In Addressing Poverty, Region Matters

Earlier this week Rutgers-Camden hosted a landmark conference on urban poverty focused on the city of Camden. The convergence of  Harvard’s William Julius Wilson (The Truly Disadvantaged), Princeton’s Douglas Massey (American Apartheid), and the University of Minnesota’s Myron Orfield  (American Metropolitics),  to say nothing of Rutgers convener Paul Jargowsky (Poverty and Place) was unprecedented for … Continue reading In Addressing Poverty, Region Matters

In Camden, Fighting the Good Fight is not Enough

               The Inquirer’s Claudia Vargas has published today a wrenching tale of the continued struggle to make do in Camden, now almost universally referred to in the press both as the nation’s poorest and most dangerous city.  The essay attracted the usual negativism from Internet boobirds blaming either the poor for their own predicament or … Continue reading In Camden, Fighting the Good Fight is not Enough

Camden Haven in a Storm Threatened by Tone Deaf Christie Administration

           In the months following hurricane Sandy, Governor Christie basked in the attention he received for caring about the victims of the storm.  The storm brewing on the Delaware River in the City of Camden—a murder rate of epic proportions—received nothing but a cloak of silence from Trenton.             In the new year, the Christie … Continue reading Camden Haven in a Storm Threatened by Tone Deaf Christie Administration

Marking Camden’s Latest Tragedy

We have all seen them along the highways: crosses marking the loss of a loved one. As we speed by, we are momentarily reminded of the fragility of life, the sorrows that flow from  loss, the desperate effort to remember.             Were such emblems planted where homicide ended lives in Camden in 2012, they would … Continue reading Marking Camden’s Latest Tragedy

Trading Places: Governor Christie Turns a Blind Eye to Potential Camden Spoils

“Ross Baker, a political science professor at Rutgers, said that even in New Jersey’s checkered political history, it was shocking to find that government officials had taken ‘an institution of higher learning, and a source of health care for thousands of people, and filled it with hacks.’” No, this quote does not come out of … Continue reading Trading Places: Governor Christie Turns a Blind Eye to Potential Camden Spoils

In Sweeney Bill, It’s Takeover by Another Name

                When South Jersey powerbroker George Norcross met with the Star-Ledger last month to lay out what a “compromise” in the takeover of the Rutgers-Camden campus might look like, he said he was putting Humpty Dumpty back together again.  Now, his chief agent in the legislature, Steve Sweeney, has shown what all the … Continue reading In Sweeney Bill, It’s Takeover by Another Name