These are all certainly interesting points and thoughts, and it'll be interesting to see what happens in real time, especially given the interconnected nature of a lot of external factors that lead to development of any kind anywhere (jobs, generational preferences, availability of money to build anything). And I have no idea how it'll relate to Camden's reality on the ground, but what I can say is that a bunch of the things going on now are a lot more recent.
Someone just showed me pictures from
historicaerials.com and it blew my mind. If you look at the area around Dranoff's Victor RCA building renovation, you can see that that area was very different even just 10 years ago. The whole area's in flux, with Dranoff now thinking of making his Radio Lofts building a retail/office project (
http://articles.philly.com/2014-11-1...s-victor-lofts), the Cooper-Grant neighborhood association saying theres' going to be a meeting soon about redeveloping
this crazy huge old building on Delaware Avenue, and the lead waterfront development firm saying "we are working on plans to develop the site and will begin some time next year" for most of their original "
Cooper's Crossing" plan on the lots between the aquarium and the baseball stadium.
And away from the waterfront, the new Roosevelt Park Plaza (
http://www.nj.com/camden/index.ssf/2...lic_space.html,
http://www.courierpostonline.com/sto...olor/15302379/) is a really nice new space where a huge parking garage came down a few years ago (a parking garage that was built during 60s "urban renewal", which means Camden actually cleared away a piece of misguided crap from that era). And there's a
rum distillery in an old garage that, I have to say, is a super fun time that people love (and which has tons of
upcoming events).
Anyway, uhhh I could ramble on, but in general there's more going on than even I realize sometimes, and it gives me at least some hope for the future. So who knows. We'll see what happens. Camden's had two mayors in a row who haven't been indicted in any way, so that's a plus, right?