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Re:Camden, New Jersey: America's Most Desperate Town by rayiner on Tuesday February 11, 2014 @02:01PM (#7219580)
I'm not sure about the impact of drug legalization on the local economies of these areas. Right now, the drug trade is actually one of the few sources of remunerative work available for unskilled people in these cities. You mention police arresting people for "possession" but the fact is that they have little time for that around here. There's enough dealers and traffickers to keep them busy. You think all those guys are going to go straight when drugs are legalized? I think legalization would help, don't get me wrong, but I think the positive impact would be a lot less than many opponents of the drug war would like to believe.

These areas are already very cheap to build in. Delaware, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey practically give away abandoned industrial sites hoping to find companies to take them over. Getting rid of regulations can be iffy. After all, the outputs of polluting activities in Camden flow down the Delaware River to a whole bunch of other people.

Fixing education in these communities is intractable. You can't teach kids in a community where gang leaders have more authority than parents. You have to fix the community before you can make a dent in the education problem.

Re:Camden, New Jersey: America's Most Desperate Town by djs123sdj on Tuesday February 11, 2014 @04:45PM (#7220697)
Agreed with legalization not necessarily reducing criminal behavior. Where I live in the Bay Area, the reduction in the street drug dealing trade (perhaps due to legalized dispensaries, and also the prevalence of smartphones) has coincided with an increase in the armed robbery and burglary rate.

Local police investigators have confirmed that many individuals who have been apprehended for robberies were previously involved in the local drug trade.

Re:Camden, New Jersey: America's Most Desperate Town by blisterpeanuts on Tuesday February 11, 2014 @02:34PM (#7219808)
I should have said "dealing", not "possession". Regarding education, keep in mind that for some if not most children in dysfunctional homes and communities, school is their only hope, the only place where they interact with people who actually care about them (or at least, are supposed to care about them).

Cheap buildings aren't enough. You need a full stack, top to bottom, crash program to attract businesses and encourage local entrepreneurship. A special economic zone means low or no taxes for X years, little or no regulatory interference (e.g., zoning laws, architectural requirements, ethnic/gender hiring mandates, union lock-in, etc.), just basically leave them alone and let them build a business in a war zone. Of course, you can't simply suspend OSHA, ADA, and anti-discrimination laws, but if you can make it cheap enough to conduct business, the incentives will outweigh the danger and inconvenience and they will come.