On a weekday evening in February, 75 people who love Camden, New Jersey, gathered at an office building downtown for Mayor Dana Redd’s monthly debrief — an update on the state of the city with presentations from a rotating cast of city managers.

The headliner for February’s meeting was two and a half years into one of the more ambitious reclamation projects in any American city. Paymon Rouhanifard, a slender and focused one-time financial analyst, had cut his teeth in Bloomberg-era education battles in New York City before being appointed superintendent of Camden schools at just 32 years old. He arrived amid controversy but responded with a promise to bring “dramatic change” to a city perennially identified as the poorest and most dangerous in the country — and more precisely to public schools so dysfunctional that 90 percent of them ranked among the worst 5 percent in New Jersey despite spending on average more than $25,000 per student.

Mayor Redd said she quickly became an admirer.