Since World War II, the story of U.S. cities has been one of ever-expanding growth at the fringes and decline at the core. This pattern has led to concentrations of poverty in inner cities and inner suburbs, racial and economic segregation, and a spatial mismatch between the locations of low-wage/low-skill jobs and affordable housing.

Camden, New Jersey, has been particularly hard hit by these trends. The steady exodus of middle-income residents and businesses that started in the postwar years has left the city with falling property values, a dwindling tax base, and inadequate resources to cover the city’s basic costs and services. Today, most of Camden’s neighborhoods are marked by dilapidated housing and abandoned or underutilized commercial properties.

However, for the past few years, Camden has been at the center of private and public redevelopment activities and reforms that hold the promise of transforming the city’s landscape, of creating local and regional housing and employment opportunities for its residents, and of positioning Camden to be an important participant in the region’s economic development activities. In addition to millions of dollars in private investment, the State of New Jersey has appointed a receivership executive over Camden who has been charged with reorganizing some municipal services and for allocating millions of dollars in state aid to underwrite infrastructural improvements and other development projects.

With support from the Ford Foundation, the Camden Regional Equity Demonstration focuses on the redevelopment and revitalization strategies of the city under a five-year state receivership. MDRC and its partners, the Reinvestment Fund and the Center for Urban Policy Research at Rutgers University, will document the implementation, achievements, and challenges of the major redevelopment strategies underway and describe whether and how residents, the city as a whole, and the greater metropolitan region benefit from the unprecedented revitalization efforts.