Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Camden, New Jersey: America's Most Desperate Town

m.rollingstone.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 82 posts

Re: Camden, New Jersey: America's Most Desperate Town

#21

Post by bluedino »

rayiner wrote: post #18
VLM wrote: post #2

A disappointing effort by Taibbi, usually does a lot better. Way too much exaggeration. Its a dying city because its population dropped about 0.3% per year. Like saying my blood pressure has dropped about 1 point due to some (minimal) exercise in the last month, therefore I'm dead. And then later on the population is now booming because of white heroin addicts moving into the city, but its also dying anyway at the sa…

> The rust belt was news and new and insightful in 1970 or so As someone living in a city gutted by de-industrialization and the drug trade (Wilmington, DE), I think it's news that 40 years later, these places are still in poor shape. The usual response to concerns about technology or globalization putting people out of work is that it just frees them up to work on something better and more useful. "New jobs will rep…

>> Fully a quarter of the U.S. population lives in the metro areas of just six cities: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington, San Jose/San Francisco, and Boston.

Chicago and Los Angeles are safe if you live in a upper-middle class white neighborhood. Chicago is the most dangerous large city in the US.

Re: Camden, New Jersey: America's Most Desperate Town

#22

Post by twoodfin »

JackFr wrote: post #7

According to Taibbi, the only person in the state of New Jersey with any moral responsibility for his or her actions is the governor. The city of Camden is populated entirely by victims, and the cause of their misery is Chris Christie.

I don't think that's a fair reading of the piece. By the end, Christie comes off pretty well:

Then, this year, after two years of chaos, Christie and local leaders instituted a new reform, breaking the unions of the old municipal police force and reconstituting a new Metro police department under county control.

...

Predictably, the new Camden County-run police began to turn crime stats in the right direction with a combination of beefed-up numbers, significant investments in technology, and a cheaper and at least temporarily de-unionized membership.

...

In recent months, Christie has visited Camden several times, making it plain that he puts the daring 2011 gambit here in his political win column. And not everyone in Camden disagrees. One ex-con I talked to in the city surprised me by saying he liked what Christie had done, and compared Camden's decades-long consumption of state subsidies to the backward incentive system he'd seen in prison. "In prison, you can lie in your bed all day long and get credit for good time toward release," he said, shaking his head. "You should have to do something other than lie there."

For a guy like Taibbi, who can't describe union "excesses" without persistent scare quotes, this is praising with faint damnation.

Re: Camden, New Jersey: America's Most Desperate Town

#23

Post by bluedino »

>> The police force alone in Camden costs more than $65 million a year.

I'd be curious as to how much of that $65,000,000 goes towards funding things like pensions and healthcare for retired workers. All of the new cops are starting without pensions in most municipalities (at least the ones that are low on money) and a huge part of their budget is paying for long-retired cops.

Re: Camden, New Jersey: America's Most Desperate Town

#24

Post by cafard »

Edmond wrote: post #17
JackFr wrote: post #7

According to Taibbi, the only person in the state of New Jersey with any moral responsibility for his or her actions is the governor. The city of Camden is populated entirely by victims, and the cause of their misery is Chris Christie.

I believe Camden is more or less under state control so it is right to blame the state. NJ has an awful track record when it comes to how it treats its urban areas. Newark, which would be considered a crown jewel anywhere else has been left to rot for 40yrs. The state is very unequal in terms of investment to various areas, basically you can quickly tell where the high income earners live and where the rest live wher…

New Jersey has very fragmented local government. In Maryland, the school districts (for example) are by county.

As for Baltimore, a) for eight years the governor was William Donald Schaeffer, a former mayor of Baltimore who thought of Maryland as a life-support system for Baltimore, b) not coincidentally, the cash cow of Maryland has for many years been Montgomery County, which is full of good-government types who seem to lack the technical political skills to make their influence felt.

Re: Camden, New Jersey: America's Most Desperate Town

#25

Post by _of »

Kynlyn wrote: post #16
jmngomes wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"For folks wondering why this is on HN" I'm glad it is. There are (much) bigger problems in the world than growth hacking and nginx performance. There are many bright people here, it'd be a waste if important issues like these weren't discussed in this forum.

And there are countless forums to discuss such "important" issues. Just because a story has humanistic touch, that doesn't mean it belongs here.

You don't need to read it if you are not interested. I'm a tech guy and I found it very interesting to read.

Re: Camden, New Jersey: America's Most Desperate Town

#26

Post by Edmond »

cafard wrote: post #24
Edmond wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe Camden is more or less under state control so it is right to blame the state. NJ has an awful track record when it comes to how it treats its urban areas. Newark, which would be considered a crown jewel anywhere else has been left to rot for 40yrs. The state is very unequal in terms of investment to various areas, basically you can quickly tell where the high income earners live and where the rest live wher…

New Jersey has very fragmented local government. In Maryland, the school districts (for example) are by county. As for Baltimore, a) for eight years the governor was William Donald Schaeffer, a former mayor of Baltimore who thought of Maryland as a life-support system for Baltimore, b) not coincidentally, the cash cow of Maryland has for many years been Montgomery County, which is full of good-government types who se…

The fragmented government is definitely a major issue, I believe there was an attempt to consolidate municipalities sometime back, not sure how well that went. In some places it seems every few blocks is a new municipality.

I am still holding out hope that Cory Booker would become governor and make the necessary push for Newark, but I am not holding my breath for that. He may have higher ambitions.

>b) not coincidentally, the cash cow of Maryland has for many years been Montgomery County, which is full of good-government types who seem to lack the technical political skills to make their influence felt.

I suppose in that regard NJ is cursed because its source of tax revenue is from wall street types who are not exactly known for their egalitarianism :)

Re: Camden, New Jersey: America's Most Desperate Town

#27

Post by [deleted] »

bluedino wrote: post #21
rayiner wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The rust belt was news and new and insightful in 1970 or so As someone living in a city gutted by de-industrialization and the drug trade (Wilmington, DE), I think it's news that 40 years later, these places are still in poor shape. The usual response to concerns about technology or globalization putting people out of work is that it just frees them up to work on something better and more useful. "New jobs will rep…

>> Fully a quarter of the U.S. population lives in the metro areas of just six cities: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington, San Jose/San Francisco, and Boston. Chicago and Los Angeles are safe if you live in a upper-middle class white neighborhood. Chicago is the most dangerous large city in the US.

[deleted]

Re: Camden, New Jersey: America's Most Desperate Town

#28

Post by Raphmedia »

SyneRyder wrote: post #6

For folks wondering why this is on HN, there's some interesting info in the middle of the article about the tech the new police force are using in Camden: "There are 35 microphones planted around the city that can instantly detect the exact location of a gunshot down to a few meters (and just as instantly train cameras on escape routes)."

Don't upvote it if you don't want to see it. That's all. That's how it works.

Re: Camden, New Jersey: America's Most Desperate Town

#29

Post by VLM »

rayiner wrote: post #18
VLM wrote: post #2

A disappointing effort by Taibbi, usually does a lot better. Way too much exaggeration. Its a dying city because its population dropped about 0.3% per year. Like saying my blood pressure has dropped about 1 point due to some (minimal) exercise in the last month, therefore I'm dead. And then later on the population is now booming because of white heroin addicts moving into the city, but its also dying anyway at the sa…

> The rust belt was news and new and insightful in 1970 or so As someone living in a city gutted by de-industrialization and the drug trade (Wilmington, DE), I think it's news that 40 years later, these places are still in poor shape. The usual response to concerns about technology or globalization putting people out of work is that it just frees them up to work on something better and more useful. "New jobs will rep…

The problem with "fully a quarter" is WRT Chicago they're talking about a metro area, Skokie and Romeoville, maybe Lake Geneva, heck maybe Milwaukee... I'm talking about actually in the city, walk to work, urban renewal stuff, not suburb a long commute away. Like the north side of Milwaukee or south side of Chicago. Not say, Chenequa (which is a rather wealthy suburb of Milwaukee, more or less, but is technically part of the "metro area")

For example, and I speak from experience, there are no middle class people left anymore in the city of Milwaukee. School district stats show 90%+ poverty rates in the public schools, and a couple $25K/yr private schools for the wealthy leaders, and almost nobody in between, until you commute at least 5 to 10 miles away.

Re: Camden, New Jersey: America's Most Desperate Town

#30

Post by maxerickson »

rayiner wrote: post #18
VLM wrote: post #2

A disappointing effort by Taibbi, usually does a lot better. Way too much exaggeration. Its a dying city because its population dropped about 0.3% per year. Like saying my blood pressure has dropped about 1 point due to some (minimal) exercise in the last month, therefore I'm dead. And then later on the population is now booming because of white heroin addicts moving into the city, but its also dying anyway at the sa…

> The rust belt was news and new and insightful in 1970 or so As someone living in a city gutted by de-industrialization and the drug trade (Wilmington, DE), I think it's news that 40 years later, these places are still in poor shape. The usual response to concerns about technology or globalization putting people out of work is that it just frees them up to work on something better and more useful. "New jobs will rep…

The violent crime rate 5 miles outside of Detroit (Livonia, others) is lower than Manhattan or the Bronx.
Post reply on HN