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 the amount of academic firepower brought to bear on the intractable issues that continue to make Camden the poster child for post-industrial decline.

Time and again, the speakers emphasized that Camden’s problem was central to patterns of metropolitan areas nationwide: regional inequities leave historically central urban places far behind neighboring communities. A recurring theme was the need to open up greater housing opportunities for poor minorities in suburbs, which have been historically hostile to greater integration, either by race or class.  The mantra for each of New Jersey’s communities has been to maximize ratables while keeping costs associated with social services down. As Myron Orfield noted, these are the communities that have the best chance of convincing new businesses and middle class residents to locate in their towns, and in its current condition, with four times its share of affordable housing and a consequent burden of high social costs, Camden can’t compete effectively in the regional marketplace.

Of course, speakers also noted the landmark Mt. Laurel decisions rendered by the New Jersey Supreme Court overruling forms of exclusionary zoning that had prevented the location of affordable housing in many suburban areas.  The decision that mandated each of New Jersey’s towns to accommodate its “fair share” of affordable housing units has been the law for more than a quarter century.  For Camden residents, that might seem like good news in offering alternative housing accommodations where crime is lower, schools are stronger, and jobs are more accessible.  The fact, is, however, that the pace of assuring affordable housing alternatives in the suburbs and its availability to the truly poor has been too slow to make any appreciable difference in advancing the deconcentration of big-city poverty.  When the Corzine administration eliminated the loophole that allowed communities to sell off a good part of their  affordable housing obligation,   towns, which had never been enthusiastic about meeting that obligation, heightened their objections to the Mt. Laurel doctrine.  Now, Governor Christie has threatened to make matters worse in an effort to please these communities, by trying to eliminate the Council on Affordable Housing and changing the makeup of the Supreme Court.

Professor Massey recounted the objections raised when the Ethel Lawrence Homes complex was located in Mount Laurel: that taxes and crime would rise and  property values would fall.  Massey’s rigorous statistical evaluation showed that these fears were misplaced. Such consequences did not follow Ethel Lawrence. Rather, the fortunes of those who moved to the new complex improved significantly. Among the results they reported were lowered levels of anxiety, improved school performance of children, and rising incomes. A full report of Massey’s work will be available in July with the publication, by Princeton University Press, of Climbing Mount Laurel.

No one suggested that all other efforts in Camden be dropped in favor of moving out all the working poor. Of course, the danger would be that those left behind would be even poorer. As the Kerner Commission made clear as far back as 1968, however, urban policy should involve both greater investment in the cities and a greater range of opportunities for those of lower income in surrounding communities.  Many older suburbs, Myron Orfield reported, are becoming more diverse, but they are also subject to the same patterns of disinvestment and segregation that has devastated Camden for more than a generation.  Racially charged steering of minorities, he asserted, are weakening some suburban areas while not making things any better for core cities.

One of those attending the conference was Saundra Ross Johnson, the head of Camden’s redevelopment agency.  She regretted that the initiatives she is working on, which include a potential increase of 500 new jobs in the city, were not discussed.  These efforts deserve attention, and one has to applaud their effect. Not everyone who lives in Camden seeks to live elsewhere. Hopefully new jobs will open up for these residents, especially in light of the fact cited at the conference that 7 of 8 current jobs in the city are held by commuters to the city. But Orfield’s warning should be remembered too: a metropolitan system that is sharply divided by race and by class is critically at risk. Our policies for reinvestment need to be metropolitan wide, and to reverse Camden’s decline, the opportunity structure which is now so heavily weighed against Camden residents who live in the city because it is the only place they can afford, has to be rebalanced to open up greater alternatives. Unless that larger perspective  is embraced and acted upon, other initiatives, including regionalizing the police and turning control of city schools to the state, will likely prove to be mere palliatives.