In the News
Resources describe a city ready to rebound
Opinion
By JEREMY NOWAK
Courier-Post, November 13, 2005
Camden is a post-industrial city that never recovered from the loss of plentiful manufacturing jobs. It is a case study in racial and income segregation. It is a place where half of the adults do not have a high school degree. It has an abundance of developable land that is often too costly to recover as it requires environmental remediation, demolition and sometimes politically charged relocation.
The public goods of economic growth -- safety, transparent services, work force quality, functioning schools, rational tax structure -- have been largely absent for decades. In the best of near-term scenarios, the city cannot pay its own way, let alone invest in long-term capital expenditures.
Camden's decline is all the more striking when its economic geography is considered. It has access to high quality transportation linkages. Its waterfront is proximate to a strong downtown Philadelphia real estate market.
It is in the center of a region with competitive advantage in industries such as health care, financial services and pharmaceuticals. There are hospitals and universities in its center that are poised for expansion. It receives public education resources that most cities envy.
Special case
Placing the city into receivership and providing a special subsidy toward a recovery strategy was a bold gamble. In the past, distressed cities such as Camden have had particular departments sent into federal or state receivership; a housing authority, a school district and so on. But this takeover was more dramatic. It placed a new policy stake in the ground and, therefore, its strategy and outcomes must be taken far more seriously.
Was the structure of the receivership the right one? Was the timeframe too short? Were the regulatory and financial incentives too thin? Did the powers and resources fit the revitalization agenda? Were the state policies that accompanied it the best ones? The answer to these questions effect more than Camden; they are applicable to dozens of small, distressed cities in the industrial corridors of the Northeast and Midwest.
I suggest that receivership strategies must follow three development objectives: building from strength; connecting to the region; and restoring governance capacity.
Building from strength. New investments must extend historical market and civic success into nearby areas. This means building from the assets of major institutions that want to grow, reinforcing successful waterfront investments including new market rate housing and facilitating neighborhood development efforts that have preserved and revitalized housing and retail development.
Connecting to the region. Camden residents need choices. They need links to regional work opportunities and affordable housing in job rich communities with better schools. This requires policy that reconceptualizes the problems of cities through a regional lens. It means support for workforce strategies that connect the supply of labor to the demand for labor.
Restoring governance capacity. The period of receivership has to be viewed as an opportunity to restore service quality to Camden citizens and rethink what levels of government -- local, county and state -- are equipped to carry out what functions. At the end of the day, receivership has to leave behind high quality public amenities.
Worthy experiment?
Whatever we think of the past few years, we can agree that there is too much to be done with too limited of a resource and policy mantle to accomplish it.
We will not repair Camden in a few years.
But we can craft a development legacy that strengthens the incremental value achieved over the previous decades; constructs more vibrant connections to the regional economy, and restores public confidence. Then the experiment will have been worth it.
Jeremy Nowak is the chief executive officer of The Reinvestment Fund, a nationally recognized innovator in urban economic and neighborhood development.