The Courier-Post’s Jeremy Rosen has proposed the creation of a consolidated “New City” in which Camden would be joined by the adjacent towns of Cherry Hill, Pennsauken, Collingswood, Woodlynne and Merchantville.  He would approach the proposed consolidation of area police differently and would argue for the benefits to Camden in particular of other shared services, not the least a choice of school options across town jurisdictions. Rosen unveiled his concept a year ago, and it should be noted that not much in the way of bold thinking about the city and region has been put forth in the intervening period.  Nor is this idea going to find defenders in places of power. Still, it should be part of a public conversation that is not happening: after more than a generation of failed efforts to reintegrate Camden into the region, what’s next?

We might as well start with the police proposal on the table.  To date, despite an outside study, and a number of public meetings, its prospects for improving public safely remain speculative at best. One reason is that it does nothing to address the high level of poverty concentrated in Camden or actions that could change that situation that by opening up low income housing opportunities in other communities, including those named in Rosen’s proposal. Would opening school choice to Camden residents in Cherry Hill, as Rosen’s proposal would allow, have the same effect of mitigating the effects of concentrated poverty in Camden? I doubt it, but the question is worth study and evaluation. Planners once conceived and proposed a “greater Camden” in the 1920s, establishing a precedent for Rosen’s proposal. Now, we need to talk seriously about what it would take to make Camden greater. The region has to be part of the solution.  It’s the particulars we need to hash out.