Camden After the Fall: Decline and Renewal in a Post-Industrial City

Chapter 5: The Downtown Waterfront: Changing Camden’s Image

Chapter  The Downtown Waterfront: Changing Camden’s Image This is the site of the $ million aquarium, a symbol of the city’s hope. If the dreams of state and city officials and residents come true, the aquarium will lure millions of visitors back to Camden and stem the flight of its population. . . . Then, as the project develops over  years, the city hopes to see housing and economic development spread to its neighborhoods , making Camden a place people would want to come back to—to live. —Philadelphia Inquirer,  I’m telling you, Camden is happening. It’s not going to be the poorest city  years from now. Our property, which was once the symbol of blight, will be the symbol of a remarkable revival. How could it fail, with all the energy and creativity—and cash—flowing into it? —RCA Victor building developer Carl Dranoff, February  Before his successful campaign for governor of New Jersey in , Tom Kean had never visited Camden. His first impression, during a campaign visit, was one of shock. The entire city appeared visibly blighted, and, as he noted later, it seemed that nothing was happening to reverse the trend. Once elected, he placed Camden high on his list of troubled urban areas demanding attention. Acting in the best spirit of what has since become a central element of redevelopment theory, he felt it necessary to build on existing assets.1 In the northern part of the state, with which he was much more familiar, Newark needed a new downtown anchor. Jersey City, he believed, could take advantage of rising real estate prices in Manhattan to develop housing within easy commuting distance. Without question , Camden’s greatest asset appeared to be its waterfront, then a mix of still vibrant industrial use at Campbell Soup and RCA, a viable port, and  Chapter  Figure . Sign, ‘‘Camden, Changes Its Image,’’ November , . Courtesy Courier-Post. plenty of open space for redevelopment at the heart of the greater Philadelphia metropolitan area.2 Its conversion, with Kean’s strong support, from industrial to leisure-time use for tourists and visitors followed a popular contemporary approach, one that used public incentives to attract private investment. Between  and , cities constructed as many as  new convention centers, sports arenas, community centers, and performing arts facilities downtown at a cost exceeding $ billion.3 Such efforts lacked the public accountability of previous redevelopment efforts, but according to a respected evaluation of the process, the rewards could be considerable. Public-private dealmaking may not have fully saved cities given up for dead, but they marked ‘‘a turning point that brought the middle class back to town, added a glow to specialized office districts, and turned downtown into a resource that can make life better for city people.’’4 By the turn of the new century, by almost any account, the twentyyear process of reinvestment in Camden’s waterfront had been successful, if still incomplete. A new state aquarium, named for the governor who made it happen, opened in . A regional entertainment center, a new The Downtown Waterfront  minor league ballpark, and the city’s first market-rate housing in a generation followed. The influx of visitors, Camden’s boosters could claim, was helping alter the city’s negative image, an essential prerequisite to attracting additional investment.5 Still, there were disturbing aspects to the story. The industries that first generated plans for the area did not remain as central partners. The financial returns to the city were not nearly enough to reverse the city’s structural deficit. While waterfront facilities brought jobs, they did not lift the financial prospects of significant numbers of Camden families. Conceived as the heart of the downtown, the waterfront still remained into the early twenty-first century an area apart from the rest of the city. Despite promises that increased downtown investment would ultimately aid the neighborhoods, that prospect had yet to be demonstrated. Not surprisingly, in a process that revolved around dealmaking, neighborhood interests lost out. As in other cities that sought to tap the market potential of their waterfront , most notably models in Baltimore, New York, and Boston, particular contingencies determined the fate of the projects. But instances of redevelopment , when not linked to broader revitalization strategies, repeatedly ran the risk of reducing cities merely to tourist destinations. Camden’s waterfront history serves as a cautionary tale about the limits to what investments in a...