, I say Bullshit! If the previously mentioned hurdles exist how about some training, partnership with the school training to develop apprentices or treatment so some who are affected by addiction can get the help they need. A new Camden is being built within Camden to then push out the old Camden so it can be claimed for urban renewal to benefit those who feed a trough of patronage.
“We see buildings, such as the new Rutgers-Rowan building going up on Broadway, that replace local businesses with stagnant, blocks with primarily educational use that ends when students go home.”
I’m always upset by such things, and in the case of Broadway it was sad that they had to bulldoze the one remaining block of the whole street that largely survived the massive divestment of the 20th century. This mindset is why we’re going to see a Rutgers “welcome center” go into the vacant space at 330 Cooper Street instead of something productive like a restaurant or cafe that could be open late, or a grocery store for the area, or something non-institutional that could be good for someone not associated with Rutgers. For all that Cooper Street is vaunted as downtown’s great street, it’s atrocious if you don’t work or go to school at Rutgers. As someone who wants to support Camden in as many ways as I can, it makes me sad that something isn’t going here that I can support with my money. I certainly don’t mind going into the city’s neighborhoods to support its businesses, but this is no way to develop a downtown. Monocultures, be it massive banking institutions in Wilmington or casinos in Atlantic City, are destined to fail, or at the very least, never attract the diversity of uses that creates truly successful places. The worst thing that can happen, in my mind, is that the state, county, and local organizations spend billions of dollars “rebuilding” downtown Camden only to create a sterile environment where everything still closes at 5pm. Only when Ed Rendell begged businesses to stay open past 5 in Center City in the 90s did Philadelphia’s revitalization take off. No one in charge of anything in Camden seems to understand this, which is just so depressing. How can they not understand what’s worked for the city just across the river?
Thanks for appreciating my point of view, Steve.
Speaking of institutions and developments that feel a need to “buffer” themselves from Camden, I want to do a piece titled “The Gates of Camden” to highlight the sheer amount of fenced-off properties in the city, including Campell’s Soup headquarters, Kipp-Norcross charter school, multiple housing developments, the park in Lanning Square, a big park in East Camden.
The people/institutions who erect these fences are paranoid and/or have little understanding or care for the concept of community.