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Providence Population Growth

cataldo

By cataldo
in Providence

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cataldo Unincorporated Area

cataldo

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What are some ways to spur population growth in Providence? ideas about creating a suburban exodus would be interesting being the opposite of what happened after WWII. Also, what would this population surge do to create economic and social change throught the city

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TheAnk Hamlet

TheAnk

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Simple.. Jobs..

More people working in PVD means more people stay in PVD.. Less college educated flight.. The other crap is ancillary.. This state is awful for attracting business.. We are excellent at attracting free money welfare seekers.. You do the math.. Less welfare, more biz stimulus..

that sounds borderline republican!! :unsure:

Who cares if they are imported or home grown.. You want people to stay here, work here.. GOOD TAX PAYING people. In order to do this, there needs to be jobs.. As much as everyone hates the middle class, they make the world go round.. Healthy, sustainable economy, with a deep rooted, tax paying folk..

Instead, we focus on supporting the poor WAY too much here.. And apparently giving 10 million dollars to "firends of the program" like the tort fruit debacle... TORT REFORM!!!

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TheAnk Hamlet

TheAnk

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RI Population 998,000 (2000)

Persons on food stamps 71,933 (2002)

Persons on Welfare (cash program) 44,826 (2000)

SSDI paid to "disabled" people 23,990 (2001)

Total: 140,749

Using my crack math, thats over 14% of the population of Rhode Island on government assistance.. I understand its not precise as the years are off and a person can be on both food stamps and SSDI.. But still.. FOURTEEN PERCENT..

140 THOUSAND people are on gov assistance.. Thats almost the entire population of Providence.. And since these individuals (not household numbers) mostly like in PVD.. I'd say we do a good job attracting welfare seekers..

Also of note....

https://www.cato.org/research/articles/zeigler-041022.html

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TheAnk Hamlet

TheAnk

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Fifteen percent of children in Rhode Island are on food stamps, or a total of 38,223 children. This includes 40 percent of children in Providence, 39 percent in Central Falls, 26 percent in Woonsocket, 23 percent in Pawtucket, and 22 percent in Newport.

I emplore ANYONE to tell me this is necessary.. How are we to attract business when our taxes are so high??? FORTY PERCENT.. Thats an awful lot of free food..

I actually think I just blew my own mind with the staggering statistics.. I need to cool down.. I had no idea, the sheer numbers.. No wonder why we are the worst state in the country for business climate!@!@!!!

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coleslaw Unincorporated Area

coleslaw

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RI Population 998,000 (2000)

Persons on food stamps 71,933 (2002)

Persons on Welfare (cash program) 44,826 (2000)

SSDI paid to "disabled" people 23,990 (2001)

Total: 140,749

Do these statistics reflect persons on more than one form of assistance? For example, many people on SSDI may also be receiving food stamps.

Also, RI has an unusually large proportion of elderly people. From the RI Dept. of Elderly Affairs website:

The state has 117,391 residents age 70 and older. This 11 percent of the population and ranks us 6th in the nation in this category.

The state has 82,292 residents age 75 and older. This 7.7 percent of the population and ranks us 4th in the nation in this category.

The state has 22,707 residents age 85 and older. This 2.1 percent of the population and ranks us 5th in the nation in this category.

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TheAnk Hamlet

TheAnk

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Do these statistics reflect persons on more than one form of assistance? For example, many people on SSDI may also be receiving food stamps.

Also, RI has an unusually large proportion of elderly people. From the RI Dept. of Elderly Affairs website:

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Jenkins Whistle-Stop

Jenkins

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I'm with eltron. These numbers don't mean anything unless we know the parallel numbers in the states or cities that we are comparing ourselves to. There's not much to talk about without those numbers.

Also- this idea theAnk out out there that RI and Prov. attract people who need public assistance: Is there some data that shows that the people who receive assistance have moved here from elsewhere? I'd love to see this claim substantiated. The data Bil puts out there seems to say exactly the opposite.

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ruchele Hamlet

ruchele

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I happen to work for the welfare department in Massachusetts. Rhode Island has one of the worst records for moving people from welfare to work since welfare reform became law in the Clinton administration. So although RI's welfare caseload size has decreased over the last few years, it should have decreased considerably more, given the new law.
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TheAnk Hamlet

TheAnk

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I don't have time right now.. But the welfare reform post, jenkins.. if all states drop in welfare but you drop the least.. It means you are the worst.. But I'm sure its very easy to brag about "cutting welfare"..

I would love to see how RI stacks up against every other state.. And again, with my crack abacus, if MA has 6.5 times the population of RI, but only uses 4.5 times the $$$ for free food.. That means we stack up alot worse.. Let me know if I am reading this the wrong way.. If not, thats a great point ruchele!! :thumbsup:

Maybe tomorrow when I'm at work, paying for other people to live free, I will find time to get some other state comparisons.. I think we all know that they will show RI as the worst..

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frymasterspeck Hamlet

frymasterspeck

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FWIW, Ank, I find your argument somewhat compelling. But I think your mental equation is incomplete. (Not wrong, incomplete.)

It's no surprise to me that we over-index against other places in regard to assistance. The good times mid-20th century were built on too narrow a base, and when manufacturing started to move overseas, RI choked. Instead of moving nimbly to a more modern economy, standard practice from all sides of the policy/politcal spectrum has been "managed decline." You've documented the result quite ably.

Take, by contrast, Silicon Valley. Nobody 'recruited' Jobs, Wosniak, et al. The tax climate, the welfare system and all that other stuff (problems CA had and continues to have) played virtually no role in the region's success. And talk about a magnet for non-workers?!? SF is a hippy/bum's heaven. I know. I was one! (A great place to be poor. A great place to be rich. A tough place to be in the middle.)

What made that region work was the magic combination of innovation skills and an innovation mentality. When high-growth companies create high-wage jobs, the rest of the economy falls into place. But you know that.

But you may not know, or believe, that RI enjoys many of the qualities required for that kind of an economy.

Even with our brain-drain, we still over-index on college attainment and by a healthy margin. Brown, RISD, J&W, URI, PC, etc give us a very strong academic environment, particularly at the upper end of the spectrum. As in SilVal, we have a direct proximity to an already-established innovation cluster (Boston/128 vs SF). RISD scoring John Maeda is HUGE. We'll never take the technology mantle from MIT/128, but we can definitely compete in the design/creative arena - IF we can keep a fair number of college grads in-state (or, really, in region as Fall River is more connected to Prov than to Boston - but that's another discussion).

We're jammed between the #5-ish metro and the undisputed #1. We're on the main rail line to DC, and the Boston-DC innovation cluster is equivalent to the CA cluster. What's better is that ours is nearly continuous while CA is two disconnected blocks, SoCal and NoCal. Soon, we'll be even better connected by air and rail. It may not mean much to you, but we're a top destination (both tourist and to live) for the LGBT set, and they're all about innovation. Lots are DINKs (double income no kids).

I feel your pain. The legacy we've been left with sucks in all the ways you describe. But it's not like we've got nothing to build on.

So when I hear someone say they're gonna move to South Carolina because it's cheap, I'm not impressed. Sure it's cheap; it's South Carolina!

Two addenda before I go feed them kiddles.

1 - Read The Millionaire Next Door for some surprising info on what real success looks like. Brief excerpt:

In fact, there is compelling evidence of an inverse relationship between the size of an ancestry group and the proportion of its members that are wealthy. In other words, larger ancestry groups contain smaller proportions of millionaires on average than smaller groups.

First-generation Americans tend to be self-employed. Self-employment is a major positive correlate of wealth.

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