Abstract
Once a formerly industrial city has fallen upon hard times, can creative planning projects revive it? This question, which dozens of this kind of city now confront, is addressed in Gene Bunnell’s engaging and informative study of Providence, Rhode Island, sometimes dubbed the “Renaissance City” of New England. Full disclosure: I have lived in Providence since 1970 and have witnessed, but not participated in, most of the developments Bunnell discusses. I can attest, without bias, that the success story that Bunnell presents is mostly true, though not without drawbacks.
Founded in 1636, Providence is one of the nation’s oldest cities, and its history includes the standard stages of growth and decline that many old cities have experienced: development as a commercial entrepôt with economic activity focused on the harbor; industrialization, focused around three products of textiles, machine tools, and jewelry; suburbanization and the departure or outright closing of factories, leading to decrepit neighborhoods and a downtown pocked by vacant buildings; and budgetary crisis. By 1970, the city’s population had dropped by 30 percent from a peak of nearly a quarter million people in 1940, unemployment was alarmingly high, and optimism was low. But, as Bunnell points out, Providence still had some positive features, namely, a number of colleges and universities with commitments to the city and a phalanx of developers, planners, concerned citizens, and politicians willing to take risks to create a more vibrant environment.
The city also contained several somewhat unique features of its built environment that provided opportunities for creative planning, opportunities that some city leaders at first did not realize existed. For one thing, there was a web of outdated and underused railroad tracks running through the center of the city. Second, there were two narrow rivers that joined near the city center to create the Providence River, a river that in the nineteenth century had been paved over to create what locals boasted as the “widest bridge in the world.” Third, the connection between two interstate highways, I-195 and I-95, curled through an important part of the city, and it needed to be rebuilt. And finally, the city had a large stock of structures of historic and architectural value that had fallen into disrepair and neglect. These physical features combined with a concerned, imaginative human element to foster the “rebirth” that Bunnell chronicles.
The first major step in that rebirth occurred in 1959 as a result of thwarted intentions by Brown University and the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), two of the city’s most renowned institutions of higher learning, to raze several historic houses in order to construct new buildings. These efforts galvanized individuals in the budding historic preservation movement to organize to preserve and renovate a number of the houses in the path of the schools’ expansion. The result was that concerned community people and professional planners drew up a comprehensive scheme, called the College Hill Plan, that surveyed structures in the affected area and established means, including zoning restrictions and private investment opportunities, for revitalizing the area and its historic houses. The plan also created a committee to oversee development efforts. A second version of the plan was published in 1967, and the influential Providence Preservation Society provided advice to people interested in purchasing and restoring homes in the newly created Historic District. Consequently, the College Hill neighborhood attracted homebuyers charmed by the architecture and location of the houses, and the district became a showcase of historic preservation.
In 1974, a team of faculty members from RISD drew up a plan for Providence’s decayed downtown that involved tearing up the old railroad tracks and relocating the most vital of them to a nearby area and constructing a new Amtrak station. Aided by the Providence Foundation, a group of local business leaders who began serving as a catalyst in bringing about this and other revitalizing projects, the relocation of railroad tracks freed up 65 acres—later 77—of prime property to be developed under a Capital Center Plan. A few years later, architect William Warner, with help from the city, state, and federal governments, created a Waterfront Study that resulted in a relocation of the two feeder rivers, opening up of the Providence River with replacement of the wide bridge by several smaller bridges, and construction of a new boulevard.
Though completion of the various projects took many years—and some development still is not completed—by 2015, according to Bunnell, the combined results of the Capital Center Plan and the river relocation project have been $1.1 billion in private investment, $1.5 billion in combined public and private investment, 1 million square feet of office space, 1,000 new residential units, 1,500 hotel rooms, 1.5 million square feet of new retail space, and 10,000 structured parking spaces (p. 89). In addition, the river relocation project created a central cove adjacent to the new Providence Place Mall, with a waterway leading out to the Providence River along a walkway and park. Inside the waterway, artist Barnaby Evans created Waterfire, one of the country’s most unique installations of public art. Drawing tens of thousands of people on weekend occasions during warm-weather months, Waterfire consists of numerous brazier baskets lined up around the cove and inside the river’s path. Inside the baskets, pieces of specially treated wood are heaped. At sunset, volunteers ride a gondola along the line of braziers and light the wood, which crackles and glows while haunting music plays. Thousands of spectators mingle on the riverbank, enjoy accompanying entertainment and food trucks, or simply sit meditatively and absorb the scene.
Planners had been advocating relocating Interstate 195 since the 1970s, but, aided by Warner’s Waterfront Study, the project began in earnest in the mid-1990s and was completed in 2012. This relocation also freed land along the lower Providence River near downtown for development. The Rhode Island General Assembly created an Economic Development Corporation that issued bonds enabling the state to acquire the newly vacant land from the Federal Highway Administration, and an I-195 Commission was empowered to sell or lease the 18 parcels that were created. Over the past half decade development has been slow, but a few projects are currently under way, including one in its early and at this writing unapproved stage for a controversial 46-story condominium and commercial property that has unsettled some, who see its size as out of place and question its economic viability, while intriguing others with its potential for construction jobs and as a bold, new icon for the city.
Bunnell identifies other components of the revival, such as the transformation of the old jewelry manufacturing district adjacent to downtown into a “Knowledge District,” primarily housing the Brown University Medical School and a student service center for Johnson and Wales University, and a current project to create a new public transit center alongside the Amtrak station. Most important in Bunnell’s analysis has been the city’s ability to accept continuous input from visionary developers and planners, both those from the city itself—such as developer Arnold “Buff” Chase, developer and former mayor Joseph Paolino Jr., and architect William Warner—and outside consultants, especially Andres Duany, the renowned planner and advocate for a “New Urbanism” who twice visited Providence and inspired its transformation. Also vital have been several nonprofit organizations and foundations that provided financial and leadership resources. Bunnell advises in his concluding chapter that other cities looking to emulate Providence’s achievements would do well to utilize the same combination of influences.
There unfortunately are grim parts of Providence’s rebirth not included in Bunnell’s enthusiastic story. Though the successful planning he chronicles has given the city a new look and raised the spirits of many, though not all, of its residents, Providence remains a city in deep economic trouble. Much of the city’s population still consists of low-skill, often new-immigrant workers, and the jobs and tax base have not expanded sufficiently to provide the kinds revenue needed for even the most basic of services, such as protection and education. Providence remains a place with high poverty rates, racial discrimination, underperforming public schools, and deep gaps between high- and low-income social groups. Moreover, Bunnell mostly overlooks the role of Providence’s long-serving (1974–81, 1991–2002) and notorious mayor (forced to resign twice due to felony convictions, one for assault and one for criminal conspiracy), Vincent A. Cianci, Jr., who used his oversized, power-hungry personality to promote the city’s “renaissance” but also gave the city a reputation for corruption that discouraged outside investors. Excessive, even irresponsible, commitments to pensions and other benefits for city employees by Cianci’s and other mayoral administrations have left debts that will haunt current and future generations. I would not expect Bunnell to have addressed such issues; they are outside of his book’s focus. But their existence and persistence reveal that all the best planning and enhancement of the built environment cannot guarantee a city’s fiscal health or that a city can provide a prosperous or even vibrant community for all its citizens.