Camden City is a microcosm of the growth and
decline patterns that characterized urban centers in the 21st century. Though several cities in the region and the
nation followed a similar pattern of decline, the historic, geographic, and
economic circumstances of each community vary. This paper will explore the
circumstances unique to Camden and analyze how they contributed to the city’s locational
advantage, industrial boom, and subsequent struggles in population and housing in
the last half of the century. This three-part historical framework will be used
to understand the city’s spatial form. Together, spatial and historical
analyses will inform a concluding discussion of Camden City’s opportunities and
challenges in redevelopment.
Camden is a 10 square mile settlement situated
on the shore of the Delaware River. Two
smaller bodies of water, the Cooper River and Newton Creek, segment Downtown
Camden from its East Camden and Fairview neighborhoods, respectively. Camden and its surrounding settlements have
low elevation which rarely comes to a steep grade. This combination of factors
allowed for easy transportation and trade by foot, horse, ferry, and
(eventually, to the city’s advantage) train.
The city was also aided geographically by its
location opposite the river of Philadelphia, which was established in 1682 and
grew rapidly as a population and trade hub for the young United States.
Although the settlements that would merge to become Camden City pre-date Philadelphia’s
founding -- the Dutch West India Company’s Fort Nassau was completed in 1620 --
they were smaller family settlements by separated by stretches of forest. The
first plats were not laid until just before the American Revolution, and even
then the city was composed of three disconnected villages that did not begin to
filter together until the city’s incorporation in 1828. In the city’s first
census in 1840, the population was a mere 3,371. By the following census in
1850, Camden had been selected as the Seat of Camden County, the origin of the Camden
& Amboy Line (one of the country’s first rail lines, and the first to
connect the thriving Philadelphia and New York City Markets), and numerous
manufacturing facilities. The city’s population grew by the greatest percentage
in its history, nearly tripling to 9,479 residents.
Shortly thereafter, the Camden and Atlantic Raildroad
was completed and construction began on behalf of the Camden Horse Railroad
Company (CHRC), which established the region’s first trolley line. The former
was the first connection from Philadelphia to what would become the booming
tourist destination of Atlantic City. Camden benefited from the increased ferry
traffic from Philadelphia tourists (there was no bridge or tunnel to
Philadelphia at that point) and in return helped to create the region’s
tradition of “going down the shore.” The latter, the CHRC, electrified at the
turn of the century, leading to enhanced coverage and speed on its lines.
Camden’s rapid rise in transportation
accessibility and its location on the Philadelphia-New York trade route attracted
intensive business and industry in a very short period. According to the City’s
own published history, Camden housed 80 manufacturers in 1860 and in just ten
years this number had grown by more than 50% to 125. One of the companies
established in that period was the Campbell Soup Company, the current Fortune
500 Company that invented condensed soup. Just after Campbell Soup made a major
expansion in 1894, two other major companies were established in Camden. The
first, the Victor Talking Machine Company (established in 1900) was a pioneer
in audio recording technology. After its merger with the Radio Corporation of
America, RCA Victor was the largest recording company in the United States for
most of the twentieth century. Also established in 1900 was the New York Ship
Building (NYSB) Corporation, which prospered during World Wars I & II. At
its peak, NYSB was the most productive ship building entity in the United
States and employed over 30,000 people. More than anything, industry -- and
these three companies in particular -- defined Camden, NJ. The city’s largest absolute gain in population,
a growth of nearly 22,000 people, occurred from 1910 to 1920 as a result of
rapid industrial expansion. This growth brought diversity to the city’s
neighborhoods, which formed into ethnic enclaves of German, British, Irish,
Italian, Polish, African American, Jewish, and later, Puerto Rican descent. The
city’s diversity and entrepreneurial spirit further contributed to Camden’s
culture, where the first fried panzarotti became a New Jersey delicacy and the
first drive-in movie theatre thrilled American audiences.
Ironically, the same forces that made Camden an
economic powerhouse would also become largely responsible for its decline.
After World War II, the NYSB’s importance waned; in 1967 it ceased operations
entirely. Facing competition from other recording companies, RCA Victor also
closed its Camden branch in the 1960s and, in search of lower prices and less oversight,
moved operations to Juárez, Mexico in 1970. Upwardly mobile white working class
families either had secured white collar positions or had been sold on the
suburban dream. An increasing share of industrial jobs had become occupied by
historically poor African American and Puerto Rican families who were then disproportionately
affected by factory closures. Frustrations over job loss were compounded by the
Civil Rights Movement’s focus on systemically racist policies like FHA
redlining and the segregation of public facilities, which reinforced African
American poverty. Racial tensions boiled over into race riots in 1971 and
fires, looting, and an adversarial police-civilian relationship left Camden
scarred. Even deeper poverty resulted and left the city’s population
susceptible to drug epidemics and corresponding cartel violence. Population has
declined gradually each decade from its 1950 peak at 124,555 to its current 77,344.
Greater than a third of residents live below poverty level. In the past five
years, Camden has repeatedly been declared both the nation’s most violent, and
the most impoverished, city. The situation could not have deteriorated much
further.
Camden’s three-part history as transit hub,
industrial boom town, and symbol of urban decay, have shaped the city’s urban
form. The region’s first plats were developed as detached single family
households more reminiscent of suburban manors. These homes were sited
relatively close to churches and early post-colonial industries including mills
and tanneries. As the first post office and railroads entered the city,
development intensified slightly and a downtown began to form in the classic
pattern of row homes with the occasional first floor business below. The
streetcar diffused the city, creating long mixed-use commercial corridors
surrounded on either side by single- and multi-family row home developments.
Massive industries entering downtown Camden filled in the waterfront (leaving
little public access) and created a need to build up rather than out, as law
offices, financial institutions, and new firms demanded space near existing
industry. Industrialization was so profound that it necessitated constructing
entirely new parts of the city. Land was acquired from Haddon Township and in
1918 construction began on Yorkship Village, the nation’s first
government-planned community. Now known as Fairview, Yorkship Village’s design
was based on the Garden City model cities popularized in England earlier in the
century. As a result, Fairview is an enclave of single-family detached homes in
a sea of two- to three-story row homes and mixed-use corridors. After World War
I there was little need to develop additional housing and almost all of
Camden’s 22,906 buildings were constructed by the end of World War II. The
average age of housing is well over 75 years and the city now faces gradual
deterioration; approximately 15% of the city’s buildings are already abandoned.
Despite the city’s desperate state,
comprehensive attempts at redevelopment were virtually absent until the turn of
the 21st century. The 2000 Republican National Convention in
Philadelphia was the impetus Governor Christine Todd Whitman needed to clear
Admiral Wilson Boulevard of undesirable land uses that included strip clubs,
liquor stores, and dilapidated hotels. Inspired by the success of the Baltimore
Harbor, initial redevelopment focused on large-scale waterfront projects. In
just ten years, the waterfront had added its four largest attraction: the
Blockbuster-Sony Music Entertainment Center (now the Susquehanna Bank Center),
Campbell’s Baseball Field, the New Jersey State Aquarium (now the Adventure
Aquairum), and the U.S.S. New Jersey. Waterfront redevelopment has not
galvanized investment as quickly as investors hoped and the strategy has been
criticized for focusing too heavily on mega-projects and not enough on
reinvesting in the city’s residents.
Future investment must first focus on solving
residents’ immediate safety and housing concerns. Data suggest that a new,
larger police force may be lowering violent crime and reducing drug cartel
activity. However, it is too early to tell whether this trend, if accurate,
will continue. Housing restoration is another critical concern to be addressed.
The redevelopment of RCA’s Nipper Building into the Victor Apartments has been
a success story, and similar, historically sensitive, affordable redevelopment
must be prioritized. The best property redevelopment will also be
transit-oriented. Camden remains a regional transit hub despite its struggles,
and development should be bolstered by the River Line, which acts as a street
car when in the city, and PATCO, which is one of only six rail lines nationwide
that runs 24 hours a day.
In order
for any of this redevelopment to truly benefit current residents, the city must
focus on employment and restructuring its economic base. This decade has seen
the emergence of an “Eds and Meds” strategy of economic development based on
the Cooper and Lourdes health systems and engagement with Rutgers-Camden and
Rowan Universities. This strategy has proven successful in cities like
Pittsburgh and Baltimore, but academics have voiced concerns that these
industries, too, are at the end of their growth cycle. In order to diversify
its economy and avoid its mid-twentieth century blunders the city and its
redevelopment corporations will have to use the state’s new economic
development incentives to their fullest potential. Camden must constantly
recall its history, so that it might not perpetuate the same mistakes as
before, but instead inform the city’s next age of progress.
