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Camden, New Jersey: America's Most Desperate Town

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

#71

Post by blisterpeanuts »

rayiner wrote: post #67
blisterpeanuts wrote: post #57

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…

I'm not sure about the impact of drug legalization on the local economies of these areas. Right now, the drug trade is actually one of the few sources of remunerative work available for unskilled people in these cities. You mention police arresting people for "possession" but the fact is that they have little time for that around here. There's enough dealers and traffickers to keep them busy. You think all those guys…

I should have said "dealing", not "possession". Regarding education, keep in mind that for some if not most children in dysfunctional homes and communities, school is their only hope, the only place where they interact with people who actually care about them (or at least, are supposed to care about them).

Cheap buildings aren't enough. You need a full stack, top to bottom, crash program to attract businesses and encourage local entrepreneurship. A special economic zone means low or no taxes for X years, little or no regulatory interference (e.g., zoning laws, architectural requirements, ethnic/gender hiring mandates, union lock-in, etc.), just basically leave them alone and let them build a business in a war zone. Of course, you can't simply suspend OSHA, ADA, and anti-discrimination laws, but if you can make it cheap enough to conduct business, the incentives will outweigh the danger and inconvenience and they will come.

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

#72

Post by lobo_tuerto »

ReadyCollective wrote: post #69
auctiontheory wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IF you get good teachers, etc. to live in your technocratic war zone, their high salaries jack up the cost of living I've never heard of the cost of living anywhere going up because of an influx of highly-paid K-12 teachers.

You pay for those teachers typically with property tax revenues. Their pay goes up; your taxes go up. At least, that's how it works in many locales.

There is no need for those taxes to go up. You can always redistribute.

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

#73

Post by elwell »

jmngomes wrote: post #15
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)."

"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.

> There are (much) bigger problems in the world than growth hacking and nginx performance.

Hmm... what about Clojure?

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

#74

Post by Crito »

mindslight wrote: post #68
blisterpeanuts wrote: post #57

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…

Drugs are the entire basis of their dysfunctional economy. The resources that drive the aggressiveness are supplied by the extremely profitable drug trade. Most people don't want or respect the cops because they benefit from the autonomous zone, and so would rather support their non-state-sanctioned force monopoly. Stop persecuting drugs and we're left with a city that's just poor and would appreciate the official po…

It is more important that we stop breaking up families and rendering people unemployable with pointless drug-related felonies and prison sentences, than it is we stop politicians from sticking their fingers in everything.

Taxes on drugs are a small price to pay if it furthers legalization.

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

#75

Post by mindslight »

Crito wrote: post #74
mindslight wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Drugs are the entire basis of their dysfunctional economy. The resources that drive the aggressiveness are supplied by the extremely profitable drug trade. Most people don't want or respect the cops because they benefit from the autonomous zone, and so would rather support their non-state-sanctioned force monopoly. Stop persecuting drugs and we're left with a city that's just poor and would appreciate the official po…

It is more important that we stop breaking up families and rendering people unemployable with pointless drug-related felonies and prison sentences, than it is we stop politicians from sticking their fingers in everything. Taxes on drugs are a small price to pay if it furthers legalization.

Well of course, if that's the trade off. But promoting it as an integral part of the solution helps perpetuate the same tired government-should-be-involved thinking that caused the problem in the first place.

Pragmatically, it wouldn't simply legitimize the current drug dealers overnight. You'd have to sell them on bullshit paperwork and becoming part of a system that they're predisposed to hate. Good luck with that.

Also the more complexity that goes into "appropriate" regulation, the more likely that specific (ie used by the upper classes) drugs will be the only ones that get deillegalized. Which will fail to address the actual problem at all.

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

#77

Post by JackFr »

Edmond wrote: post #49
yummyfajitas wrote: post #43

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…

"...derail meaningful discussion..." Oh. Who's being dismissive, Kay?

You refuse to address the parent's arguments on their own terms, purposefully reading them in as obdurate a manner as possible, completely failing to engage them, and then blame the parent's "dismissive language". They are meaningful discussion.

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

#78

Post by djs123sdj »

rayiner wrote: post #67
blisterpeanuts wrote: post #57

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…

I'm not sure about the impact of drug legalization on the local economies of these areas. Right now, the drug trade is actually one of the few sources of remunerative work available for unskilled people in these cities. You mention police arresting people for "possession" but the fact is that they have little time for that around here. There's enough dealers and traffickers to keep them busy. You think all those guys…

Agreed with legalization not necessarily reducing criminal behavior. Where I live in the Bay Area, the reduction in the street drug dealing trade (perhaps due to legalized dispensaries, and also the prevalence of smartphones) has coincided with an increase in the armed robbery and burglary rate.

Local police investigators have confirmed that many individuals who have been apprehended for robberies were previously involved in the local drug trade.

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

#79

Post by djs123sdj »

The greatest tragedy of places like this is that the law abiding population is held hostage by the threat (and exercise) of violence by the dangerous members of their own community - who are relatively fewer in number.

In such circumstances, those who can afford to leave - leave, and those who must stay make the choice to speak out against the situation and put themselves at terrible risk, or stay quiet, and witness the decline of the community.

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

#80

Post by Crito »

mindslight wrote: post #75
Crito wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is more important that we stop breaking up families and rendering people unemployable with pointless drug-related felonies and prison sentences, than it is we stop politicians from sticking their fingers in everything. Taxes on drugs are a small price to pay if it furthers legalization.

Well of course, if that's the trade off. But promoting it as an integral part of the solution helps perpetuate the same tired government-should-be-involved thinking that caused the problem in the first place. Pragmatically, it wouldn't simply legitimize the current drug dealers overnight. You'd have to sell them on bullshit paperwork and becoming part of a system that they're predisposed to hate. Good luck with that.…

We shouldn't give a shit about current drug dealers. The idea is to allow other people to provide a safe and consistent product out in the open, out-competing traditional drug dealers. These drug dealers will no longer have the opportunity to exploit children as street-level pushers, those children will get thrown into the legal system realistically erasing all job prospects. Legalized possession of drugs will keep even more innocents out of the legal system, and furthermore will remove many of the tools that police have traditionally used to justify violating people's right. "I smelled weed" will no longer be an excuse that police can use to frisk any minority they please.

> "Also the more complexity that goes into "appropriate" regulation, the more likely that specific (ie used by the upper classes) drugs will be the only ones that get deillegalized. Which will fail to address the actual problem at all."

The entire class of "we're only legalizing 'upper class' drugs" arguments are complete nonsense. The fact is that disadvantaged minorities are massively over-represented in marijuana arrests, despite using marijuana at similar rates as white americans.

> "But promoting it as an integral part of the solution helps perpetuate the same tired government-should-be-involved thinking that caused the problem in the first place."

We've got bigger fish to fry. Drug laws are modern Jim Crow laws, concerns about the merits of taxing vices and luxuries have a lower priority.

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