Community research · National comparison

Places Like Camden

Nine neighborhoods across the country carry the same weight as Camden, NJ. Here is what they share, and what they don't.

Darryl Wooten · November 2026

Camden, NJ, has more in common with a corner of Cleveland's West Side than with any neighborhood in its own county. We compared Camden with every neighborhood in the United States, looking for places with the same level of hardship and the same kind of food gaps. Nine cleared our bar for a close match. None is in New Jersey. Three are in Cleveland, three in upstate New York. The closest are in Cleveland, OH, and Buffalo, NY. Like Camden, they are no farther from a supermarket than places like them, but have too few supermarkets for the people they serve.

Who Camden's twins are

Camden is a city of about 71,500 people. Three in ten residents live below the poverty line. Nearly half of households (45%) receive SNAP, the federal food benefit. Almost a third (31%) have no car. Figures for Camden cover the whole city; figures for each twin cover one census tract, a neighborhood of a few thousand people. Distances are straight lines to the nearest supermarket; real walking routes are longer. Our companion brief, The Grocery Commute: Camden, New Jersey, measured walks along Camden's streets and found about seven in ten residents (roughly 52,000 people) live more than a half-mile walk from a full-size store, and about 23,000 more than a mile.

The other three are in Mattapan in Boston, MA; Rochester, NY; and Cleveland again (ZIP 44109). Together the nine twins are home to about 28,800 people. Their combined poverty rate (30%) and SNAP share (44%) sit within a point of Camden's.

The twins' racial and ethnic makeup varies widely. We never use race to choose a match. We show it so readers can see the pattern.

What places like Camden have that Camden doesn't

The nine twins were matched partly on food access, so they share Camden's food gaps by design. To see what Camden is missing, we use a second group: the 50 neighborhoods most like Camden on hardship alone, with food left out of the match. They span 36 cities in 20 states and Washington, DC, and hold about 165,600 people. We call them Camden's need peers.

Distance is not what sets Camden apart

Camden residents live, on average, 0.58 miles (0.94 km) from the nearest supermarket, as the crow flies. The need peers average 0.69 miles (1.11 km). The typical US neighborhood is 0.92 miles (1.48 km) away. Measured the same way everywhere, Camden is closer to a supermarket than places like it and than the country as a whole.

There is one exception. Four of Camden's 19 tracts are more than a mile (1.6 km) from a supermarket. About 13,000 people live there, close to one resident in five; measured along real walking routes, the number living more than a mile out is closer to 23,000. They are in ZIP codes 08102, 08103 and 08104. The farthest is 1.23 miles (1.97 km) away. For a household without a car, carrying a week of groceries that far is a real barrier.

Camden is short on supermarkets for its size

Camden has five supermarkets for 71,500 people. That is 0.07 per 1,000 residents. Its need peers have 0.085 per 1,000. At that rate, Camden would have about six. The difference is roughly one store. Across all US neighborhoods the rate is about 0.12 per 1,000, which would mean eight or nine stores in Camden.

Three of the five sit in one ZIP code, 08105, in the city's east, away from the far-out pocket.

Compared with places like it, Camden's gap is one of capacity more than location: its stores are no farther away than elsewhere, but each serves more people. Our Philadelphia report, Thirty-Three Stores, One Supermarket, found the same in Hartranft: one supermarket for about 16,300 people in the neighborhood's five residential tracts.

The twins share the problem. None of the nine twin tracts has a supermarket inside its boundary. That is common for a single tract (two in three US tracts have none), but it means the twins are fellow travelers, not a model for store supply.

Camden has more small stores

The city has 107 stores that accept SNAP. Its small grocers, a step below a supermarket, run at 0.60 per 1,000 residents, against 0.21 for the need peers. Food is close at hand in Camden, mostly in small stores. What the city lacks is large stores that sell fresh food at volume.

What this means, and what it doesn't

It means Camden is not alone. Nine neighborhoods in four states and Washington, DC, face the same mix of high SNAP use, many households without cars, and too few supermarkets for the people they serve.

It means what sets Camden apart from places like it is store capacity, not distance. Programs that measure only distance would miss that.

It does not mean the twins are identical to Camden. They are alike in structure, not in history, politics or local institutions. Each twin is one neighborhood; Camden is a whole city.

It does not mean one more supermarket would solve anything. "About one store short" is a benchmark, not a target, and says nothing about whether a store would survive.

Small-area Census figures carry real uncertainty, especially for neighborhoods of a few thousand people. Distances are straight-line, not travel routes, so they understate the trip. For walking distances in Camden, see The Grocery Commute.

How the comparison works

We describe every US neighborhood on the same measures: poverty, SNAP use, households without a car, rent burden, children, distance to the nearest supermarket, stores per resident, income, renting and density. We then find the neighborhoods closest to a given place on all of them at once. The bar for a close match was set in advance. If nothing clears it, we say so.

Race and ethnicity are never part of the match. We report them beside every result so the pattern stays visible.

Figures use the American Community Survey 2020–2024 (rent burden and children: 2016–2020), the USDA list of SNAP-authorized stores as of September 2026, and the USDA Local Food Directories (2026).

Questions worth asking

Can New Jersey's supermarket program reach the one store Camden is missing? New Jersey's Food Desert Relief Program, created under the Economic Recovery Act of 2020, offers up to $40 million a year in tax credits, loans and grants, including tax credits for supermarkets of at least 16,000 square feet. Camden ranked at the top of the state's draft list of food desert communities in 2022. Our comparison suggests the case is about capacity. Where would a new store do the most good: in the far-out pocket of 08102, 08103 and 08104, or where the most people already shop?

What happens when a produce incentive leaves the supermarket? In Cleveland, the SNAP produce match known as Produce Perks paused its partnership with Dave's grocery stores in late 2025 after a federal grant was cut. It continues at farmers markets in Cuyahoga County. In Camden, The Food Trust's Food Bucks are offered at Junior Supermarket on Federal Street. In places with few supermarkets and few farmers markets, which reaches more SNAP households: incentives at small grocers or at markets?

What is Buffalo doing with farmers markets? In Western New York, Field & Fork Network has run Double Up Food Bucks, matching SNAP spending on local produce at participating markets, including the Westside Farmers Market. Camden has no farmers market in the federal directory, though our companion brief found seasonal farm stands in state records. Could a match like Double Up reach them?

Brown + Wheaten. Figures are for the City of Camden (19 census tracts) unless a single neighborhood (one tract), ZIP code or the nation is named.