Camden County Essay -- Social Issues, Drugs, Violence

Mobsters, drugs, and violence sounds like a plot for a 50’s gangster movie but it is the everyday life for people living in Camden County, New Jersey. The city is portrayed as falling apart, over run with corruption and violence in Chris Hedges article â€Å"City of Ruins.† Soon Camden County will become a forgotten ghost town if they do not make drastic changes with the government, education system, and bring jobs back to the county. This article is about the city of Camden and how they went from being a thriving city to a city that is now in economic crisis. The city has a population of 70,390 and is the poorest city in the nation (16). Camden has an unemployment rate of 30-40% and has an average household income of 24,600 (16). In the past Camden was an industrial giant with several large companies like Campbell’s soup and RCA having factories there, which employed 36,000 people (17). Closing of the factories is one of the main reasons for Camden Counties' high unemployment rate. Over the past few years Camden has been forced to make â€Å"$28 million in draconian budget cuts, with officials talking about cutting 25 percent from every department, including layoffs of nearly half the police force† (16). With the lack of funds the counties education system is beginning to suffer with them having to cut the library rate by 2/3, now they have aâ€Å"70 percent high school dropout rate, with only 13 p ercent of students managing to pass the state’s proficiency exams in math† (16).With all of the empty factories, empty houses, and vacant lots Camden is beginning to become a very unappealing and unhappy place to live. Living in Camden is becoming an unhealthy place to live. It has become over run with homeless people and â€Å"the only white people visi... ...ys a better side to the situation waiting to be found â€Å"Despite Camden's bleakness, despite its crime and its deprivation, despite the lost factory jobs that are never coming back—despite all this, valiant souls somehow rise up in magnificent defiance† (18). The town of Camden is trying to rebuild the town by building new buildings like the aquarium and new law school but Hedges clearly states that nothing in this town will prosper if the mob does not want it to Camden County is a town in complete and total ruins. They are over run with corruption and violence. Hedges' article does a good job of portraying just how bad off the town truly is. The economy is suffering, the education system is lacking in several areas and the police force is a joke. If changes are not made soon Camden County, they will no longer be a town that ant one will want to live in or visit.