ProvPort: One Piece in a Larger Puzzle

by Joshua Geaughan

The Port of Providence is the second largest deep-water port in New England and is an economic engine for the city. While cities in neighboring Massachusetts have Designated Port Areas (DPAs), the city of Providence does not own or control all the land in the [...]

Providence Nonprofits Reeling From Funding Cuts and Threats (And, Organizations—What You Can Do!)

by Cynthia Gibson

What do Johnson & Wales University, Head Start, WaterFire, Amos House, and organizations that provide thousands of Providence residents with food, shelter, workforce training, education, and other services have in common? They’re all nonprofits. And they’re under attack. Recent executive orders by the Trump administration [...]

Providence’s Worker-Owned Cooperatives Share Tools for A Collective Future

by Samantha Garcia, Dana Schneider

Apollo Rios Lomba tells me that working at White Electric is their favorite job. “It’s truly safe here…I’m not going to come to work and feel like my coworkers are judging me.” Sunshine streams into the narrow cafe on Westminster Street, bathing the many plants [...]

Providence Bookstores: A Boon to Readers and the Community

by Lynn Holstein

In July 16, 1995, a strange hurricane began to form, one that – initially at least –– would aim only at bookstores. It was then that a former Wall Street executive opened his online bookstore from the garage of his rented home in Bellevue, Washington [...]

Public Broadcasting Merger Should Inspire Competition and Innovation Across the Entire Media Market

by Mike Raia

People across Providence and throughout Rhode Island expect to be two or three Kevin Bacons removed from their elected officials or the prominent business, civic, and nonprofit leaders who shape public conversations. In a state of just a bit more than one million people, it’s [...]

Community Reinvestment Act: Back to the Movement

by Ray Neirinckx

Recently on multiple Sunday afternoons, WGBH Channel 2 has been reintroducing the classic Civil Rights series, “Eyes on the Prize”, and one of the last episodes was entitled ” “Back to the Movement”. It focused on the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) and has particular resonance [...]

Pot In Providence

by Deborah Schimberg

In 2006, Rhode Island legalized “medical marijuana” which meant that patients with cancer, AIDS, etc. could obtain cards that let them buy marijuana in one of 3 “compassion centers” around the state, the largest of which was the Thomas C. Slater dispensary in Providence.   In [...]