Camden is the archetypal post-industrial slum, nine square miles of almost unmitigated misery. I've met many, both community activists and average citizens. Building after building is boarded up, burnt-out, or collapsed. There are no movie theaters. There are hundreds of open-air drug markets.
City government is in complete collapse.
The current mayor, an alleged drug dealer and Mafia front, is under federal indictment, the third mayor in recent times to find himself in such a situation. We were blessed with two tour guides. Dr. Edward Schwartz, president of the Institute for the Study of Civic Values and a long time anti-poverty activist, and Randy Primas, a former mayor of Camden. As we rolled out of Philly over the Ben Franklin Bridge, Schwartz set the scene. Basically, there were once good manufacturing jobs on which even those who didn't graduate from the awful government schools could manage to support a family.