Cities that compare to Providence

[trazom]

So what's so bad about Philadelphia?

I wish I could explain it. A couple of bad experiences, I guess, plus just a general feeling. There are areas that seemed cool, just that they seemed extremely small. Go through 7-8 miles of areas I would not want to be in alone at night, then you get to 4-5 blocks that are nice, then back to areas I wouldn't want to be in at night. Once leaving a couple of "popular" areas, you find yourself utterly alone at nigt. For example, by the new Constitution museum. The streets seemed to be in horrible condition, same with the sidewalks. We'd go out to good restaurants, and a number of the buildings on the street were marked to be condemned.

I live in cities. I'm used to good areas and bad areas. I've lived in a lot of "border" areas. However, Philly just seems to have way too much that's on the declining side of "border".

It could just be that I hit all the wrong areas, at the wrong times. But that was the impression I got. I felt much safer when I lived in New Haven, and was walking on the "wrong" side of Yale - New Haven.

Bad experiences:

A friend had his bike stolen while he was riding it in Fairmont Park, during the day, on a weekend. Some jerk just ran up and pushed him off it, then rode off on it. My friend couldn't even ID the guy, and he didn't have a fancy bike or anything, just a standard low end mountain bike.

Driving in the city (near the Kimmel center) with a full car (4 people), stopping at a red light, and having some guy come over and bash the driver's window in. This was on a very busy street, with lots of people around. Guy was never caught.

Edit: corrected spelling of Constitution

[AriPVD]

Liverpool is much larger, but also an old industrial city near a more major city. to be honest I don't know much about it, just heard the two compared ad nauseum at the Royal Symposium for the Arts

[Garris]

There are areas that seemed cool, just that they seemed extremely small. Go through 7-8 miles of areas I would not want to be in alone at night, then you get to 4-5 blocks that are nice, then back to areas I wouldn't want to be in at night. Once leaving a couple of "popular" areas, you find yourself utterly alone at nigt. The streets seemed to be in horrible condition, same with the sidewalks. We'd go out to good restaurants, and a number of the buildings on the street were marked to be condemned.

Actually, this could be a very accurate description of Providence as well . Considering how much I love Providence, it therefore wouldn't be surprising that I love Philly as well, although I've heard many people reinforce your picture of it being a much more "raw" and "rough" metro than Providence.

I felt much safer when I lived in New Haven, and was walking on the "wrong" side of Yale - New Haven.

Even when I was there during New Haven's nadir during the mid-90's, I never felt unsafe there. Only in some of the really bad areas West of Broadway and West of the Holiday Inn would I really be careful.

- Garris

[CtownMikey]

funny how boston and philly are having a VS thread

[CtownMikey]

all these immigrants that now live here need to f**k. I wanna see babies babies babies!!!

http://www.projo.com/business/content/proj...x.146537d4.html

sad news

and im kidding about the babies... for now

[CtownMikey]

but now according to an urbanplanet post in the urban discussion section, R.I. gained 27k from 2000-2005 and mass agined 49k in that same time.... go figure.

20 bucks says the Projo is wrong and wants our residents to have one more negative thing to brag about and scare others away

[Cotuit]

You can't put too much weight behind an annual estimate. It would be better to see the estimate say that we gained, but the real test is the actual count in 2010.

[trazom]

I've heard many people reinforce your picture of it being a much more "raw" and "rough" metro than Providence.

You put that so much better than I did.

Even when I was there during New Haven's nadir during the mid-90's, I never felt unsafe there. Only in some of the really bad areas West of Broadway and West of the Holiday Inn would I really be careful.

I was talking about the area south of the frontage road, between the train tracks and E.T. Grasso boulevard. Most students on campus considered that to be a no-mans land. Otherwise known as "the other side of the hospitals". West of campus I had no issues, and that was before the grocery store and video store went in. Although I didn't stray much from Elm, Whalley, and Chapel streets at night. Its so much different now, I barely recognize the area.

And yeah, mid-90s for me too.

[brick]

Bad experiences:

A friend had his bike stolen while he was riding it in Fairmont Park, during the day, on a weekend. Some jerk just ran up and pushed him off it, then rode off on it. My friend couldn't even ID the guy, and he didn't have a fancy bike or anything, just a standard low end mountain bike.

Driving in the city (near the Kimmel center) with a full car (4 people), stopping at a red light, and having some guy come over and bash the driver's window in. This was on a very busy street, with lots of people around. Guy was never caught.

Edit: corrected spelling of Constitution

I think you just had bad luck. I never had a problem in philly and I had to spend some time in the worst areas of it bailing out my idiotic cokehead friends (I had two). I spent a lot of time downtown and never ever heard a story of random crime nevermind saw anything. Again, it may just be the attitude I give off and the fact that I'm a big guy. But I had no trouble driving to my place in Bryn Mawr via Rt. 30 which is pretty damn sketchy inside of the city limits. I had no problems walking Fairmount Park in the evening, etc.

It's important to understand, however, that what you saw was not some areas declining, it was the areas around recovering. philly was truly a wasteland going back to about 1980. I mean like nuke the site from orbit wasteland. They have come a long way since then. However Philly doesn't have the money like New York to go through a draconian clean-up process the way New York did about ten years ago. However I'm also not quite sure what you are talking about with the area around the Constitution Museum. How long ago was this? Can't be too long if you are talking about the new museum being complete. I was there just before it opened and walked from South St. all the way to the Art Museum (South St. then back alleys through society hill to the independence mall then up market through city hall and across to the Franklin Parkway) and didn't see anything I would even start to consider sketchy.

I personally love Philadelphia. There are nice boulevards and avenue and public squares surrounding really great density. Tons of public art and a city layout that actually makes sense. It's too bad that it was put into such radical decline like all US cities during the great suburban expansion of the 50's.

[ALEEJAC]

Providence, RI = Madison, WI

-ALJ

[Magellan98]

Having lived in Philly for nearly five years in the late 90s, I'd say it is an undiscovered gem of a city. While I do see parallels between PHL and PVD, I have to say that Providence wishes it had Philly's downtown population - one of the largest center city populations in the nation. Behind only New York (maybe Chicago) I think. For this reason, comparisons to PVD are a bit stretched at this point. PVD has no subways or streetcars, no major league sports teams, none of the major museums, etc...

[markOne]

Having lived in Philly for nearly five years in the late 90s, I'd say it is an undiscovered gem of a city. [snip...] PVD has [snip...] none of the major museums, etc...

The lack of a major museum is something I would LOVE to see fixed. I don't know if the Heritage Harbor Museum is much more than a regional attraction. I really like the RISD museum but we will need something grander in the future, something that is a reason to come to providence all by itself. I just can

[DaveRPI]

QUOTE(DaveRPI @ Dec 22 2005, 10:10 AM)

Stamford, CT

Worcester, MA

St. Paul, MN

Milwaukee, WI

mine are based on a whole bunch of reasons

"Well, the first two are in New England, which the OP was trying to avoid.

St.Paul = Minneapolis. I think that is way too big to compare to Providence.

Milwaukee 20 years ago might have worked, except it was then 4x the size of Providence, and now it has Waukesha next door at 500K + in the county... bringing the metro to about double Providence.

I was thinking more, and Annapolis MD might be an adequate comparison. It has a number of colleges there (USNA, St. Johns), not sure how it goes on size comparison or density. Its also kinda swallowed inbetween DC and Baltimore, so it doesn't have some things on its own, which Providence has."

here is my reasoning...

Stamford- I spent some time with friends there last month. Huge commuter population, but also has its own companies hq'd there- lots of existing apts and condos [and ones being built] where people live and work right in Stamford or in NYC, doesnt this sound very familiar to Prov and Boston... i dunno how you cannot see that... People down there see stamford as having its own rejuvination much like prov up here, its on the water just like prov, its part of a larger megalopolis which i believe prov is part of within east mass, ri, and southern nh, stamford is part of ny, nj, ct... stamford's hub is nyc, prov's is boston.. etc etc etc

worcester has the same reasoning as stamford but with more of an old industrial center similarity than stamford but less commuters

st paul.... capital of a state in close proximity to a larger city... hmm sound familiar? st paul is part of a big metro, but when you include boston into the discussion about prov, as you would include minneapolis for st paul, then you see that we have just as many people, if not much more and we are close to nyc which st paul does not have

milwaukee- 2nd tier city of chicago, great business partners for decades just like prov was, is, should be with boston, plus they have a very diverse population, very much like our own east coast melting pot

annapolis is WAAAAAAAAAY more like newport than it is providence any day of the week

philly is huge but it shares similar physical and historical characteristics w/ prov

having gone to RPI, ive been to albany, ny more times than anyone in their right mind should be subject to and it really doesnt share as much as some other people's suggestions

albany is very dense, but verrrrry sprawling for an eastern city... it has great very underutilized tight and compact urban centers in its surrounding cities as well, but it reminds me of a midwestern city any day of the week- it sits on a river in a valley beneath mountains.... although it is 3 hours away from nyc, prov sits on a bay that opens up to the ocean with no mountains in sight, its metro is much tighter than albany's, and is less than an hour from boston

rochester makes more sense because it is close to buffalo and lake ontario

manchester, nh is a smaller and interesting comparison

Providence is way too unique to compare to other US cities, there are too many variables to line up... you could not substitute it for another city as you could with say oklahoma city and tulsa or kansas city and indianpolis.... blindfold me and drop me in the middle of one of those places and you would never know which one you were in unless somebody told you... do that in providence and you know exactly where you are...

Merry Christmas to everyone in here...

[trazom]

It's important to understand, however, that what you saw was not some areas declining, it was the areas around recovering. philly was truly a wasteland going back to about 1980. I mean like nuke the site from orbit wasteland. They have come a long way since then. However Philly doesn't have the money like New York to go through a draconian clean-up process the way New York did about ten years ago. However I'm also not quite sure what you are talking about with the area around the Constitution Museum. How long ago was this? Can't be too long if you are talking about the new museum being complete. I was there just before it opened and walked from South St. all the way to the Art Museum (South St. then back alleys through society hill to the independence mall then up market through city hall and across to the Franklin Parkway) and didn't see anything I would even start to consider sketchy.

It might be that it was recovering. As I said, I might have happened to just hit things on the wrong day. Also, I'm a woman. It does make a difference. For the Constitution center, we were walking back to the car after the center had closed, and had had dinner several blocks away. At 9pm on a weekend night, in the summer, it was deserted. It was dark as in non-functioning or non-existant street lights. There was almost no traffic on the street. A few homeless guys hanging around, in the corners. That makes it an area I didn't feel safe in, at least walking by myself.

Basically, lack of people + places where someone with ill will can hide easily = place I don't go alone, especially at night. Urban survival for women. I love Chicago. I know where and when I can't go. Places that are perfectly fine at 5pm may be dangerous at 8:30. When I lived there, it was much safer to go to a different El stop than the one closest to me at night, and walk home from a different angle. The guys I knew had no problems with the stop. The women did.

I personally love Philadelphia. There are nice boulevards and avenue and public squares surrounding really great density. Tons of public art and a city layout that actually makes sense. It's too bad that it was put into such radical decline like all US cities during the great suburban expansion of the 50's.

If Philly can figure out a way to attract people to move to the city, I think it will be able to recover. But it needs to move jobs and people into the city, both of them are fleeing. And that, to me, signals a city that isn't doing so well. I hope it does, and I hope I can change my opinion of it. Unfortunately, bad experiences do color one's impression of a place pretty strongly.

Brookings article on Philly

[markOne]

QUOTE(DaveRPI @ Dec 22 2005, 10:10 AM)

Providence is way too unique to compare to other US cities, there are too many variables to line up... you could not substitute it for another city as you could with say oklahoma city and tulsa or kansas city and indianpolis.... blindfold me and drop me in the middle of one of those places and you would never know which one you were in unless somebody told you... do that in providence and you know exactly where you are...

Merry Christmas to everyone in here...

This is exactly my point (made in another thread). There are lots of cities, many of which have been mentioned, that have something about them which has an analog in Providence, but I have never been in another city that is

[runawayjim]

providence is a unique city. but there is something about every city that makes it special to the residents (unless they're there temporarily and hate it, but are sticking it out for college). i love providence.

but it's good to compare cities to get an idea of what might work to help the city (or hurt it). i like the comparison of philly. the population is very spread out when compared to other cities. they aren't living on top of each other, except in center city. it's got the neighborhood thing that providence has. and as trazom said, patches of bad areas. this is exactly like providence. you can find a bad area sitting in the middle of the nicest areas (camp st anyone?). you can toss a stone from a nice area to a bad area from any direction. but that doesn't mean it's a bad city.

as for fairmount park at night... i think the same saying from new york would apply... stay out of the park at night. fairmount park is a beautiful park, but it borders some sketchy areas (think harlem and central park, although new york and harlem have really cleaned up). even washington square park in new york, right at NYU is pretty sketchy at night.

providence is a rough city in parts... as is philly. there's a large working class population in both. they're not at all yuppie cities (i would call what most people think of as new york, manhattan, a yuppie city). they both have a lot of history, they both have a similar layout. if providence population were to increase 10x, and the city were to spread out, it would look like philly.

[markOne]

providence is a unique city. but there is something about every city that makes it special to the residents (unless they're there temporarily and hate it, but are sticking it out for college). i love providence.

but it's good to compare cities to get an idea of what might work to help the city (or hurt it). i like the comparison of philly. the population is very spread out when compared to other cities. they aren't living on top of each other, except in center city. it's got the neighborhood thing that providence has. and as trazom said, patches of bad areas. this is exactly like providence. you can find a bad area sitting in the middle of the nicest areas (camp st anyone?). you can toss a stone from a nice area to a bad area from any direction. but that doesn't mean it's a bad city.

as for fairmount park at night... i think the same saying from new york would apply... stay out of the park at night. fairmount park is a beautiful park, but it borders some sketchy areas (think harlem and central park, although new york and harlem have really cleaned up). even washington square park in new york, right at NYU is pretty sketchy at night.

providence is a rough city in parts... as is philly. there's a large working class population in both. they're not at all yuppie cities (i would call what most people think of as new york, manhattan, a yuppie city). they both have a lot of history, they both have a similar layout. if providence population were to increase 10x, and the city were to spread out, it would look like philly.

I agree that comparisons can and should be made. Much can be learned from the experiences of others.

The comment quoted above is good because it takes portions of Philly (and NY) and compares them parts of PVD. If you were to say Philly was just like PVD and leave it at that I would beg to differ.

[Baines]

Providence, RI = Madison, WI

-ALJ

Madison is far too small and lacks the urban density of PVD..try Philadelphia (maybe). But I find it difficult to find a match for PVD.

[KRC]

You can't put too much weight behind an annual estimate. It would be better to see the estimate say that we gained, but the real test is the actual count in 2010.

Exactly! Look at the fiasco they called an estimate in 1999. They were so far off on RI and Providence it made them lose all credibility in my eyes.

[megad]

How about Halifax?

[nowyano]

I know some people may laugh at this but I think Birmingham, AL. Its a good sized city (bigger population than PVD) has a lot of colleges a great arts scene and is often overlooked for ATL (which is that regions NYC) and New Orleans (which would be that regions Boston)...

[Cotuit]

How about Halifax?

That could work, but Halifax is totally on it's own and doesn't have any big neighbours to have a dynamic relationship with/against.

Is there anyone who's been to Pittsburgh who could comment? It seems Providence and Pittsburgh are both great cities with great histories and great bones that were kicked hard in the 50s and have had persistent difficulties rebounding.

[Garris]

Is there anyone who's been to Pittsburgh who could comment?

Pittsburgh is a good comparison as well. They too are having a downtown residential spike (although not quite as profound as some other cities) and are a city of neighborhoods. As you also correctly point out, they too have hit rock bottom and have pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.

There are differences, though. Pittsburgh is quite a bit bigger than Providence, and quite a bit farther along in its quality of life rebound than we are. They're also THE CITY for that entire region and thus have big time business activity, pro sports, major league cultural attractions, etc. It also (to me) felt much more like a Midwestern city than a NE city. More like Minneapolis than Boston.

I think Pittsburgh, despite its huge strides and despite it being one of my favorite US cities, continues to loose large chunks of population like the rest of its region, which is blunting its rebound relative to the white hot growth and development taking place in places like Philly and Providence.

- Garris

PS: A bit off topic, but for those who love exploring cities, looking at skylines, etc, Pittsburgh is a worthy destination. I think it's second only to Vancouver BC in having the most dramatic city setting in North America (its skyline rocks too). If you don't believe me, just Google Image search "Pittsburgh skyline" or "Pittsburgh panorama" and see what comes up.

[eltron]

Here is a very interesting article:

Shaking off the rust, new suburbs are born

I was going to suggest the Lehigh Valley as a comp. to PVD.

Alot of similarities...

[DaveRPI]

http://www.boston.com/business/globe/artic...self_in_the_us/

stamford, hmm, wonder why the Royal Bank of Scotland [Citizen's] would want to locate their new business ventures there??? similar to Providence's characteristics... hmm