A new film by TJ Paradiso

Camden, NJ, often labeled the poorest and meanest urban city in America, lies just across the Delaware River from Philly, has been practically isolated from surrounding New Jersey communities as Camden's residents have had to face tough urban problems almost all on their own; including an open drug trade, large blocks of decaying housing, and extreme poverty, and for several decades, Camden's decay has been a focus of politicians, developers, and local community activists working on a sprawling set of urban revitalization plans to bring back a stronger and financially more sound, safer and livable city; a "City Invincible."

City Invincible is a film, that, through its in depth interviews, takes us into the hearts and dreams of the ordinary people of exceptional character, from very different backgrounds, who live and work in the "Invincible" little city. These individuals living and working in one of the most blighted, racially isolated, urban areas in America and faced with extraordinary challenges to save neighborhoods in peril, struggle on a daily basis to improve their own lives, and the livelihood of the city on the Delaware they call home, Camden.

City Invincible will show just what Walt Whitman saw in working class Camden, and how his vision of a city of friends can still apply to the new generations of Camden today.

I DREAM’D in a dream, I saw a city invincible to the attacks of the whole of the rest of the earth;

I dream’d that was the new City of Friends;

Nothing was greater there than the quality of robust love—it led the rest;

It was seen every hour in the actions of the men of that city,

And in all their looks and words.

 

--Walt Whitman (1819–1892).  Leaves of Grass.  1900.