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Camden, NJ was hopeless in 1974 when I lived EVER so briefly in Filthidelfia. At that time, there was a radical Black group that was terrorizing Filthtown and in the mere moments I lived there, I could see why. The city of pretty much 3 storey buildings which trapped air movement had a population of Blacks for whom there were no jobs, no hope, only government dole, drugs, and crime. When someone stole the B&W tiny TV out of my dad’s borrowed station wagon while trying to move items 35′ to the front of the brownstone in which I was renting a tiny flat, the Black policeman drove up on the sidewalk to make the report. “If I don’t”, he answered,”they would have my radio, and anything of importance in less than 2 minutes.” I couldn’t keep my food down so I left.

The experience never left me. I had lived near Detroit and studied what HUD had done there. After the riots in 1967, they literally tore down the historic neighborhoods, taking an entire side of the street, forcefully relocating the people, dispersing them throughout distant neighborhoods, and then leveling the houses leaving a strip of nothing. Community bonds, organizations, and the 100 year history of people there was crushed by the government in a matter of months.

Camden has always been the armpit of humanity next to Filthidelfia and while there have been efforts to clean up both towns, the plight of the people forced onto the government teat, with little effort to improve the quality of education or job prospects creates a habitat rife with anger. Justifiably.