With the notable exception of the Providence Place Mall, there was relatively little new development in Rhode Island’s capital for most of the ’90s — a time when cities like Boston and New York experienced dramatic growth. Although Buddy Cianci excelled as a cheerleader in raising Providence’s national profile, the general lack of development during Buddy II suggests a certain degree of misgiving at the time about investing in Providence.
Growth is important in a city, as a source of investment and of added vitality. The advent of the state historic tax credit was a big factor in a lot of Providence’s new development, including the long-overdue moving forward of downtown’s evolution as a more residential neighborhood. Still, Cicilline can credibly tout the “trust dividend” earned by his administration as part of what’s driving the city’s development boom.
Targeting a process to help young people
When the guns-and-crack epidemic sparked an unprecedented national wave of youth violence in the late ’80s, criminologists were surprised to find that one of the most dangerous times to be a kid was after school. It wasn’t exactly counter-intuitive. Extra time, coupled with a lack of useful ways to spend it, is often a recipe for trouble.
Considering how Providence has the nation’s third-highest rate of childhood poverty, according to the 2000 US Census, offering productive after-school opportunities for young people is especially vital. It was this need that led Cicilline to launch the Providence After School Alliance (PASA) in 2004. An initiative of the Education Partnership, PASA is described on its Web site (www.mypasa.org) as “a public-private venture to develop a citywide system to substantially increase high-quality, affordable out-of-school time enrichment opportunities for Providence’s children and youth.”
Backed by respective $5 million and $1 million grants from the Wallace Foundation and Bank of America, PASA is initially focusing its attention on the 6000 middle school students in Providence, in part through the development of five districts of beefed-up after-school opportunities — dubbed AfterZones — throughout the city. At a minimum, this program shows how Providence, where the contrasts between rich and poor are all too jagged — is making an effort to do right by its kids.
The Worst
It’s still the economy, stupid
Although Providence has come a long way over recent decades in the national consciousness, Rhode Island’s capital remains plagued by a high rate of poverty. It’s not Cicilline’s doing, of course, but taking a compare-and-contrast drive between the city’s rich and poor neighborhoods is still enough to make your head spin. That the same thing can be done in any American city doesn’t diminish the importance of fostering more economic opportunities in Providence.
While the mayor claims credit for closing an inherited $59 million budget gap, the precarious nature of just the city’s finances can be seen in how his administration initially planned to use $1 million from an affordable housing trust fund, before backing away, for this year’s proposed $610 million budget. With the use of close to $15 million in one-time fixes this time around, closing a similar gap could pose a serious challenge next year.
