Scroll Down for Regional Real Estate Comparisons
Brookings Institute: 12 steps to revitalizing downtown    Hold On To Your Wallet     Suburbs are an experiment

Camden's most valuable and neglected assets: PATCO Stations    This could be PATCO's Ferry Ave.

The Joint Center for Housing Studies is Harvard University's center for information and research on housing in the United States.                                      
About New Urbanism    Philadelphia Center City Renaissance    Downtown Needs Infill: A visitor to Camden comments

In downtown Camden, excessive large Parking Lots fronting the major streets erode vitality and area cohesion. These parking lots should be the subject of much needed Infill development and Eminent Domain takings when necessary, a much less traumatic and costly legal effort than evicting hundreds of homeowners. Large, well placed Parking Structures can replace much of the parking surface vertically. In such a small downtown with two PATCO Hi-Speed Line stations connecting the entire region, most of the area is within walking distance of the stations. Atlantic City style "Jitney" buses can provide quick efficient transportation throughout downtown while providing a decent living to resident entrepreneurs as Jitney owner / operators.

    Is there a market for brick row-homes?  Home buyers are willing to pay 
3 x the amount of money per suburban sq. ft to live in high density brick row architecture. People reveal their preferences in design  by the price they are willing to pay. 

    Design facilitates the type of activity on the street. Unlike business and amusement properties, residences are in use around the clock, seven days per week. Business's spring up to service neighborhoods based on the cumulative preferences of the population. Putting in businesses before there is a population is putting the cart before the horse. Put in the high density, charming brick rowhomes and townhouses urban dwellers prefer. The appropriate economic activity will present itself. Camden already has a distinct competitive advantage over the suburbs. It is one subway stop from one of America's most charming, culturally abundant, commercially dynamic city centers; historic Philadelphia.                'Transit-Adjacent Housing in Hot Demand Reports Market Study'

Federal Transportation Authority TOD website.

Dec. 7, 2005 Philadelphia Riverfront Neighborhoods Within 2 Miles of Camden, New Jersey

  Top left=Cookie-cutter sameness production, good economical design for subsidized housing projects. 

Below (Philadelphia Waterfront neighborhood facing Camden Waterfront.)= Sells for $367.00 Sq. Ft. Good design to attract Urban Pioneers and Professionals, Empty Nesters, Artists, Gays, Middle and Upper Class Singles and  Childless Couples. The number of these non-traditional households is increasing rapidly. The number of households owned by married couples dropped 10% in last decade. ( Avg. South Jersey  suburban style home sells for $129.00 / Sq.Ft., signifying less demand than for Urban Brick Row-homes. )

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Households headed by unmarried women with or without children have increased by 30 % since 1994. ( Harvard University State of the Nations Housing, 2005.)

Home buyers are willing to pay 
3 x the amount of money per sq. ft to live in high density neighborhoods near Center City Philadelphia than in the Suburbs. Camden is one mile from Center City. Unsubsidized taxpaying buyers who prefer suburban style homes, given a choice, will always choose a real suburban community over living in a social engineering experiment that attempts to create an out of place one in Camden. 
    There is no need to try and reinvent the wheel. Philadelphia style brick residences work. They command buyers, high prices, attract financially stable professionals and others, make the most economical use of land and generate social vitality. Just look at Old City, Queens Village and Society Hill which face the Camden waterfront. Their style is ideal for infill development. Open space- city parks aside - degrade the city aesthetic.    
   Local public officials and influential community development groups who understand little about the true causes of urban decline or about how the economies of cities and neighborhoods work, can compensate to a great degree by implementing tried and true Urban Design that has stood the test of time and simply observe the positive, organic, market oriented activity and growth engendered.

Market vs. Government Intervention:

Nationwide, nearly 25 percent of block-grant-backed loans wind up in default, according to a recent analysis of dozens of community-lending portfolios. Even worse, a second HUD program—known as Section 108—which allows block-grant communities to raise money for loans by floating HUD-backed notes, has a staggering 59 percent default rate. Although government programs are expected to make riskier bets than private banks (whose loan-default rates are typically in the low single digits), the stratospheric failure rate of HUD loans amounts to a squandering of millions of taxpayer dollars, since taxpayers are on the hook for these loan guarantees. ( State backed programs fare no better.)  "When they say community development, hold on to your wallet."

Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) Programs    America’s Worst Urban Program

You Choose

Two buildings. Similar in size and function. Both, everyday places for people of moderate incomes. Which would you rather call home?