CAMDEN, N.J. – The war over Economic Development Authority (EDA) tax credit oversight features the powerful Camden County Democrat Machine pitted against Governor Phil Murphy’s state-wide organization; the intra-party conflict is also shining a hard light on the well-being of New Jersey’s most infamously-beleaguered urban center which was a major beneficiary of the EDA’s largess.
Coincidentally? 24/7 Wall St. just released its review of FBI violent crime stats for approximately 2,000 U.S. cities to figure out which are their respective states’ most violent. Guess which New Jersey municipality earned the dubious distinction?
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“Like several other Northeastern states, New Jersey is a low-crime state with some relatively dangerous cities.There were 229 violent crimes for every 100,000 people in New Jersey in 2017, well below the national violent crime rate of 383 per 100,000. In Camden, a small city just across the Delaware River from Philadelphia, violence is much more common. There were 1,968 violent crimes for every 100,000 people in Camden in 2017, by far the highest violent crime rate of any city in the state,” explained the site’s editors.
Camden has an unemployment rate of 8.9% – more than twice the 4.1% statewide unemployment rate.
Between 2013 and 2017, New Jersey green-lighted $1.6 billion in tax incentives to companies planning to relocate to Camden.
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