Today I'm starting my unit on federalism for my AP Government class and talking about laboratories of democracy. I see that Jonathan Last has a proposal for his hometown of Camden, routinely voted the worst or one of the worst cities in the country.

I've always thought that Camden would be the perfect laboratory for a government that wanted to fix inner-city blight. It has all the afflications of Compton or Detroit, but it's small enough to manage. If someone in either New Jersey or the federal government was serious about figuring out how to rescue America's inner cities, they would start with Camden and try every tool in the box--empowerment zones, school vouchers, broken-windows policing, faith-based community outreach--to see what works.

I love that idea. And it would be a great example for my class to follow. Come on Camden, what do you have to lose?