Posted on 12/29/2004 5:48:19 AM PST by OESY
It's a terribly poor place BUT some of the worst descriptions here are overblown. I have never been attacked in Camden beyond a street person panhandling. The NJ Aquarium, RCA renovations (to apartments), Battleship NJ, Marina, etc are all improvements and basically succesful. But I don't think they reach many of the citizens with jobs.
I grew up in a Newark suburb and I would still rather be stranded in Camden than Newark. It's sad because Camden is right on the river across from all the more valuable Philly real estate.
I also blame liberal democrats for just about everything, including Camden. But because republicans don't live in these cities, it means no one really wants to clean them up.
I was born in Cooper Hospital, but a few years ago I spent a lot of time at Lourdes when a family member was ill. The Camden hospitals still offer the best care for the seriously ill outside of Philadelphia.
Camden is so depressing that I have a great deal of sympathy for anyone who has the misfortune of living or working there.
When I was stationed at Philadelphia, people were advised to NOT go to Camden under any circumstances.
There was a joke too:
"How do you get through Camden?"
"Running or speeding"
WEll, that's what you get for keeping the democRATS in office!
Yep.
I was exercising a horse at the old Garden State racetrack when the horse died of a heart attack. I was hurt and they took me to Cooper---great docs!
The Detroit Difference is that is a couple of hundred square miles. There are single abandoned factories (abandoned in the 1940s!) that are as big as Camden. Many are also very toxic superfund type sites. The Detroit train station is as large as Grand Central Station and is abandoned. I believe Tiger Stadium is now abandoned. (There is a flashy new one in the section of the city that has been revitalized).
"You know, I'm going to start thanking
the woman who cleans the restroom in
the building I work in. I'm going to start
thinking of her as a human being"
No surprise there ...
Philly is also becoming much like Camden
And Geee .. who runs that city too ... DEMS!
Huh????
legalizing drugs would make Camden even more of a hellhole
Precisely. Deindustrialization means dense concentrations of poor people left behind, a fact free traders completely ignore. Stable, unskilled factory jobs are the first rung on the ladder out of the ghetto.
No, it would take the wind out of the sails of the gang. Gangs couldn't make money selling drugs, and therefore, wouldn't be killing each other to take over their business. This has been seen repeatedly in places that have done this.
First step, issue a 12 gauge and 20 shells to every man and woman over 40 and make them all deputies.
Second step, break every drug dealer's every toy and shoot any who resist, carting everyone known off to the slammer.
After that it gets easy...
"Sadly, this sort of thing is a major side effect of what happens when manufacturing flees a country, which the powers that be would prefer that everyone ignores.
"Not everyone in America is equipped to work a technical job, and you can only have so many McDonald's on so many street corners."
Both sentences start off with a true statement and end with a false conclusion. Not ALL the powers that be would prefer to ignor it. Some would make the right changes, but liberal judges and organizations like ACLU would thwart them at ever corner.
AFA McDonalds is concerned, so what? I don't care how poor I was I would leave a place like in a minute. I bet 98% of people living there could leave if they chose to. I would walk or even crawl to get out. I would find a job at a McDonalds in another, safer town. I've done a lot worse. This is America. There is NO reason short of total physical or mental impairment that prevents people from leaving a crap hole like that and finding something better.
Good grief, people in Central America do it every day -- by the thousands.
There is justice only where just men rule.
Big construction is no cure for a city like Camden. Government-run, top-down fixes are much more likely to fail than succeed.
Cities are organic things. They create their own reason for being, prosper and grow. Sometimes they die.
Take the $2 Billion, give $30,000 to every man woman and child with the stipulation that they must move at least 200 miles away. Raze the rubble. Plant grass.
After you plant grass, mark the old privies so XRdsRev can dig up bottles...
It's basically like Lord of the Flies. People who are left to their own devices and resort to self-serving sin and corruption. Put a wall around it and film it like a reality series. Cops on Steroids.
As one cop told me once about the drug problem in his town "One shipment of lethal cocaine and heroin would do wonders for our fair city".
"nobody with the freedom and means to move will remain in a cesspool like this "
That's an interesting statement. If they are not free to leave, why not? Are they being held hostage? Where are the police?
No means? I would leave everything I own to walk, crawl, roll, use a wheel chair, anything to leave a place like that.
Are they simply stupid? Not trying to be trite, but I don't get it. NOTHING other than physically being held against my will would keep me there.
So, does that mean that the people there are only criminals, druggies who don't want help, and idiots?
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