ABSTRACT
Camden, NJ, has achieved infamy as an emblem of urban failure. Long the poorest smallcity in the United States and now simply the nation’s poorest city, Camden is also the nation’s most dangerous city (CQ Press, 2012; Vargas, 2012). In nearly every dimension of social, economic, and civic experience, the evidence of dysfunction is overwhelming. Poverty saturates Camden. Virtually every resident of the city is poor or nearly poor. The city government itself is starved for cash. Almost without exception, Camden’s residential neighborhoods are poor neighborhoods. Unlike most other cities facing high rates of poverty, Camden does not contain concentrated wealth and concentrated poverty. It contains only concentrated poverty.
