Dan Lawlor: Has Vibrancy Failed?

Dan Lawlor: Has Vibrancy Failed?

We place a great deal of hope on "vibrancy" to save the City of Providence. We're hardly the only urban community to do this. Over and over again, leaders across the country talk about making downtowns vibrant, with the aim to build up buzz and excitement. Vibrancy is hard to define- but roughly means a city with cool things to do. In the Cicilline bubble, the dream was to build up vibrancy to attract commuters from Boston. Vibrancy is good, fun, and makes life more enjoyable - but it has to be part of a bigger mission.

UTNE Magazine recently crystallized the debates and arguments happening in cities around the country about gentrification and "vibrancy." The articles discussed struggles in the Midwest and Upstate New York, along with the good (or bad) that has been brought by the rise of hipsters in Brooklyn and San Francisco. "Vibrancy" has made a lot of cities more fun for people with money, or for people who like to stay out late. I've been to the "hip" Mission District in San Francisco- it is fun. However, vibrancy alone doesn't lift up those without a decent education, from older generations or this one.
Vibrancy hasn't solved homelessness, helped create jobs for the downsized middle-aged and unemployed, nor has it produced a high-paying, economic dynamo for the under-educated. The rise of hipsterism in downtown Detroit is accompanying that city's descent into receivership. Sometimes in life, a little vibrancy makes good sense, and it is decent to be distracted every now and again. However, while building our growth industry around hip restaurants and cool bars catering to people in universities, hospitals, and few big businesses is a better model than Woonsocket's, it's not necessarily a way forward for everyone who already lives here.
The bigger issue to address is, "Who is the vibrancy for? How do more people gain skills to access and benefit from it?"
A better Providence needs to have strong neighborhoods. While some communities have been going through an upswing - for instance, the Broadway Neighborhood - others are struggling, notably Wanskuck and Valley. Near River Ave and Chalkstone, over the last year, there have been random shootings and robberies of local businesses. Several people have been shot. Families are nervous. A man hung himself before heading to prison. Several properties - including the once well-loved Castle Cinema - are vacant, empty, unused.

Where are the well-powered lobbyists and official fundraisers to jump start Wanskuk, Olneyville, and Valley? Believe it or not, Nick Hemond is also a lobbyist for the Providence Neighborhood Community Center Association.
In response to the neighborhood gap, the City is proposing funds to support small businesses with technical assistance, rehab storefront facades, and is working to rehab empty lots and properties. Further developing plans for demolished foreclosed homes is next, as is finding more ways to empower local people as residential homeowners. The Nonviolence Institute has been doing a great deal of good work, along with numerous community and afterschool groups, to give alternatives to young people. On the state level, we need to help produce an economy to give all people access to get ahead.

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A friend in Elmwood once told me, "People have a lot of good ideas around here - we just need a little help - and a little money- to make them happen."

A friend off Chalkstone recently described the neighborhood as, "Pleasant Valley Crimewave."

Vibrancy is a great building block for Providence, but as we hear siren songs of quick money and rapid development, remember the best of city government empowers the people already here, the current citizens of Providence, not imagined converts from Arlington or Nashua. 

Crime is down in the capital city - yet as parts of Providence improve, the gap between those people in areas rising and those people in areas left behind is more apparent.