Apocalypse Response

I was somewhat shocked when I read Apocalypse, New Jersey: A Dispatch From America’s Most Desperate Town written by Matt Taibbi. Throughout the article Taibbi talks about the negatives of Camden. How Camden has been pushed aside from New Jersey and Philadelphia due to the amount of crime, violence, and drugs within the neighborhood. Even though we’ve only been to Camden twice I still feel that Camden is progressing and isn’t want Taibbi portrayed it as. Yes part of the streets, parks, and buildings have some vandalism or destruction to them, but I feel like I don’t see the violence. I was surprised when Taibbi mentioned that when police officers stopped working the crime rate went up and that now there are all of these hi-tec security cameras all over to detect when different crimes are occurring. The other point Taibbi made was that there were 175 open-air drug markets and that Christie “wanted to go after New Jersey urban schools, which he derided as failure factories.” I think that ways in which to help the community would be by adding more businesses to the neighborhood to increase the job market. Once more jobs are available there will be less tension within the community. Taibbi made Camden seem like a terrifying community to go to, but to me it has progressed more and will continue to progress.