51–60 of 82 posts
>> 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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
According to the article Christie was unable to take over the schools in Camden, and took over the police force in 2013. Blaming him for not fixing the problems of Camden in less than a year is a little silly. Complaining that NJ didn't force Hoboken to subsidize Newark is silly - San Fransisco and Toronto didn't subsidize Camden either, but I don't see you blaming them.
In a single comment you've managed to deploy all the dismissive language anti-government folks use to derail meaningful discussion. Complaining : Pointing out problems isn't complaining. Subsidize : Investing and subsidizing aren't the same thing. When the arena was built in Newark I am sure some state help was involved, the end result has been an attraction that brings hockey fans to Newark who otherwise would have…
>> In September, its last supermarket closed, and the city has been declared a "food desert" by the USDA. There might not be a Safeway or a Kroger, but there are still places to buy groceries. http://i.imgur.com/Ey903PW.png Really tied of the media exaggerating the term 'food desert'
There's also plenty of places to buy food in Philly. You can walk there across the bridge, but it's something like a 30 minute walk each way (so not ideal for a proper grocery trip). There's also buses to/from Philly, unless that's changed since mid-2011. I assume the notorious Dunkin' Donuts store is still operating in Camden.
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…
According to the article Christie was unable to take over the schools in Camden, and took over the police force in 2013. Blaming him for not fixing the problems of Camden in less than a year is a little silly. Complaining that NJ didn't force Hoboken to subsidize Newark is silly - San Fransisco and Toronto didn't subsidize Camden either, but I don't see you blaming them.
It is now Camden County which encompasses a lot more than just the city.
Camden schools were taken over. http://www.njspotlight.com/stories/13/06/05/camden-schools-t...
Not sure what you're talking about.
Camden was a shithole even in the early '70s. My great grandmother was robbed, beaten, tied up and left for dead on the floor of her tenement looking apartment. She was found alive a few days later.
Woah. I'm not questioning the authenticity of your story, but do you have a news article about that? That's a crazy thing to have happen to you anywhere and I'd be curious where exactly in Camden it occurred.
>> In September, its last supermarket closed, and the city has been declared a "food desert" by the USDA. There might not be a Safeway or a Kroger, but there are still places to buy groceries. http://i.imgur.com/Ey903PW.png Really tied of the media exaggerating the term 'food desert'
1. Legalize drugs. Allow local municipalities to regulate and tax recreational substances. Boom. You have an instant local revenue stream, the police are suddenly out of the business of arresting people for "possession", and can focus more on violent crime, domestic disturbances, etc. In the short term, drug-funded gangs will turn to theft and robbery to stay in business, but anyway a major, relatively safe and easy source of revenue will be gone.
2. Declare certain urban areas to be economic development zones with drastically reduced taxes and regulations. Make it dirt cheap to locate factories and plants there. Provide start-up grants to local entrepreneurs, with real oversight, not just feel-good handouts. Lower the barriers to business start-ups and there will be business activity, and it will accelerate as the cycle of crime and poverty is reduced.
3. Fix the K-12 schools. Double the teachers' pay, double the security around the schools and provide secure bus rides to and from the projects and tenements. Make the school day longer, and ratchet up the standards. Demand higher achievement, and don't let a kid just flunk and walk away; make them re-take, make them realize the importance. Make school a destination, not a chore.
Teach democracy in the schools. Emphasize basic literacy skills, ethics and morality, history, how to speak and write properly, mathematics and science. Make the schools the best in the state in terms of standards.
These are all easier said than done, but can we afford to do anything less? We have spent trillions of dollars trying to fix similar problems in other countries, so why not spend a tenth of that or a thousandth of that fixing some of the problems in our own country?
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…
Not for the people who are still living there, it isn't.
This type of thinking is part of the problem we have in America -- "eh, too bad that your town got eaten alive, sucks to be you I guess." But the blight doesn't stop, it just keeps spreading. It's not hard to imagine a near future where the United States is a few islands of fantastic, unbelievable wealth -- NYC, the Bay Area, DC -- in a vast sea of potholed highways, shuttered businesses and backyard meth labs.
I guess if you think you'll be fortunate enough to be one of the few people living on those islands, you don't care. But life has no guarantees, and as wealth concentrates more and more people will find themselves effectively voted off the island they thought would save them.
If I were the king, I would fix Camden (and dozens of other grim urban districts around the country such as Detroit, north St. Louis, etc.) with the following plan: 1. Legalize drugs. Allow local municipalities to regulate and tax recreational substances. Boom. You have an instant local revenue stream, the police are suddenly out of the business of arresting people for "possession", and can focus more on violent crim…
1) Can cities outlive their usefulness? My answer = yes. 2) If yes, what should happen when they do? My answer = most try to hang on or re-invent themselves, but restructuring sooner rather than later might be best.