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.
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).
I was supposed to be born at Cooper but the Dr. was convinced my mother couldn't survive the experience so they were pushing to crush my cranium ( I weighed in at over 12 lbs), my grandfather literaly carried my mother out of the hospital room and drove her to Lourdes...where I was born without a crushed skull or a deceased mother. Thank God he was there. My dad was a 20 year old truck driver on the road, my mother was unconscious and her sister was giving them the go-ahead to kill me when grandpop got there. He's one feisty little Cajun Catholic and 'der wasn't gonna be no baby killing dat day!' This story has become almost a family legend but my mother swore to it's veracity while she was alive.