Though I advocate for responsible planning across the region, I enjoy writing about Camden the most. Frankly, it's because I like Camden more than any other place. My family has a couple hundred years of history in Camden and it's where I'm going to focus my career. My wife and I want to live there and we plan to buy a house there within the next few years. That's where our story begins.
About a month ago my wife and I were looking at houses we liked, fantasizing about fixing them up and adding -- you guessed it -- chicken coops and bee hives, when she asked a question capable of deflating any urbanist: "Aren't we basically just gentrifying the neighborhood by moving in?" That's a very good question.
For one, there's a sort of Sorites paradox going on. At what point do you call it gentrification when wealthier, whiter families start moving into an area and less wealthy families start moving out? One family? Twenty? Or should we measure it not demographically, but by increases in outside investment or increases in property values/taxes? These finance-based definitions are better, but still missing something. The best definition of gentrification I know is borrowed from professor Linda Bates at Portland State University: the difference between gentrification and revitalization is displacement.
Camden is definitely making an attempt at revitalization. The City is aggressively pursuing investment but in many cases, as noted in the LKB, the opportunities feel targeted at helping outsiders come in (think the Sixers deal or the recently announced graduate housing near the Cooper/Rowan Med School), rather than tackling the many challenges residents already face. I like/hate to think about how many small businesses could be started along Federal St or Haddon Ave with $82 million.* Regardless, its essentially good that the new Economic Development Act has reduced barriers to outside investment. The city faces serious infrastructural challenges, and it doesn't have the resources to address them alone. There is the opportunity for genuine revitalization.
So have these efforts led to displacement? No, not yet, anyway. Not even after twenty years of waterfront development. Assuming the announced projects do begin to increase property values, the city is still FAR from gentrifying. Demographically, Camden is 48% African American, 47% Hispanic or Latino, 3% White and about 1% Vietnamese (cool history there). From 2000 to 2010, the city experienced a net population loss of about 2,000. Those leaving were almost exclusively either White or Asian. Even if 25,000 White, upper-middle class folks moved into the city tomorrow, enough to restore the city to its population circa 1970, availability of land and vacant housing (16% vacancy, compared to 5% nationally) could absorb demand without physical displacement. I realize this is an unfair scenario because it's not an entire city, but neighborhoods like Cooper or the Waterfront, that gentrify. However, the point is illustrative of just how big a demographic shift would have to occur before pulling out the "g" word.
So, if you're like me and have the luxury of worrying about if living where you want to live is "ethical," fear not. You're not (yet) a part of gentrifying Camden.
Postscript thoughts:
It is precisely because gentrification isn't currently happening, that now is the perfect time to ensure that it will not happen. New economic development should focus on neighborhood revitalization throughout the city with opportunity for local groups to demand Community Benefits Agreements. Conditional rent controls should be put in place that allow tenants to adjust gradually to increased rates. We should offer protections to current home owners, bolster local home buyer programs, and offer Individual Development Accounts (governments funds that match earned income on the condition that savings are applied to buying a home, furthering personal education, starting a business, etc.). If I were a resident, I would feel much better about these big economic dev. projects knowing they won't eventually lead to booting me out of my house.
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*For the curious, national average start up costs for small businesses are $30,000. That would result in a ludicrous 2,733 new businesses.
