The more things change, the more things stay the same. Back in Camden, and the “development” discussion is still hot on the presses. This is my “glass-half-full” take, that reexamines the strategy guiding the city’s redevelopment and looks on the bright side.

If you read Howard Gillette’s Camden After the Fall (and anyone interested enough in Camden and Jersey cities enough to read this blog should take the time to do so), you’ll notice that the language used to describe the latest strategies to redevelopment Camden are not new. Camden was going to “come back” as early as 1962, when Mayor Al Pierce ran on the promise of turning downtown into a suburban-style mall to compete with the Cherry Hill Mall. Camden was going to comeback when it created “luxury” downtown high rises (though that plan was warped and didn’t quite get off the ground, eventually resulting in what we now know as the Northgate I high-rise). It was going to “come back” when the downtown followed the Baltimore model by recruiting an aquarium and building a baseball stadium to anchor the new waterfront (the baseball stadium is now empty, R.I.P. Riversharks). And, of course, more recent efforts such as the focus on educational and medical institutions (Eds and Meds) as well as recruit corporations to the city through generous state tax subsidies provided in the Economic Opportunity Act. 

Such strategies have a high hurdle for “success” in the public eye — they’re expected to mediate decades of disinvestment from cities, to help address municipal budget shortfalls, to participate in the urban revival by attracting residents who will frequent local retail and institutions, to lend a hand to residents here that struggle with poverty or a variety of other challenges, and to do so in a way that is “cost effective.” 

It is no surprise that at various points each of the development strategies above failed to do all of that. That’s because no single policy can bear the weight of decades of segregation, discrimination, poverty, poor planning and poor leadership. 

So, for a moment, let’s loosen the standard. Talk behind the scenes to certain architects of the current efforts to redevelop Camden and you hear a different standard: that facing tremendous challenges, the first step towards a thriving Camden was to change the narrative and convince private capital to invest. Doing so might mean throwing tremendous public dollars at the problem. It might mean risking gentrification in an effort to attract new citizens to the city. And it might mean providing corporations massive tax breaks while requiring little in terms of local hiring. But it would lead to investment in Camden, and that had to happen for those broader goals to be met. 

The glass half-full view of Camden is that this is working. Companies such as Subaru and Holtec are building state-of-the-art facilities within the city. Entrepreneurs think the city is hip and gather here. The city’s Promise Zone Initiative has helped attract 13 million in infrastructure investment.

For those who couldn’t believe the state was giving out $82 million in tax credits to the 76ers for a facility that would employ virtually no residents and will be a self-sustaining facility (i.e. have virtually no trickle-down commercial spending), this is part of the reason. Bringing in companies (at tremendous cost to the state) was the brute force necessary to attract investment. And it was possible; the state political climate made throwing lavish investments at companies possible (in a way that investing in impoverished residents, sadly, is not). 

This ties into a broader regional strategy that seeks to address the relative paucity of funds that make their way south of Trenton. In a political tug-of-war for state goodies between North Jersey and South Jersey, it became possible to trade in South Jersey democratic collaboration with a Republican agenda for an increase in the flow of resources to South Jersey. Some of that money was used to incentivize companies to come to Camden through the brute force of large tax incentives.

But, even if the money isn’t a particularly efficient way to target the problems in many of Camden’s neighborhoods, that investment is still here. In my “glass-half-full” post, I’ll talk about the reasons to be skeptical (don’t worry cynical readers, there are plenty!). But it’s also important to note that if the general theory was “Camden needs lavish investment to springboard more general investment” that appears to have happened. Camden is not just seeing investment from companies being bribed with Economic Opportunity Act dollars. The city is competitive for federal dollars through its Promise Zone initiative. It is seeing funding not just for Christie’s favorite charter schools, but also a massive investment in Camden High. Public transportation is even adding a PATCO stop near Campbell’s and Subaru’s headquarters. Some of these initiatives are making their way to neighborhoods outside of the waterfront, and to development outside of corporate headquarters complete with a moat and a fence separating employees from the city.

If the goal was to flood the waterfront and corporations with dollars (that likely wouldn’t reach residents) in an attempt to build a climate that would help attract later dollars (that would reach residents), that appears to be happening. At what cost? I’m not sure. The opportunity cost is one of the things I’ll take up in my “glass-half-empty” take on Camden’s development. But this plan has a big advantage over the counterfactual: it’s happening, which means it was possible. It might not be “cost-effective”. We may not conclude it was particularly good policy. But buildings are going up, and grants are being won. And that’s something for a city that has too often seen neither things happen.