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Providence Press

Cotuit

By Cotuit
in Providence

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xine Whistle-Stop

xine

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That really is bad form - although he didn't come out and say that Providence was awful, just that Charlestown was better than PVD, Shadyside-Pittsburgh, and Old Town Alexandria. Having spent considerable amounts of time in those other two places, they are fantastically beautiful urban environments, and that's pretty good company to be in even in this guy's reject pile.

...as residents have reclaimed derelict buildings and two of the city's three rivers...
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Mij Whistle-Stop

Mij

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Soooo, which river is unclaimed, and can I claim it for myself? I'd like to open a kyack-in-kyack-out brewpub. Plus the last time I looked, I knew of at least four rivers in Providence- the Woonasquatucket, Mossashuck, Providence River (after the first two join), and the Seekonk.
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Cotuit Megalopolis

Cotuit

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I, myself, have stopped reading anything in the Providence Journal. It's a texas owned paper dying for a conservative slant. Heck, when they can't find someone to say it here they print letters from other parts of the country. It's time for a new home grown and owned paper.
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Bil Whistle-Stop

Bil

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My god, let's not go overboard here. The ProJo definitely has its deficiencies, but this was an opinion piece by a passionate member of the Charlestown community printed in response to an unflattering piece on his adopted home. I'd say it reflects well on the journalistic sensibilities of the ProJo to allow a dialogue on its commentary pages.

To put it another way, imagine an out of town paper publishes "Providence: a public cesspool does not a renaissance make." Providence boosters that we all are, I'd expect that paper to print our rebuttal if any of us sent one to them.

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KRC Hamlet

KRC

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My god, let's not go overboard here. The ProJo definitely has its deficiencies, but this was an opinion piece by a passionate member of the Charlestown community printed in response to an unflattering piece on his adopted home. I'd say it reflects well on the journalistic sensibilities of the ProJo to allow a dialogue on its commentary pages.

To put it another way, imagine an out of town paper publishes "Providence: a public cesspool does not a renaissance make." Providence boosters that we all are, I'd expect that paper to print our rebuttal if any of us sent one to them.

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Bil Whistle-Stop

Bil

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Bil, there's more to the overall sense of disappiontment in that piece of garbage they are trying to call a newspaper than that. Let's not oversimplify the argument here by harping on just one of their recent failings. We can point out many of them over the years. The purpose of printing that opinion was hardly done in the spirit of opening up a diaolgue. The original piece written about Charleston did not say anything bad about what Charleston has to offer. What they printed the other day was all about disparaging Providence. Belo doesn't belong in Rhode Island, New England or anywhere else in the Northeast. They should stick with what they do best...in texas.
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Baines Hamlet

Baines

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Bil, there's more to the overall sense of disappiontment in that piece of garbage they are trying to call a newspaper than that. Let's not oversimplify the argument here by harping on just one of their recent failings. We can point out many of them over the years. The purpose of printing that opinion was hardly done in the spirit of opening up a diaolgue. The original piece written about Charleston did not say anything bad about what Charleston has to offer. What they printed the other day was all about disparaging Providence. Belo doesn't belong in Rhode Island, New England or anywhere else in the Northeast. They should stick with what they do best...in texas.
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Pseudo_Work Hamlet

Pseudo_Work

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That's an interesting series. I never saw much of the "Before," because although I grew up in the Boston area, I hardly ever got down this way -- I had sort of an interview at Brown in 1980 or so, with a colleague of my dad's who taught chemistry there -- but that's about the only time I can remember coming to Providence.

What a mess they had to undo. Man, whose idea was it to cover the river and run train tracks right through the middle of downtown? In urban-planning class, that's about the worst thing you could possibly do -- even an expressway would be better than train tracks.

Having moved here and just seeing the "After" without the "Before," I'd been thinking "How the h3ll is it this city escaped my attention all this time?," not having realized that, at least the city center, wasn't the same city until they fixed it! Not hard to see why other cities are trying to copy what they've done here....

Urb

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Garris Town

Garris

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I find it interesting that a city that's as "up-and-coming" and "fast growing" as Providence, full of vacant land, has trouble occupying all of it though. Maybe I'm just a tad impatient, but I can't help feeling that as physically beautiful as Providence is, the Austins and Portlands of the world have outdone us. Can anyone prove me wrong?
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Baines Hamlet

Baines

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While this is a bit off topic for this board, I nevertheless wanted to post that I agree with you in the aggregate here and that this is part of the current Providence Paradox... There's no doubt that people are authentically investing serious dollars in this city, that we have serious ongoing growth, some serious institutional expansion (hospitals, universities, etc), and some seriously impressive projects being done (I'm looking right now at a panorama of Providence on my wall from two years ago and it's amazing to think that in two more years the skyline depicted will look anciently out of date).

That said, in an authentically "booming" city, a site like the late-Downcity Diner building doesn't take this long to get rebuilt (let alone a proposal). Similarly, a booming city doesn't have the row upon row of empty storefronts in its downtown core or a situation where owning a parking lot is more lucrative than developing land. It also doesn't have huge retail turnover like we do in many neighborhoods or a major tourist district that's routinely dirty and unkept (Federal Hill).

I've lived in booming, prosperous cities before, and there is a real difference in feel...

That said, I think part of this is because we're still in the "up" of the "up-and-coming" moniker, and haven't "arrived" yet. I think in order to do that, we're going to need to keep momentum going past the housing boom (and ongoing slowing) with:

- Some serious mass transit upgrades that promote development

- Some improvement in our business climate, making it easier for enterprises to thrive

- More population everywhere, so downtown especially can reach that magical "critical mass" of people that can sustain an authentically prosperous city

- Some real neighborhood development that makes them more vibrant places to live and, especially, own businesses

My $0.02.

- Garris

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Cotuit Megalopolis

Cotuit

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i'm still not sure i understand what this federal rule is about public transit crossing state lines... MBTA comes here, metro north goes to CT, NJ Transit goes to NYC, there's the PATH trains in NYC/NJ... i'm sure there's more.
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Recchia Town

Recchia

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I would think that a change in this language would be needed to allow there to be more than one MBTA stop in RI, since technically that would be providing for intrastate transit service by an entity other than RIPTA, so maybe this will all be ironed out when TF Green gets up and running.

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Recchia Town

Recchia

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I emailed RIPTA, apparently they have tried before to get approval from the Federal Motor Vehicle Carrier Safety Office to run into Massachusetts many times, but they keep denying RIPTA unless they take out a huge insurance policy that they cannot afford since they are self-insured. GATRA is allowed minimal RI service as a deal between the two unions behind each so long as GATRA proves its not 'stealing' riders from RIPTA. They are working hard right now to run service into Mass, however.

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Pseudo_Work Hamlet

Pseudo_Work

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Well said.

- serious mass transit that includes all of the metro (including the MA portion that is overlooked)

- serious improvement in the business climate will require real action items

- the critical mass element is vital that requires drawing pop from from outside RI

- clean tourist areas- your cite of Federal Hill is very well taken

and one more:

- defeat the crippling negative/pessimistic/poor image of PVD (held by very misinformed RIanders). Perhaps free tours of the city should be offered

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